Summary
Lines 1–2
In line 1, Hughes chooses the word "fast," which conveys a sense of urgency, much like "close" or "tight" would. This urgency grips the reader right from the start. The central theme of the poem revolves around the question of how to hold onto a dream, a concept that may not be immediately clear to a casual reader. Throughout the poem, Hughes uses language that treats dreams as though they are tangible objects.
Lines 3–4
In line 3, the poem uses a metaphor to compare life to a bird. Hughes specifically mentions that the bird cannot fly because it is "broken-winged" rather than simply "crippled," suggesting a violent act has caused this injury, and by extension, harmed a life without dreams. Birds are often linked to dreams and ideals in literature because their ability to fly in the open sky symbolizes unrestrained freedom, akin to the freedom of the mind.
Lines 5–6
Lines 5–6 almost repeat the first two lines, mimicking the repetition found in blues music, which is the basis for this poem. Blues lyrics traditionally explore themes of hardship and suffering, as does this poem. However, by mentioning twice the importance of holding tightly to dreams, the poem suggests that hardship and suffering are not inevitable. The change in line 6 from "die" to "go" not only introduces a new rhyme but also highlights the fragility of dreams and how easily they can be lost.
Lines 7–8
Given that blues music originates from the southern United States, a region known for its warm climate and agricultural landscape during Hughes's time, the metaphor of a "barren field" is fitting. The phrase "frozen with snow," however, introduces a stark and hostile image. Barren and frozen are commonly associated with lifelessness and sterility. Hughes's depiction of life in these lines is bleak, suggesting that life can become hopeless if dreams are abandoned.
Line 9
This line explicitly states that the images and actions described are the speaker's dream. The exclamation mark underscores the speaker's confidence and joy regarding his dream.
Lines 10–11
These lines introduce how the second stanza mirrors and varies the first stanza. In line 11, a metaphor personifies the sun by giving it a human “face.” Additionally, line 11 rhymes “face” with “place” from line 2 but alters the meaning. With the first stanza associating the sun with whiteness, “in the face of the sun” now holds dual meanings. The speaker not only wishes to fling his arms freely in the sunlight but also wants this gesture to symbolize a joyous defiance towards that face. The object of his defiance is unclear; it could be everything the sun represents—whiteness, labor, exhaustion, or the passage of time marked by the sun’s cycles. Lines 12 and 13 further support this idea of defying time.
Line 12
This line repeats the words “whirl, dance, day” and “done” from lines 3 and 4 but with a different meaning. While line 3 suggests that the speaker might dance to celebrate freedom, line 12 conveys a sense of frantic, ominous, and obligatory celebration: “Dance!” is a command. The tone of the speaker’s dance may have changed because he now realizes that each passing day marks one day less to live.
Line 13
Line 13 alters the “white day” of line 4 to “quick day.” The day’s “quick” passage may explain the speaker’s sense of urgency, as if there is very little time left to live. He might feel that daylight is stolen from him by the sun as it sets each day. Since the impacts of whiteness or white culture on this...
(This entire section contains 988 words.)
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speaker are likely not “quick,” the sun here may shift from its previous symbolic association with whiteness to a more conventional and literal association with the passage of time.
Lines 14–15
Similar to how line 13 changes “white day” to “quick day,” line 14 shifts the “cool evening” to “pale evening.” Literally, these changes describe day and evening in simple terms. Figuratively, however, “day” loses some of its association with whiteness, while “evening” gains more whiteness by becoming “pale.” The ellipses (three dots indicating an unfinished thought) at the end of lines 14 and 15 add to the ambiguity of their meanings. With evening taking on an unclear complexion, is it “dark” like the speaker or white like the day? The speaker’s relationship to the tree is also unclear. He no longer rests “beneath” it; instead, the tree floats beside the evening’s image. Which one “rests”: the evening or the tall slim tree? If the tree is resting (and “slim” usually describes people), the speaker might be envisioning himself as the tree. As a tree, he would fulfill his dream of spreading his arms, or branches, wide in the sun, finding a peaceful, safe, and more lasting home on Earth. Through the use of vague punctuation like ellipses, Hughes disrupts the reader’s understanding of the speaker’s location and the comparisons being made. Although it’s clear the speaker doesn’t literally become a tree, his vision of transformation implies a fleeting sense of peace and eternity, even if just in his imagination.
Line 16
Whether as a tree or a man, night still appears to the speaker as tender and familiarly black. The shift from “dark like me” (line 8) to “black like me” in the final line indicates a transition similar to that from evening to night: moving from an intermediate phase to a complete stage where darkness prevails over light.
Line 17
In this line, the speaker compares nature to himself (“like me”). Night concludes the poem, serving as the final image of time passing. Through this comparison and ending image, Hughes communicates a sense of pride in Blackness. Hughes’s poems frequently create images and arguments in favor of black pride. In 1924, when this poem was composed, the idea of black pride was radical and seldom expressed in writing. Modern readers must consider the historical and cultural context in which this poem, or any poem, was written to fully grasp its impact on literary and American history.
