Dream Chasers Whatever does happen to those dreams that are pushed aside, or perhaps swept under the rug? Are they forgotten and sit silently as they eagerly await to be opened like the other dust collecting books placed on the top shelf? Or perhaps they are thrown into the garbage, to never be seen again. Langston Hughes suggests in the poem “Harlem” that a deferred dream swells up and destroyers the dreamer who decides to hold on to it and neglects to let it come to life. The dream festers in the beholder’s soul and will continue to gnaw at the heart until action is made to bring that dream into existence. This couldn’t be any more evident than in the life of Tom Wingfield, a character of the short story “The Glass Menagerie” by Tennessee Williams. When comparing the two pieces of literature “Harlem” and “The Glass Menagerie”…show more content… It can become a heavy burden and again, can cause life to be very discomforting. Over and over, Tom expresses his desire for adventure, and one way he can obtain a false sense of adventure is doing it vicariously through actors in the movies. The heaviness of his dream for adventure is causing him to seek after it in the only possible way he knows how; by sitting in the cinema, every single night. The final question in the poem “Harlem” asks, “Or does it (a deferred dream) explode?” In view of Tom Wingfield’s story, the answer would be yes; a deferred does explode into existence. But his dream for adventure did not simply fall into his lap. Tom had to take action towards making his dream a reality. After being fed up with the world around him and the way it was suppressing his dreams, he decided to take a stand. By leaving St. Louis and leaving his mother and sister behind, he said yes to make his dream come true, and no to drowning in misery for the rest of his