Poem, Mother Of Son, By Langston Hughes Essay

     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).

Langston Hughes was an American poet and was known to be a leader of the Harlem Renaissance. The poem “Mother to Son” was written by Langston Hughes in 1922 and the poem portrays a conversation between the mother and her son. The poem revolves around the mother telling her son that life is full of ups and downs and no matter what happens, not to give up. The poem showcases hardships, hope, and words of wisdom that the mother will tell to her son.

Gwendolyn Brooks and Langston Hughes wrote poems imparting to young people. Brooks encourages her audience to continue to trudge forward even if the situation is grim in the poem entitled “Speech to the Young. . .” The author stated, “Even if you are not ready for the day it cannot always be night.” The author is trying to say that one cannot always just wallow in their problems. Instead, on must overcome their hurdles no matter how high they may be. One must overcome their obstacles sooner or later because time does not stop for anyone. Hughes takes a parental stand in “Mother to Son” encouraging readers to persevere even when faced with adversity. The author advised, “So boy, don’t turn your back. Don’t you set down on the steps.” The author

The speaker of the poem “Mother to Son,” by Langston Hughes is a mother who is giving advice to her son. Her life has been difficult and hard at times. As readers, we know this because the speaker talks about how life is a staircase and her staircase has had “tacks and splinters in it” (line 3-4). This means that her life has not been perfect and she had many challenges to deal with. Perhaps she was born into poverty, because the images in her poem reveal a ragged, old staircase, like you might find in a decrepit, old building. Further, the speaker’s accent reveals that the speaker was not well-educated when she was younger, such as when she says “I'se been a-climbin' on” (line 9) which is not proper English. Since

Langston Hughes, an inspirational African American writer, in his poem “Mother to Son” (1922) insinuates that life is a series of challenges and difficulties. Hughes establishes this pronouncement by first depicting a metaphor with his comparison of life and a set of broken wooden or crystal stairs, expressing how the broken wooden stairs represents hardships and how crystal stairs portray a smoother life; second, by providing imagery of a boy sitting down on the steps of the stairs as the mother is scolding her son, exhibiting how the son has given up on the task in front of him while his mother is scolding him, displaying her motherly affection; and third, by using regionalism to indicate the difficulties of the mother and the son and how

Throughout the world many writers such as poets tend to commonly use a variety of poetic devices to establish the central metaphor of his or her poem. In the poem titled “Mother to Son” written by Langston Hughes, he uses many different poetic devices to describe the mother’s difficult life experiences. The metaphor conveys the meaning of the poem through the use of repetition and smaller metaphors. In the beginning of the text, the author wrote about tacks, splinters, torn up boards, and places with no carpet that are just “bare”.

In the poem “Mother to Son” by Langston Hughes, the mother’s experiences shape her values which can be shown in the poem. Line 2 states, “Life for me ain't been no crystal stair.” which implies that the mother’s life hasn’t been right in front of her or there have been many obstacles. In addition, she continues on by saying metaphors of her obstacles in life by calling them splinters and tacks. With the obstacles in her life, they have shaped in what she values: perseverance. For instance, in line 9 the mother states, “I'se been a-climbin' on” which relates to perseverance because she is saying that she never gave up.

“Mother to son” is a poem that the speaker is a mother who describes her hardships to her son by comparing her life to stairs. Hughes poem “Mother to son” has many poetry poetic elements. The two strongest poetry elements within Langston Hughes poem is symbol and imagery. The strongest symbol in the poem is the stairs. “ The stairs symbolize the mother’s life. The mother uses the stairs to illustrate to her son how difficult her life has been, how she must climb up the stairs everyday to improve her life and how she still continues to struggle. The stairs could also be a representation of the different phases of life the mother goes through. It’s had tacks in it, And splinters, and boards torn up, “(4,4 and 5). The mothers is describing the

In the poem “from Mother to Son” By Langston Hughes ,the poet uses language to establish an encouraging tone. The poem is about a woman giving advice  to her son to never give up ,even in the worst situations.the poet  uses imagery and metaphors to establish the character’s tone. An example of using metaphor  is in line 2 of the poem  she compare her life to a beautiful ,nice , crystal staircase. The meaning of that metaphor was to show and explain life was not easy for her at all and the crystal is a symbol of good and wonderful life  some people were luck enough to have.another example of how the poet establishes the tone is when she uses imagery.in lines 3-13 she talks about how hard and miserable her journey was. The poet brings up splinters

Furthermore, the first six lines of the poem illustrates how hard the mother’s life was. “It’s had tacks in it, and splinters, and boards torn up, and places with no carpet on the floor- bare” (Hughes). The mother is talking about her life in this lines and how rough it was, her life has been hard, she had challenges and obstruction in life. She has faced lots of challenges in life and that is why she advises her son, she uses her life as an example in order to let her son know that life is not always going to be easy as she compares her life to a staircase and talks about the obstacles she had to go through as she continued to climb the stairs everyday so that her life could become better. She says, “I’se been a-climbin’ on, and reaching’ Landin’s, and turning’ corners, and sometimes going’ in the dark where there ain’t been no light” (Hughes).

Authors go about proving the theme of their writing in different ways. Thus a way of proving this is through a reward system where the author writes how the character is rewarded for doing or accomplishing the themes purpose. In the text Mother to son by Langston Hughes the mother has gone through a rough and hard life and she was rewarded for never giving up and pushing on throughout her life. For example, in the text the mother said, “I’se still climbin.” This quote shows how she is still not done pushing through life. Also, In the text it stated, “Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.” Therefore she was rewarded with the wisdom she gained throughout living, gifted with having a son to then share her experience with, influence and survival. In comparison, in the clip Mouse Survives Trap it showed a clip of a mouse who had a mousetrap that snapped down onto him and how the mouse had pushed the trap up and down off of him to continue to live. Therefore, the mouse was rewarded for not giving up and dieing on the mousetrap with survival, cheese,wisdom and power. Also, in the text Caged Bird by Maya Angelou connected a lot to the author Maya Angelou. The bird who was captured reflected much on how she felt in her life. For example, the caged bird was rewarded by never giving up through life and being captured much like how Angelou never gave up in her life aside from being raped and experiencing a

In ordinary language, Langston Hughes describes a woman’s pedagogy to her son in his poem “Mother to Son”. In the poem, the speaker—perhaps an African American in her 30s in the civil rights era in the South—encourages her son to remain hopeful to his life, no matter how harsh the reality could be.

In Langston Hughes poem it is saying that life is not easy and it is all tangled up. It also is comparing the title of the picture to the title of mother to son. In WAKs picture it is showing the mother handing the son the world all tangled up. It is like what it is saying in the poem. Both the poem and the picture are saying that life is not easy. In mother to son it is talking about a stairway and not the world. It also compares with it because they both have a mother and a son. They also compare because they are both talking about life and the world. In the picture and in the poem the mother is talking to the son. Also both of them have a similar theme.

In the poem “Mother to Son” by Langston Hughes, the overall theme is about how the mother is telling her son to never give up, even when you face great challenges. She is telling him that life will throw things at you, but you just have to keep on going. In one verse she says, “And splinters. And boards torn up”, as a reference to stuff that may cause you troubles in life.

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.