1. What happens to a dream deferred? --from "Harlem," Langston Hughes
A. Describe any significant literal dreams in each work. How do these dreams figure in the work as a whole? How do they relate to any larger symbolic dream of the African American experience, be it freedom, hope, identity, or the like.
B. Describe several "dreams" -meaning aspirations, hopes, visions for the future. How do these dreams carry one or more themes through the works you've chosen to the end of the novels, poems, or plays?
2. Describe several significant occasions of laughter in two or three works. What is laughter to the character laughing in each of these cases? How does laughter figure in the work as a whole?
3. "What did I do to be so black and blue?" -Louis Armstrong
4. Choose two or three characters and/or poets' own voices from two or three different literary works who discover the tension of freedom and identity between a community and the self described above. How does each character progress toward this discovery?
Does he or she reach a new sense of self? If so, describe it; if not, what prevents him or her from doing so?