Two poems, Tennyson’s “Tithonus” and Langston Hughes’ “Mother to Son”, were written at two different times, focusing on two different stories, themes and characters. Though the two are similar in the fact that they are written in the same form, use many types figures of speech and poetic language along with the fact that they are both highly praised works of poetry.
Tennyson’s “Tithonus” is a poem about the ancient Greek story involving Tithonus and Eos. The story is of the goddess of the dawn, Eos’ lover, Tithonus, who asks to become immortal, though forgetting to ask to also stay young and handsome. The first stanza explains that people have come and died by the line, “Man comes and tills the field and lies beneath.” In the first stanza, it is also mentioned that Tithonus is an old man through referring to him as a “white-haired shadow”. The second stanza explains that he had asked for the immortality, “Who madest him thy chosen, that he seemed to his great heart none other than a God! I asked thee, give me immortality!”. Though as the stanza continues it becomes obvious that he is no longer happy with this gift, now seen as a curse. “Let me go: take back thy gift” Tithonus says as he realizes it is a mistake asking for this ability. Eos has to tell her past lover that Gods do not have the power to take back the gifts they have granted to others, thus damning Tithonus to continue to grow old, to have to continue to look upon his love in a painful way, and to continue to think of his mistakes and wish that he was normal. Put simply, “Tithonus” is a poem about love, immortality and youth.
Langston Hughes’ “Mother to Son” does not have as complex of a story as Tennyson’s. The poem is short and sweet, a piece of dialogue of a ...
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...za there is personification in the line, “the vapors weep their burthen to the ground”. There is also a sense of irony with, “man comes and tills the field and lies beneath” because its humans working the land for crops that help them survive, only to be buried beneath it when they pass away. In the second stanza, the God granting his wish is described by the smilie, “Then didst thou grant mine asking with a smile, like wealthy men who care not how they give”.
The two poems seem to be mainly different; telling two separate stories, using a different style of writing and words in each, focusing on mainly different themes. They both do use the same form and type of narration and character. Overall, both “Tithonus” and “Mother to Son” are poems about life lessons. “Tithonus” about being care of what you ask for and “Mother to Son” about not giving up in hard times.
The descriptions and words used create the most vivid images of a mother’s escape to freedom with her son. This poem takes you on both a physical and emotional journey as it unravels through the treacherous demands of freedom. A beautiful example of her ability to rhyme both internally as well as externally can be seen here,
He focuses on that in both poems. Strength is an important aspect in anyone’s life, because without strength one cannot succeed in life. Since the dawn of time African-Americans have been blazing through pain to survive. Strength is extremely noticeable in Mother to Son. The whole poem is based on her strength and courage to endure all her trials and tribulations with grace.
To start of, the poem has an appeal of imagination and has many features that show this. First of, we have numerous metaphors, "I am a thousand winds that blow" and "I am the diamond glints on snow" are examples. These metaphors are indirectly comparing him to the greatness, to the amounts of them, trying to relate to us by telling us how he is everywhere. He might not be here in person but he is all around as used in the metaphors the wind, in the snow, in sunlight that ripens the grains everywhere. Second, the poem has the symbol of "do not stand at my grave and weep/ I am not there" this is a symbol that works on many levels and has many meaning. The first meaning is that he is saying he has past away so therefore he is not there. Not there not meaning physically but virtually. Thus meaning that his body is there but his soul is not. His soul is everywhere. This takes us back to the metaphors used wi...
It is often common to have an author or the writer of a certain poem write about similar topics and also reflect the same stylistic characters among his or her poems. In Peter Meinke’s two poems, titled Untitled and Advice to my son, he created them both using a specific tone and the same subject to create different themes. Both of these poems also included some of the important elements of poetry.
... overall themes, and the use of flashbacks. Both of the boys in these two poems reminisce on a past experience that they remember with their fathers. With both poems possessing strong sentimental tones, readers are shown how much of an impact a father can have on a child’s life. Clearly the two main characters experience very different past relationships with their fathers, but in the end they both come to realize the importance of having a father figure in their lives and how their experiences have impacted their futures.
Hughes, Langston “I, Too.” Poems, Poets, Poetry: An Introduction and Anthology. 3rd ed. Ed. Helen Vendler.
African American families have special challenges. In his novel When All Is Said and Done, author Robert Hill explored the large portion of women and adolescents who, through the years, have had to work inside and outside the home long before careers for women was ever established and became more acceptable and adaptable in society. Although Hill’s characters are Jewish, his story resonates on how necessary and extraordinarily versatile historical family roles are in African American families. Langston Hughes’s special poem, Mother to Son, likewise captures the voice of an African American mother’s struggles as she challenges her son to face life’...
Langston Hughes, a renowned poet from the early 1900s, has written numerous poems that have various themes and meanings. Although a lot of his poetry has to do with the struggles of African Americans during the time of slavery or during the early 1900s, Langston Hughes’ themes differ from poem to poem. One theme that appears in multiple poems of his is the theme of race, Langston Hughes uses the theme of race in his poems as a way to challenge the racial barriers that are placed on society. The theme of race is discussed in a plethora of his poems and it is important to examine a few of these poems which include, “I too, sing America”, “Theme for English b”, and “Let America be America Again”, to point out that Hughes tries to implement the sense of hope into African Americans of the time, also he uses race as a way to provide a focus on the oppression of slaves.
Wasley, Aidan. "An overview of “Mother to Son”." Poetry for Students. Detroit: Gale. Literature Resource Center. Web. 18 Apr. 2014.
Form and meaning are what readers need to analyze to understand the poem that they are evaluating. In “Mother to Son”, his form of writing that is used frequently, is free verse. There is no set “form”, but he gets his point across in a very dramatic way. The poem is told by a mother who is trying to let her son know that in her life, she too has gone through many frustrations just like what her son is going through. The tone of this poem is very dramatic and tense because she illustrates the hardships that she had to go through in order to get where she is today. She explains that the hardships that she has gone through in her life have helped her become the person that she has come to be. Instead of Hughes being ironic, like he does in some of his poems, he is giving the reader true background on the mother’s life. By introducing the background, this helps get his point across to the reader in a very effective way. In this poem there are many key words which help portray the struggles that the mother is trying to express to her son. The poem is conveyed in a very “down to earth” manner. An example of this is, “Life for me ain’t been a crystal stair (462).” This quote shows the reader that the mom is trying to teach the son a lesson with out sugar coating it. She wants her son to know that throughout her life has had many obstacles to overcome, and that he too is going to have to get through his own obstacles no matter how frustrating it is. Her tone throughout the poem is stern telling the boy, “So boy, don’t turn your back (462).” The poems tone almost makes the reader believe that the mother is talking to them, almost as if I am being taught a valuable lesson.
Lanston Hughes focuses more on rhythm then on rhyme, for example, the poem "The Weary Blues" reads like a blues song, which is what the poem is about. "Mother to Son" is a conversation a mother has to a child about what era life has been, and that no matter how hard life may seem, one should never give up climbing the "stairs". The poem seems to shift from good English to Black English and then back again, which to me shows...
For many years, African Americans were forced to live without a voice and many accepted the fact that they were seen as inferior to the white race. Although they were excluded from being a part of society, built up emotions constructed beautiful pieces of poetry that have become important aspects of today’s literature. Langston Hughes’, “ I Too, Sing America” and Claude Mckay’s, “The White House” will be looked at closely to determine how each poem portrays emotional discontent and conflicted emotional states.
During the early seventeenth century, poets were able to mourn the loss of a child publicly by writing elegies, or poems to lament the deceased. Katherine Philips and Ben Jonson were two poets who wrote the popular poems “On the Death of My Dearest Child, Hector Philips”, “On My First Son”, and “On My First Daughter” respectively. Although Philips and Jonson’s elegies contain obvious similarities, the differences between “On the Death of My Dearest Child” and “On My First Son” specifically are pronounced. The emotions displayed in the elegies are very distinct when considering the sex of the poet. The grief shown by a mother and father is a major theme when comparing the approach of mourning in the two elegies.
...a silence deep and white” (Line,4) they are talking about how the white snow is beautiful and, how it looks like to me this is a love of nature to some maybe not.Last one is Intuition over fact in this quote “Father,who makes the snow?” (Line,22) says his daughter, “And told of the good All father” (Line,23) and lastly “Who cares for us here below” (Line,24) he is talking about and all father which i believe he is talking about god,and this is a great characteristic for this poem.
Dan Brown rightly said that no love is greater than that of a father and a son. It’s not just flesh and mind but the hearts that connect a father and a son. “My papa’s Waltz”, by Theodore Roethke and “Those Winter Sundays”, by Robert Hayden, both describe the relationship between a father and a son. These poems share a common idea of revealing the relationship that the speakers share with their fathers and the poems simultaneously, offer a means of discovering and interpreting the setting, tone and theme among other elemental aspects of poetry. The poems seem a lot different, however they are alike in many significant ways. Both the poems swing around the different childhood memories of the speakers, yet show how love crosses all the borders of bitterness.