After the Civil War won the black people their freedom, it seemed as though their dreams of great opportunities were finally going to come true. However, they were met by even more obstacles, which left the blacks to wonder if their dreams had any chance of occurring, or if they should just give up. In his poem, “Harlem,” Langston Hughes used increasingly destructive imagery to present his warning of what will happen if you delay working towards your goal. Hughes’ first two images depict withering and drying, a sense of death. His first example, a “dried raisin,” conveys that the dream deferred has shriveled into nothing