Figurative Language

This week's selection of poems focuses on the Black Arts Movement as well as the Harlem Renaissance Era. I particularly enjoyed reading the poem "Harlem" by Langston Hughes. His entire poem is focused on metaphors, however he clearly gets his point across to the reader. Hughes poem focuses on the definition of a dream in his perspective. He writes,
Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
In this line Hughes is comparing a deferred dream to a raisin in the sun by asking the question if it dwindles and becomes smaller over time. It is as if he is saying that a dream deferred will over time become less and less of a dream and not be as big of a dream if it continues to be deferred and not followed through with.
He then compares a deferred dream to a sore that festers and then runs. By this I think he is directly comparing the deferred dream to something that worsens or becomes more aggravated over time and then suddenly takes off.
Hughes asks, Does it stink like rotten meat? Or crust and sugar over - like a syrupy sweet? Hughes gives the upside to a deferred dream by comparing it to a syrupy sweet which the reader can interpret to be a positive ending to a deferred dream or a dream accomplished. His previous comparison followed by the "syrupy sweet" is that of rotten meat. I believe that Hughes views a deferred dream as either a positive obsession in which you can make the best out of by following through with it or a negative obsession in which the dream will continue to be just a dream that is never fulfilled.