Mother to Son

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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:

Well, son, I'll tell you:

Life for me ain't been no crystal stair.

It's had tacks in it,

And splinters,

And boards all torn up,

And places with no carpet on the floor -

Bare (line 1-7).

The metaphor in this poem conjoins life, and a staircase, "Well, son, I'll tell you:/ life for me ain't been no crystal stair." The mother says to her son, that life is not an easy journey that can be stroll through.. Instead, in this passage of the poem, she tells her son that life is hard, full of stumbling blocks, but one must keep climbing, one cannot turn back or sit down, because one will catch a break, a turn, a landing, and keep going.

She uses the "crystal stair," to describe a life that is opposite to hers. Crystal is thought of as something delicate, precious, and valuable; every step of life on a crystal stair would be full of priceless opportunities. The mother in this poem has had no such life; in fact, the description of hers seems harsh and unpleasant.

The mother establishes the importance of her challenging life, when she says, "It's had tacks in it,/ And splinters,/ And boards torn up,/ And places with no carpet on the floor-." In every day life, tacks are used to pin an object in place. With pressure they act as nails, fastening different items. When the mother says her life "had tacks in it," she is referring to the things ...

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...lling him that she herself still struggles to climb her stairs but she never gives up in lines 18-19, "For I'se still goin', honey,/I'se still climbin'." Through these lines, she also reveals that no matter how tough life has been for her that it hasn't dimmed her spirits because she keeps on climbing. She shows life as an ascent up a staircase: it's a hard climb, but one that must be attempted and achieved.

To convey her voice, she uses dramatic monologue. She uses words like: ain't, I'se, and climbin' which is common language in the black culture. The language she uses gives the impression that though she may not be "educated", but is street smart and wise because of all the difficult experiences that she has overcome in her life. The rhythm of the poem has no rhyme but it has a beat that flows in a weary but it builds like a stairway, one step at a time.

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