Essay Number 1

A Dreamy and Dancing Life:

An Essay on Life Connecting to "For a Dancer" and "A Dream Deferred"

Gaelen Frink

9th Grade English

September 18, 2011

Life has many connections to other occurrences, and of these connections life can be related to "For a Dancer" by Jackson Browne and "A Dream Deferred" by Langston Hughes, and these can be connected to  each other. A particular item I connected to was how I lost my cat and how this was hard for me. Secondly, I connected many things from the poem and the song to the death of Jackson’s wife. Life can have a relationship with many things, but life can still be related to "A Dream Deferred" and "For a Dancer"

Life can be intricate, but even with complexity my life still can be related to "For a Dancer" and "A Dream Deferred". My life has few connections, but I connected my old cat to both the poem and the song. My cat was a big cat and his belly thumped along so, “It [sagged] like a heavy load”. Also, my cat was eaten by a coyote, and “I don't remember losing track of [him]” because we never had a body left to bury; this is what I thought when we couldn’t find him, my large, loving cat [allit]. When Jackson Browne says “You were always dancing in and out of view” this to me means people in my life come and go. I had some neighbors who used to live next door, but they moved away, and we didn’t hear or see them for a few years. However every now and then, we get a letter from them and we remember our memories of them, and they come back into view, but in a few weeks we forget about them and they drift out of view once again. When Langston Hughes says “or does it just explode”, this can be related to my brother and me because we sometimes freak out at each other. Also, when Langston says “and then run” this could be my brother or me because in the end one of us ends up running away from the other. Lastly when he says “Or crust and sugar over” my brother and I aren’t sugaring over, but our bruises and cuts will crust over. A few things were connected to my life, a poem and a song, however there are many more instances in life that can be connected to these items, and these instances can be seen in many different perspectives.

There are many incidences of similarity in "For a Dancer" by Jackson Browne, and "A Dream Deferred" by Langston Hughes; no matter how small these similarities are they still can have deep meaning. “Keep a fire burning in your eye” in "For a Dancer" can be related to the sun because the sun really is a giant ball of fire and gas. When you look at the sun you have fire in your mind’s eye or in your vision because the sun is a star shining [allit] brightly. However it is a different fire than "A Dream Deferred" because we are not drying up like a raisin in the sun; the sun is filling us full of life instead of taking the life out of us. "For a Dancer" and "A Dream Deferred" make you realize how your dreams might not come true because either you don’t have determination and dedication[allit]  to see your dream out to the end or your dream is a pipe dream like most. Your dreams might be deferred or they might explode from a mishap; however they might be deferred because you have changed your opinion of your dream. In addition some of Jackson Browne’s dreams were destroyed when his wife committed suicide, and he or she never were able to live out those dreams they had together or alone. The death of Jackson Browne’s wife might “crust over” because grief will come and go. However it would not be “a sugary sweet” how Langston Hughes puts it. It would be a “sore that festers”, or it could be that the crust is cracking, and the memories of his wife would flood back to him. However saddening death might be there is always the life of the sun and your dreams to come.

          Life has many relationships, with things or people, animals and friends, but life can have a relationship with a poem and a song in many different ways. My cat really was the animal I had a relationship with, but that was no more when I “lost track of him”. The largest connection between the poem and the song is the sun because they seem to have the most meaning and life. Life can  be related to many other things, and these occurrences can become fewer, but these occurrences are still there when you relate life to "A Dream Deferred" and "For a Dancer".