What if the Biggest Obstacle is Ourselves?

In the poem, the writer is talking about the dreams that are got rejected and there are some different kinds of similes about that dreams, about possibilities and feelings as we understand from the title of the poem, these people are African- Americans at that time because actually, Harlem is an area of New York. That’s why, at first, it is difficult to understand what a dream is here or why it is hard to make a dream real and why we feel that way about that dream, but when we look at the main points in the poem like racism and injustice that applied on these people by violence physically and psychologically, it gets easier to understand why the dream is not realized. So, in the poem, there are mainly focused on racism and injustice that happened to African- Americans at that time but what if the biggest obstacle is ourselves and the writer talks about that in the poem? I mean, if we don’t believe that something is not going to happen and we say, okay, no matter what I do, it’s not going to happen, we’re actually destroying all the possibilities of it happenings in a way. In other words, racism is a big problem and obstacle for African- Americans for sure but if we build these obstacles and if we are preventing the realization of a dream in a way.

In the poem, we see that dream is not realized because of some reasons like racism and injustice as a theme and the poetrist is talking about the situations that happened in this dream and the way that we feel about that dream. In other words, the processes of that deferred dream and feelings about it like sags as a heavy load. For example, here, the writer is saying sags as a heavy load, the writer talks about the burden the African Americans had to carry this heavy load with them in their daily lives but if there are no possibilities to make that dream real, why the writer is called it in the first line as a deferred dream. Also, when we look at the poem in detail, the situation of this dream is getting worse and worse, as if the author is killing this dream again and again every time but if there is no chance to make that dream, why it is killed every time like something because we didn’t try, or we could change the outcome of it, that dream is got stuck inside of us and we feel very terrible about it because actually it can be changed, but if it was something more depended on society, like racism, it would be very difficult for us to change it and it wouldn’t just depend on us. We wouldn’t feel that way either as the author mentioned in the poem with similes because we are doing it, we are killing that dream. In other words, if we have no influence on this dream and this dream is not happened by some different factors that we cannot control, such as racism, why does the author kills this dream every time and treat this dream like a burden that they carry because they are killing that dream the same way the author did, and that’s why they feel bad and broken because they carry it with themselves like a sagging heavy load. They are creating these obstacles in front of themselves. Actually, the writer talks about that. The main point is not racism here. The thing that the author tries to tell us that is even if there is a big obstacle, there is a still chance to try, to make it happen because, in the last line, the writer says that can you continue to live like that while feeling in that way because he cannot stand to live like that because he put these obstacles in front of his. So, it is like the words of the writer that says: keep going and do not give up no matter what this obstacle is. It is as if the author is screaming by using words in his poem, as if he is saying that even if you had to fight with racism, even if you see violence, you can handle that, and that dream can come true.

In conclusion, we see the processes of deferred dreams and the feelings that these people feel against that dream in the poem by the author, and as we understand from the title, these people are African- American people who had to experience racism, violence, and injustice that are a theme in the poem. When we look at the poem in detail, we see that there are chances to make that really happen like a sagging heavy load. If there was no chance, why should they still carry this burden with them? Why the writer says like can I stand to live like that without my dream that is not realized. Why the author kills that dream again and again? If it would be something that we cannot control, there would not be a feeling that makes us feel terrible or something that the writer kills. So actually, the writer tries to say you are killing that dream, not government, not racism, you are. So, the message the author gives us is that no matter what this obstacle is, do not give up , go for that dream.