Why Is America Described As A Mother

To continue, the poem “ Mother to Son” uses figurative language and conflict to develop the theme of rising above challenges. To begin, the author uses figurative language to develop the theme by using Metaphor. In the text it said, ““I’m still climbin’, And life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.” Figurative language develops the theme of rising above challenges in this text because the author is comparing her life and the stairs to show that there are going to be hard things that are going to come into your life. Second of all, to develop the theme of rising above challenges the author also used conflict. In the text it says, “ “Don’t you set down on the steps ’Cause you find it’s very hard. Don’t you fall now— For I’m still going, honey, I’m still climbin,”. The conflict of this poem is the person on the stairs is starting to give up. The conflict develops the theme of rising above challenges in this text because in the poem it shows that the mother is trying to convince the son to keep going and to overcome his challenges. In conclusion, to develop the theme of rising above challenges the author of the poem, “Mother to Son” used figurative language and conflict. The author used these to show how the metaphor is showing us how life is at times and how the conflict help show the theme of the poem.

“He was a quiet , soft-spoken man who wore old-timey clothes, fedoras, button-down wool coats, suspenders, and dressed neatly at all times, regardless of how dirty his work made him” (Mcbride 6).“His father was a black man, a railroad brakeman, and his mother a Native American, so he had a lot of indian in his face: brown skin, slanted brown eyes, high cheekbones and a weather-beaten outdoor look about him..” (Mcbride 120).The writing is figurative by the use of similes and metaphors. “In running from her past, Mommy has created her own nation, a rainbow coalition that descends on her house every Christmas and Thanksgiving.” (277)“Her grits tasted like sand and butter, with big lumps inside that caught in your teeth and suck in your gums.”(McBride 67) . “Ma cried, and she wailed and wailed, the sound of her cries circling the house like a spirit and settling on all the corridors and beds where we ay, weeping in silence.”(McBride 128) Allusions are used to give a timeframe of the time period by talking about issues.“She actually liked Malcolm X. She put in nearly the same category as her civil rights heroes, Paul Robeson, Jackie Robinson, Eleanor

metaphor, lamenting that her daughter may live “without a mother’s love to shelter her from the

“let America Be America Again” has a gloomy, heavy, sulky view of America. It questions as to whether America is all it’s cracked up to be, a place where anyone can be whatever and do whatever. Whereas “I Hear America Singing” has a rose-colored, on cloud nine, view that paints America as a utopia. It makes everyone look like little gears that, no matter what, keep on turning to make things run as smoothly as possible. Both of these selections are biased , one positive and one negative, but they both make the reader paint an image of the America that the selection points out. To me America is a dream and ideal place to live, they don’t restrict one’s thoughts or feelings. If they did then Hughes and Whitman wouldn’t have been able to release these two pieces of work and, in turn, there would be a lot less emotion in the work today, and work without emotion is work that doesn’t belong in

“[A] mother … should play a political role through the raising of a patriotic child. The Republican Mother was to encourage in her sons civic interest and participation. She was to educate her children and guide them in the paths of morality and virtue.”

McKay uses his poem “America” as an avenue to express his indifference towards facing the challenges due to his race and of the dark future for his race. He develops these concerns in the form of a Shakespearean sonnet with three quatrains and a final heroic couplet to conclude the poem. Diction utilized by McKay within the first quatrain such as with “feeds” and “cultured” gives America a nurturing or even motherly essence. This exemplifies his love for America. However, McKay juxtaposes this affection by the various harsh descriptions containing cacophonous consonant sounds such as “bread of bitterness” or “sinks into my throat.” He utilizes similes within the next quatrain to further demonstrate this juxtaposition. The comparison of how America’s “vigor flows like tides into [his] blood” and how “her bigness sweeps [his] being like a

“America” expresses the speaker 's feelings towards America. The poem 's theme in a broad sense is describing the conflicting feelings of the speaker towards America. Though America is constantly fighting the speaker, he expresses that “I love this cultured hell that tests my youth” (McKay, 928)! This mixture of love, bitterness and hate towards America that is expressed in this line continues to be expressed throughout the poem. According to James Keller the speaker “expresses an admiration that is requited with contempt” (Keller). Though the speaker admits that he

In the poem "I Hear America Singing" by Walt Whitman, the reader envisions a country of people working for the greater good of mankind. These people come together as part of the whole society developing industry and production. Each person has a different occupation, but each job is important to the bigger picture. The bigger picture and theme being that of a country in which everyone is working together to create a successful and harmonious civilization.

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

The story of the song begins with how they came to the Land of the Free. The lyrics in the first verse, “Man, I was brave, sailing on graves Don’t think I didn’t notice those tombstones disguised as waves,” and “We all came America trying to get a lap dance from Lady Freedom,” shows how the author understood the deep intentions of immigrants. Even though people do not come over to America on ships anymore, he uses these words to compare the same dangers of coming to America. Back then, ships would carry travelers over to the colonies and many people died sailing on the ships, hence the phrase “tombstones disguised as waves.” Those who came were brave and left everything they had back in their home country while risking their life for a chance

“Learning to love America” starts by listing things that the speaker of the poem, who I feel may be the poet or a similar voice to hers, can love about America. Ranging from simpler things like, “because the water of the ocean is cold” (line 3), “I have eaten fresh artichokes” (line 7), and “because I walk barefoot in my house” (line 12) to more complex things like “because I say we rather than they” (line 5) and “because my senses have caught up with my body” (line 9). It is all of the small and large

In order to occupy her child, the mother dresses her daughter up to go sing in the children’s choir at church in the fifth stanza. She brushes her hair, bathes her, and puts on her gloves and shoes. Randall appeals to the senses in this stanza; he uses a metaphor here to inform the reader a visual that the family is African American. She has “night-dark” hair and small brown hands. She is dressed in white and smells of sweet rose petals. The mother takes the girls mind off of the Freedom March and fixes it on the children’s choir. The tone is one of content. The sixth stanza is a

The main observation readers could take from this poem is that the “lower” individual has to take care of and pick up after the white man. It is even hinted at that the poems the mother chant rival the alleged master of poetry’s own works.

The laws were established by Parliament between 1651-1673 for the American colonies. It stated that only colonial merchants or english ships could engage in trade with colonies. All foreign imports had to be shipped by way of England. The significance was that The Mother Country would benefit from both colonial imports and exports.

In my understanding, the poem pre-dominates the theme “horrors of slavery”. The poet, in a clear tone, illustrates the lives of slaves and the challenges they go through. “And the mother’s shriek of wild despair”, “And I saw her babes torn from her breast” and “If I saw young girls from their mother’s arms” are some examples of indignities that the poet describes. The persona states that she could not rest in a place where people were forcefully subjected to any form of indignities. She uses statements such as; “I could not rest if I heard the tread”, “Of a coffle gang to the shambles led” and much more to elaborate her dislike against slavery; the abuse and terror.