Poem Analysis Of Hughes Langston’s Poem, Mother To Son

Hughes Langston’s poem, Mother to Son, is a master piece well crafted from the simple act of a mother giving advice to her son. The author does this in an artistic way using techniques like symbolism and emotive language. To be able to decipher the meaning of the poem, the reader is faced with the task of interpreting the symbols and other literal techniques the author has applied in the poem. He has also used a common accent that is popular with low income families facing hardships of life. Through the poem, Mother to Son, Langston Hughes is trying to communicate to the reader the existence of hardships in life and why one should not to give up when faced with challenges.

The speaker in this poem is the mother. She is telling her son how hard life has been to her. She has been through thick and thin in her life up to the point where she is now: “Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair. It’s had tacks in it” (Langston 2-3). Langston also uses an affectionate tone when the mother refers to her son as “honey” (Langston 17). When says her life is “bare” she is using the adjective in a tone that shows humility despite the fact that she has had to scrape for everything she has because nothing was ever easy for her (Langston 7).

The main theme in the poem is about never giving up in life which is demonstrated by the woman’s encouragement to her son. She is telling the boy to keep on struggling even though things might appear to be unbearable for him. He has to be as strong as she has always been in order to succeed in life. The use of emotive language here is seen when she warns, “Don’t you set down on the steps, cause you find its kinder harder” (Langston 15-16). Stopping long enough to feel the hardness of the steps implies that we should never give up before we get to where we are going. This is why the son is being warned of the dangers of idleness in life. Langston also describes the theme of poverty by comparing the woman’s life to a less attractive flight of stairs filled with pain and discomforts using the lines: “It’s had tacks in it, and splinters, and boards torn up, and places with no carpet on the floor” (Langston 3-6).

Symbolism has been used effectively in this poem. The flight of stairs is used as a symbol. It represents life in this poem’s context. In real sense, life resembles a staircase because it demands for constant progress upwards. Imagery has also been used successfully. The image drawn by the poet is of a woman laboriously moving up the dilapidated staircase with her son beside her. She goes through hard times and pain represented by the phrase “going in the dark” (Langston 12).

Repetition has been used to bring rhythm and to show emphasis on the kind of life the mother gone through. For example the line “Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair” has been used in the beginning and at the end of the poem to emphasize that the woman’s life has been a constant struggle to survive (Langston 2 and 20). The word “And” has been repeated to show the accumulation of all these tribulations.

In conclusion, this poem is telling us that life is not as easy as it seems. It is full of challenges like a flight of stairs filled with obstacles. The most important thing is never to give up but to keep on climbing by struggling to make ends meet.

Work Cited

Langston, Hughes. The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes. New York, NY: Vintage Books,1994.