Mother To Son Analysis

Submitted By zhatch123
Words: 2772
Pages: 12
Open Document
1. Langston Hughes’ poem, Mother to Son, is a poem that speaks directly as it is entitled. A mother advises her son the adversities he will face in his lifetime. She speaks on her behalf of personal experiences on how to overcome obstacles he will face in life. The theme that I get from this poem is perseverance. She really pushes the point that no matter what life throws at you; you must be stronger and withstand the battles. Langston Hughes was an African American poet, in which you can tell the dialogue is black dialect. Now that I’ve given a little background on the poem, I’ll explicate the poem line by line.
The title right away tells me that it will be about a mother talking to her son about life. It makes me think of a strong family bond that they may have. A mother’s words to her son are very firm, strong ideas. It gives me a sense the family may be very strongly religious. Hughes’ makes the title to this poem seem very revealing to what it may be about compared to titles of other poems. This poem’s title is particular in a sense that it gives all context clues to what the poem will be about. We know the characters already and we know the content, for the most part. It starts off by saying “Well, son, I’ll tell you: life for me ain’t been no crystal hair.” Right away the author lets us into her personality. We see that her life hasn’t been easy. The word “ain’t indicates to me that the mother isn’t a well-taught person. By the way she starts off by saying “well son” it may seem as the boy is curious about something that he had asked her about. The term “crystal hair” reminds me of something that has to do with religion. When I did some research on the term, it was often used to describe procession from earth to heaven. This tells me that she may have a religious background since she refers to that phrase. The next lines gets more into detail about the rough patches the mother has faced in her life. “It had tacks in it, and splinters, and boards torn up, and places with no carpet on the floor – bare.” I find the nouns the author used to describe her life in this line to be very fascinating and particular. She describes her life with such harsh terms like tacks, splinters, and boards torn up. Her social speaking with her son also may indicate she is near the bottom of sociality in life. You don’t hear many well-rounded, educated people speaking those kind of terms to explain their life. Splinters make it hard to move so this may be a reference to her life being tough to keep moving forward with the adversities she faced. When I think of boards being torn up I think of it as something being revealed that’s been hidden. It also makes me think its being torn to be replaced with something new. The mother uses these phrases to show that her past has been rough as well. Symbols like “tacks” is used to illustrate the sharpness and discomfort of life’s obstacle. Splinters represent the inflammatory pain and the difficulties in removing and overcoming this pain in life. Even the metaphor of life being compared to stairs symbolizes the exhaustive uphill climb in life. In contrast, the crystal stair represents clarity and perfection, a life that the mother makes obvious was not given to her. In this poem, Hughes develops a sort of negative extended metaphor by having the speaker compare her life to a staircase that “ain’t been no crystal clear”. In other words, she develops the metaphor by describing what it isn’t rather than what it is. The next part of the poem I would like to break the stanza into two different segments. “But all the time I’se been a-climbin’ on, and reachin’ landin’s, and turnin’ corners.” Here we see the use of poor grammar again by the mother. She may have not had many opportunities growing up and went through poverty her whole life. This part of the poem really makes me think of how different cultures communicate and correspond with one another. Most Caucasian people wouldn’t speak this way. When you
Show More

Related Documents: Mother To Son Analysis

Poetry Paper

Mauricio Berber Prof. DeBoard English 1B March 8, 2015 Word Count: 2049 Poetry Paper In life we all have to make decisions and choices and sometimes the ones we make we later regret. In “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost the speaker comes to a fork on the road in the middle of the woods and is unsure about what road to take. In “Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening” the speaker ends up in a similar situation where he must choose to stay in the woods and enjoy the beauty of his surroundings…

Words 2407 - Pages 10

Poetry Paper

Brooke Morehouse Scott Stankey ENGL 2202-01 25 Feb. 2015 Poetry Unit Take-Home Essay Exam When you read poetry, certain things stick out to you due to your past experiences, what you find interesting, or what occurs frequently. While reading poetry written by Paige Riehl, Louise Erdrich and James Wright there are reoccurring themes of family/home and death/loss. One topic or theme that comes up in multiple poems between all three of the authors is the subject of family or home. In the poem “I Was…

Words 663 - Pages 3

Poetry Paper

Matt Monahan 11-5-14 Poetry/Creative Writing “The Seekers of Lice” written by Arthur Rimbaud had elements of French symbolism hidden in it. This poem was written during Rimbaud’s “genius” poetic time which occurred when he was 16-20 years old. The French symbolists era included synesthesia and crepuscular. Synesthesia is a sensation produced in one modality when a stimulus is applied to another modality, as when the hearing of a certain sound induces the visualization of a certain color. Crepuscular…

Words 327 - Pages 2

Poetry paper

Zach Miller AP Lit & Comp Period 1B Upon Julia’s Clothes The poem, Upon Julia s Clothes, is about a man admiring the way Julia looks. Nearly everything in its six short lines contributes to its admiring tone. Perhaps the most surprising thing about the poem is that it uses highly suggestive words. Through these words, the reader is able to find his opinion of Julia. Is he in love with her or does he have a relationship with her, or is she just a woman he admires from afar? While Upon Julia…

Words 672 - Pages 3

Poetry Paper 1

Short Paper Assignment Write a three­page paper, due in class on the date listed, which examines one of the poems scheduled to be discussed in class that day. (On days when we read long poems or sections of very long poems, you can discuss a 10­30 line passage). The guidelines for this paper are relatively loose, but you should plan on making some kind of interpretive claim about (and supported by specific evidence drawn from) the poem you discuss. You do not necessarily need an elaborate argument or specific claim…

Words 315 - Pages 2

Poetry Analysis Paper

Shelby Grant Per.8 Langston Hughes is a well known African American poet that emerged during the Harlem Renaissance. Writers like Carl Sandburg, Walt Whitman, and Paul Lawrence Dunbar were some of Hughes’ influences as well as his everyday life. During this time jazz was the new genre of music and the biggest thing in Harlem. All of these things formed the way that Hughes wrote and what he wrote about. Within his writing he has reoccurring themes of manipulation of women, desire to escape…

Words 1360 - Pages 6

Essay Poetry Paper

Eric Owen or "Bass-Baritone" is a phenomenal oboe player and opera singer. He is a role model for all choir and band students. Eric Owens first started music when he was six, he played the piano. As he got older in junior high he play we the clarinet. Later he switched to the oboe. He and his mother lived alone together when his dad divorced. They lived through hard times together. When Mr. Owens was in high school at Central High School he switch to choir his senior year. Then…

Words 322 - Pages 2

Poetry Paper Feb 2012

2012 Father Roles Poetry is like a literature puzzle that needs to be solved. The answers (interpretations) to the puzzle however, are not the same for everyone. I had a little trouble finding my interpretations of “My Papa’s Waltz” by Theodore Roethke, and “Daddy” by Sylvia Plath, but at the end of my readings and analysis I felt as if I understood the authors and their emotions. Trying to compare and contrast them was a new and challenging experience for me with poetry but it ended up being…

Words 1412 - Pages 6

An Analysis Of Lorde's View Of Poetry

believe poetry should make you think. Not just about whatever the poem is talking about, but more on like a general sense. Poetry should express the ideas of a writer and the job of the reader is to interpret those ideas and apply them to their life. Poetry is a form of art therefore, it should have admirers as well as those who prefer other things. The goal of a poem is not to have the whole world praising the author, but to promote the authors ideas in an artistic format. Lorde views poetry as having…

Words 408 - Pages 2

Quantum Mechanics and Pop Ch Essay

SYLLABUS – PMU 199 – The Poetry of Physics and the Physics of Poetry Instructor: Prof. Robert K. Logan Text: Poetry of Physics and Physics of Poetry – Robert K. Logan – World Scientific THE APPROACH TO OUR STUDY OF PHYSICS IN THE The basic concepts of physics are described in simple non-mathematical and non-technical language. The beauty of the ideas, namely, the poetry of physics, is presented. A short history of development of the ideas will be given so that students can relate to the…

Words 793 - Pages 4