A Dream Deferred :: essays research papers

What happens to a dream deferred?Does it dry up standardized a raisin in the sun?Or fester equal a sore-And then run?Does it stink like rotten meat?Or crust and sugar over- like a syrupy sweet?Maybe it just sagslike a heavy load.Or does it explode? maculation Langhston Hughes authors this poem, A Dream Deferred, it can easily be interpreted as Toni Morrisons description of Nel and her life of sorrow and dissatisfaction. Sula and Nel, the protagonists in Toni Morrisons Sula, are each the yet daughters of mothers whose distance leaves the young girls with dreams to erase this solitude and l starliness. There is no question that Sula alleviates this aloneness with a lascivious and experimental life, "Im going down like one of those redwoods. I sure did live in this world"(143). Nel, however, for the most part, fails terribly at realizing her dreams and experiencing a happy existence. Compromising her individuality, her emotional stability, and her dreams mark Nels unoriginal and unfulfilling life.Early in Nels life during a trip to New Orleans, she watches as her mother is humiliated by a trains white, racist conductor she watches the indignity of her mothers having to squat in an unaffixed field to urinate while white train passengers gaze and she watches her mothers shame at her own Creole mothers libidinous lifestyle. Her mothers submissiveness and humiliation evokes a fear, an anger, and an energy in Nel. Her emotions intensify as she makes a declaration to never be her mother, to never compromise her individuality, "Im me. Im not their daughter. Im not Nel. Im me. Me"(28). Figuring that her "me-ness" will take her far, she exclaims "I insufficiency...I want to be... wonderful"(29). However, that trip to Louisiana "was the last as well as the first time she was ever to leave Medallion"(29).Initially, Nels self-declaration em caters her to pursue that dream of independence. She gathers power and joy, and "the st rength to cultivate a friend in spite of mother"(29). Nel achieves a degree of her self-described "me-ness," her dream, a separation from her subservient and disgraceful mother, resulting in a new found complacency, "Nel, who regarded the oppressive neatness of her home with dread, felt comfortable in it with Sula"(29). This happiness was present in both girls, "Their meeting was gilded for it let them use each other to grow on"(49). Unfortunately, as she left Medallion only one time, Nel would discover and enjoy this "me-ness" only one time.