Dream Deferred (Chapter 5 Poem Blogs)

"Or does it explode?"

I'm not sure if I liked this poem more for its length or the way it made me think. In the body of the poem, the speaker describes the feelings of having one's dream deferred to swell up and act slowly on the inside. Then the last line totally changes, and asks "Or does it explode?" I think the answer to these rhetorical questions depend on the person. Hughes is saying that letting disappointment and rejection build up inside can lead to an explosion/destruction/break-down. The entire poem uses similes, except for the last line. The dream is a goal, not a dream from sleeping. Referring to question 2 in the text book, the fact that Hughes was a black American plays into the poem. He certainly had dreams of being viewed as an equal to whites and having equal opportunities. This dream kept being turned down, so the poem is asking how this can affect someone. I don't know when this poem was written, but MLK's "I Have a Dream" speech was given four years before Hughes' death.