“All our dreams can come true if we have the courage to pursue them. » This quote from Walt Disney addressing the concept of achieving dreams is very accurate and can be seen in literature today and in the past. Dreams can empower people or take away their hope, and influence the way people live their lives depending on whether or not they have the determination to attack their dreams; as seen through characters like Langston Hughes's Harlem Speaker and Lena and Walter Younger in Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in The Sun. Langston Hughes' poem Harlem inspired the title of A Raisin in The Sun for its close relationship to the theme of dreams. His poem can also be linked to the Disney quote; Disney states that everyone's dream can come true if pursued, while Hughes talks about what happens when dreams are not pursued. He discusses many different things that can happen when dreams are delayed. Often, when not pursued, dreams have a negative impact on that person. Harlem is definitely a negative poem, conveyed through expressions like rotten, scab, sag, and festering – all unpleasant words. The rhythm of the poem and the placement of each guess as to what happens from a dream deferred are important to the message of the poem. At first, Hughes talks about processes that are slower, such as "...drying like a raisin in the sun" (2-3) and "becoming covered with crusts and syrup -- like a sugary sweet" (7-8 ). At the end of the poem, the author wonders "...does it explode?" (11), something that happens much faster than all his other assumptions. I think the reason for his choice of pace is that it's often the path a dream deferred takes; a slow process, the dream slowly fades until, BOOM, there is no longer a dream left middle of paper...... in the eve of his dream and he begins to "sag like a heavy load” (9-10). So mom gives him money to go out and make his dream come true, and he's happy; but when Willy runs off with his money and his chances of realizing his dreams in the near future disappear, his dream explodes. Walter falls into a fog for the rest of the play after his dream collapses. However (not mentioned in the poem), Lena regains her faith in her son when he rejects Lidner's bribe (Walter also comes out of the haze he was in when he does this ). If the poem coincides with the play and has a following line, one would assume that it would have something to do with a person finally achieving their dreams. In conclusion, this is how Harlem and A Raisin in the Sun are most closely related; the characters and narrator of each literary work closely mirror each other.