Question

What effect does Hughes achieve by repeating the phrase "does it" in "Harlem"?

Answer 1

Explanation:

‘Harlem’ is a poem written by Langston Hughes. Hughes works are simply incredible, his poems describes the pain of the people, mostly the African Americans. Harlem is one such poem.

In this poem, we will notice that Harlem is repeating the phrase ‘does it’ throughout the poem. From the very first line we come to known he’s talking about a deferred dream. Later he points out his assumption about what happens to such delayed dream by adding ‘does it’ after each line, putting a question mark at the end.

So basically the poet is trying to contrast a dream. He is pressuring readers to understand what exactly it feels when dreams are shattered. There’s a pain and anger in the phrase ‘does it.’