Mother to Son

Author's Note: This piece describes the meaning to the poem "Mother to Son" by Langston Hughes. It is for Word Choice and Context on the Reading Rubric and so if you have any corrections please leave a comment.

            

          Reaching your goals in life takes tenacity and perseverance. The hardest thing to do in life is to tell your child that life is not as easy as it seems. “Mother to Son” by Langston Hughes, wrote this story to show that we have to work hard to get through life.  One metaphor that stands out in the poem is “Life for me ain’t no crystal stair” expresses that you won’t be rich enough to have a mansion with a crystal staircase if you don’t work hard in life. Another common saying that is expressed the same way is “Life won’t be handed to you on a silver platter.”  

          Another metaphor that makes this poem more understandable is “It's had tacks in it, And splinters, And boards torn up, And places with no carpet on the floor --Bare.”  This Mother is trying to say that life can be harder than you make it out to be, and can put you down at any point in your life. You can be torn up like boards and get splinters which means life will always be rough no matter the situation. There are going to be days where you have made mistakes, but you have to move past it because life is only so long.

          Langston Hughes grew up with an absent father so his mother was to take care of him and teach him the important rules of life. The mother says this poem to her son with a demanding but intuitive tone to make him listen and think about decisions he could make in his future and that it is not that easy. Many of the stanzas in this poem translate to how life is really going to be like. It transmits to “Life ain’t no crystal stair” because you’re going to have to walk non-carpeted floors some point in life before you can ever walk on a crystal stair.