Dream Dog

The page previous to the poem by Langston Hues being introduced to A Raisin in the Sun, contained a dedication "to mama: in gratitude for the dream." The following page then contains the poem in which I, at first thought, just thought was placed there because it contained the the title of the play. Although now, after a few more looks, I realized the poem is representative of the mood created by the play as a whole. The poem although it is talking about a dream, usually something that has a positive connotation, uses words such as "sore, "sags," and "rotten," to give it a negative connotation. 

I think this goes back to how Hansberry portrays "the dream" throughout the book. The dream many times brought more hardship than gratitude. Even though the dream was somewhat different for each character, it brought many hardships. For Walter it brought into appearance his inner selfishness, for Ruth it revealed her longing for a wholesome family, for Mama it made it harder for her to pick wether to buy her dream house or fulfill her children's dreams, for Beneatha it made it harder for her family to accept her, and for Travis his family's dreams restricted his own. Although the dream is written about unfavorably throughout the book and the poem, Hansberry expresses gratitude for it. I suspect that this is because the dream brought the family together through their differences and as far as the play goes it ends with all of them achieving some part of their dream.