Langston Hughes’s poems “Dreams” and “Harlem” feature powerful visual imagery conveyed through several literary devices. Both poems explore different consequences of blocked dreams. In “Dreams,” the poet juxtaposes life and death through images of an injured animal and a farm that does not produce food. He uses metaphors to convey these images, comparing life to a bird with broken wings and an agricultural field that is covered with snow. Personification is used in the phrase “dreams die,” giving an abstract concept the quality of a person.

Imagery helps to convey Hughes’s message that dreams are vitally important as motivators, and that the absence of dreams can have devastating consequences—even death. He relies on metaphor, the direct comparison of unlike things for effect, to express the images. He compares an unfulfilled life to “a broken-winged bird / That cannot fly,” creating a concrete picture of a severely injured animal. Another metaphor for life is "a barren field / Frozen with snow.” Through this image, Hughes shows human life as a thwarted productive process.

In “Harlem,” Hughes focuses specifically on the negative impact of deferring dreams. Here he uses the simile, comparison of unlike things for effect using “like” or “as.” Phrasing the ideas as questions engages the reader in the topic. Hughes builds from an initial, passive image of dried-up fruit to the final, violent image of explosion. He includes varied sensory images of illness and decay to show harsh consequences, comparing the deferred dream to a festering sore and stinking, rotten meat.