The poem:
Mother to Son by: Langston Hughes
Mother to son is an expressive sort of poem that contains figurative language to explain a thought. This poem gives you an image of continuous steps, steps of a mother’s hard life, and how hard they were to climb for her. In a metaphoric method the mother explains to her son that life wasn’t easy for her, and isn’t going to be easy for him, but to keep going no matter how hard it is, to not give up, to not surrender. Why I picked it
I picked this poem for a few reasons; one being that it is original .I has never heard anything like it. Secondly, because of the way Langston Hughes expresses the thought of what he is trying to get across, he doesn’t use direct examples; he uses an example of steps to describe the mother’s life. Form and Language
This poem uses a lot of figurative language to describe the hardships of the mother and the son’s life. Things like “Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair” meaning her life was far from perfect and it has not been easy.
It also refers to the metaphoric stairs by saying “It’s had tacks in it, and splinters and boards torn up” to describe events of her life that haven’t been easy and although it doesn’t say exact events that have happened in her life it gives you an idea of what it was like. She also says “And turnin’ corners, and sometimes goin’ in the dark Where there ain’t been no light.” probably meaning that she has had to be in places in her life where there was no comfort, a very difficult desolate time. When she says she’s “still climbin’ and “still goin’ honey” it means as hard as her life is she’s no stopping to give up on it. She’s determined that she’s not going to stop. Author
Langston Hughes was born on February 1, 1902 in Joplin, Missouri. After his parents separated he went to live with his grandmother until she died when he was 13. After he passing Hughes went to live with his mother in Cleveland, Ohio. After graduating