Critical Analysis Of Mother To Son, By Langston Hughes

In the poem “Mother To Son”, Langston wants the best for her son and buts him before herself. Throughout the poem its imagery portrays that the mother and son are climbing stairs to get to a better place. She is encouraging her son and loving him even when she's run down. “ I’ve been a-climbin’ on….So boy, don’t you turn back.

     On the road of life, many trials arise that one must overcome to make his or her life feel complete. In Langston Hughes’s poem, “Mother to Son,” these trials are a subject of concern for one mother. Hughes’ “ability to project himself” is seen in his use of dialect, metaphors, and tone (Barksdale 3).

Many Americans did not know how and African American’s daily life went. Through Hughes’ writing he portrayed their lives to help show their desire and need for civil rights. In his poem, “Mother to Son”, a mother is talking to her son about how life is much harder for them, but that he must never give up, “Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair...Don’t you fall now- For I’se still goin’, honey, I’se still climbin’, And life for me ain’t been no crystal stair”(Lines 1, 17-20). Hughes has assumed the role of speaking for the black community and the way that they live. Rita Dove and Marilyn Nelson write in their work, “Langston Hughes and Harlem”, how Hughes gives other Americans a glimpse of their lives, “His work offers white readers a glimpse into the social and the personal lives of Black America;”(1152). Hughes uses the simple conversation between a mother and son to show the American people how much different and harder their lives

And the poem “Mother to Son” is about how a mother is telling her son that she had to go through rough times like her son.She says she also keeps going no matter how difficult life gets.Both poems share the theme of overcoming obstacles in life. Both authors use figurative language for example,Tupac uses a Rose and Langston Hughes uses stairs to compare them to how hard life can be to develop the theme.

“Mother to Son” , by Langston Hughes is based on the view of hope and inspiration to continue moving forward in life, regardless of difficulties, and no matter how hard life may be. The speaker in this poem is a mother who gives advice to her son. Since the mother has overcame challenges in life, she encourages her son to be fearless, face challenges and succeed in life. He includes rhetorical devices such as, figurative language, imagery, symbolism, and sound devices to make the points of being fearless, to face challenges, and succeed in life.

In the poem, “Mother to Son” harlem renaissance Langston Hughes writes of a mother’s heartbreaking journey through a never ending cycle of life through the use of figurative language and complex structure. The reader is able to fully receive the message the author has provided.

The survival of the Black American family is a revolutionary act. The system of slavery purposefully separated and destroyed black families. Yet, in the face of obstacles, the Black family as an institution survived. Langston Hughes and Robert Hayden show the power of connection, love, and learning between the Black parent and the Black child. Many Black poets write about the Black experience in America, but few capture the interactions between Black parent and Black child the way Langston Hughes and Robert Hayden do in their poems “Mother to Son” and “Those Winter Sundays”, respectively. Langston Hughes and Robert Hayden use metaphors and imagery to portray the lessons Black children learn from Black parents.

He explains, “I was only an American Negro—who had loved the surface of Africa—but I was not Africa. I was Chicago and Kansas City and Broadway and Harlem. I was not what she wanted me to be” (Hughes as quoted in Cobb 44). Hughes wants to make sure people are aware that the life and culture of African Americans differ drastically from the romantic view of the Negro in Africa. In his poem “Mother to Son,” Hughes provides the story of struggle, poverty overcame by hard work, and hope for a more dignified life for the entire African American people (Niemi 1). Hughes recognizes that despite being oppressed, the black community is strong enough to empower itself with determination to succeed. When discussing working-class life, Hughes consistently “asserts blacks as fully complex, fully human, and equals in the American democratic experiment” and does not play into the thought that blacks should be kept down (Sanders 107). Langston Hughes’ “concern for the lives and oppression of poor and working-class blacks” is apparent in most of his work (Sanders 107). Through his writing he makes the population aware of the deep-set oppression put upon the black community.

Every mother would like to see her child succeed in life. The following passage from the poem, "Mother to Son", by Langston Hughes demonstrates the love and concern a mother has for her son. She teaches him using her own life as an example; her life as a climb up a staircase. The imagery from the advice given in the stanza is explicit and poignant:

The poet, Langston Hughes, was born February 1, 1902, in Joplin, Missouri. Hughes’s grandmother was an activist for women’s education and rights. Both of Hughes’s parents were mulattos, meaning he had interracial maternal and paternal grandparents. Hughes writes about this situation in his poem titled, “Mulatto.” Hughes states things like “...a black mother and an uncaring white father” (Slovey and Howes 211). By using many writing styles and tools, Hughes gets his point across easier by making the reader feel like they’re in the moment of the poem. In Hughes’s poem, “Mother to Son,” a mother offers wisdom to her son and the younger generations using her way of language and old slang that connect them to each other’s life and hardships.

In “Mother to Son”, Langston Hughes informed us of a mother whose life was horrible, according to her, and she doesn’t want her son to make the same mistakes. The poem states, “Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair”(Langston Hughes). The mother is thinking about her past life. For this reason, she is limiting herself to her past and not thinking that she can have a future for herself. Langston Hughes wrote, “It's

The speaker’s message to readers in “Mother to Son” is that life can be difficult, but you have to keep trying despite these difficulties. I believe this message is directed towards people who are experiencing hardships and poverty, because the speaker is directing her conversation to her “son,” who does not have a life that is like “crystal stairs” (line 2). The crystal stairs in the poem represents a wealthy and easy life, as wealthy people have not probably had the same difficulties in life. Her message of not giving up is evident throughout the poem as she demands her son to not give up. She says, “So boy, don't you turn back, don't you set down on the steps, cause you finds it’s kinder hard” (lines 14-16). As readers, we know the message for us is that you can’t give up, even though you will face challenges—just like you have to keep going on a “staircase” even though the staircase has many obstacles on it. She clearly believes that we need to be fighters in our lives, as life will often be difficult. More importantly, I believe this message was also meant towards African Americans in the early 1900’s (when Langston Hughes was writing poetry), to remind them to never give up on fighting for equal rights, even though it is

Adversity is a central component of every individual's life. It is the difficult situations that shape our identity and help us recognize who we are. Difficult situations have the ability to transform our perceptions and values of the world while morphing us into stronger and more confident individuals. However, it is when refuse to cope with our struggles ourselves and push the responsibility of solving our problems over to others that problems arise. When faced with adversity it is common for individuals to turn to their parents not hoping for, but expecting assistance. They do not face their own struggles and expect their parents to assist them in doing so. In the short story "Mother to Son" the author, Langston Hughes demonstrates the importance of individuals overcoming obstacles with little intervention from their parents in order for it to benefit them.

Mother to Son is a poem that was written by Langston Hughes, and was published in 1922. Throughout this poem, Langston Hughes portrays a mother speaking to her son and the readers to bestow her knowledge, encouragement and wisdom from the life that she lived.

The poem “Mother to Son” by Langston Hughes is the story of a mother speaking of life’s hardships to her son. The poem starts off with the protagonist’s haunting words about the difficulty of life; however, as the story goes on, her words of despair become words of wisdom to her son on never giving up. Hughes organizes this poem by transitioning the tone from hopelessness to encouragement to convey the raw message that although life can be hard, anyone can reach their goals with effort.