How does "A Dream Deferred" by Langston Hughes relate to events or themes of To Kill a Mockingbird?*Note: I have only read up to chapter 17 in To...

I believe I can make an indirect connection between To
Kill a Mockingbird and the Langston Hughes poem.  By indirect, I mean that I can't think
of anyone who was explicitly pursuing, or wished to pursue an impossible dream--unless
that dream is of equality.  However, when we consider the impossible-to-overcome racism
of the 1933 South, the poem begins to have a more apparent connection.  The images
Hughes uses to describe, metaphorically of course, the emotions experienced by one with
an impossible dream are likely very similar to those experienced by Tom Robinson,
Atticus, and later Scout and Jem, as they all struggle with the irrational, unfair, and
impossible nature of Robinson's predicament.  The deeply ingrained attitudes of
Southerners toward blacks in Maycomb were such that once Robinson was accused of a crime
against a white woman, there was no way he would ever be free again.
The anger and frustration Robinson, his wife, Atticus, and eventually the
children, could be likened to festering sores, stinking meat, or any of the other
metaphors Hughes uses.