dreams will “dry up like a raisin in the sun,” or become a “heavy load.”  He wants to empower his reader to seek what they want in life and not be denied all they deserve.  For African-Americans who have been deprived of their dreams, Langston Hughes encourages them to not let their dreams “explode” where they will be gone forever.  If one’s dreams are undermined by societal prejudice or racism, it is easy to give up and not try.  Hughes forcefully shows through his use ofimagery and literary devices like similes what can happen to dreams when they are put off or interrupted.   His attitude is to encourage others to not let go and to keep striving for the American dream that has been denied them.

The speaker in the poem holds an examining attitude towards the American Dream.  The speaker in the poem offers different perspectives towards the dream in America.  The theme of the poem is to question the reality of dreams that are set aside.  Set amidst the condition of those in America whose voices are denied, the speaker in the poem posits possible results from the opening question of "What happens to a dream deferred?"  The attitude of the speaker is a reflective one, with an ominous tone struck by the posing of the closing question:  "Or does it explode?"  This attitude of the speaker does not indicate anything other than a predicament where little good results from the actions of dreams being deferred.

Tone is the emotion or attitude a poet conveys in a poem. In "Harlem," Hughes's tone if one of bitterness and despair. He attempts to communicate how the Black community in Harlem feels about their situation.

In 1951, when Hughes published the poem, Harlem was a depressed area of badly substandard housing into which Black people were crowded because of segregation. Once a vibrant center of the Black cultural life, the economic collapse of the Great Depression left the area decaying, without jobs or resources.

The context of the poem, written just as the Civil Rights movement was in an early state of rebirth but had not yet made gains, is that Black people have dreamed for a long time of having better lives, such as those white people were rapidly gaining in the post-war prosperity. But Black dreams, as the poem's speaker notes, are "deferred": Black people are endlessly told that their rewards will come later.

Using a series of unpleasant images, Hughes tries to convey what it feels like to constantly have one's dreams thwarted and delayed. He likens it to a raisin left so long in the sun that it dries out, to rotten meat, and to something crusted over and sickeningly sweet. He wonders in the end if such a state of despair just "sags like a heavy load" or if it will "explode" into rage and violence. The negative tone of the poem is meant as a wakeup call.