The Hardships Of A Mother And Son English Literature Essay

Everyone life is full of hardships but one must overcome from these hardships to achieve success in life. In the poem, “Mother to Son”, mother is encouraging her son for hard work by telling example of her own life and it can be seen as Litotes and Metaphor in the poem. Every mother wants her child to see as a successful person in her life. Therefore, she tells her child about the pitfalls of life so that her child not does the same mistake. She expects from her child to learn about life from her experience of life. And, this love and care of a mother for her child has demonstrated by Langston Hughes in the poem, “Mother to Son”. Through this poem Hughes wants to convey a message that everyone has to work hard in their life. No matter how difficult is your task but never give up in life. This message is especially for young African-American because Hughes wants to inspire his race.

“Mother to Son” poem is a dramatic monologue. It means there is only one speaker and that is a mother. Mother gives advice to her child that life is full of hardships but you have to never stop in your life. Mother tells to her child that never sits down or turns back in life just because of hardships. Always keep climbing on the ladder of success. Hughes has used lot of metaphors in this poem to compare life obstacles with other things, for example, “Well, son, I’ll tell you: Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair” Here Hughes has compared life with the stairs because climbing stairs is a exhaustive task and on the other hand climbing on the ladder of success is also a difficult task. Furthermore, she says that path to her destination was not clear “no crystal stairs” and it was full of obstacles. In addition, mother tells to her child that the path of the life is no as simple as it looks. It is consist of full of tacks, splinters and stumbling blocks but it doesn’t mean that we should stopped moving ahead. The Line 3 of “mother to son” has a word “it” which means life. According to some lines of “Mother to Son”, it appears that mother is not well educated and she is still fighting against the hardships of life. But, she has a better experience of life because she has learned a lot from obstacles in her life.

The language in the poem is also not grammatically correct which has good point that it gives a real feeling of mother to son conversation to a reader. Another important factor of this poem is metaphors which has been used to smoothly compare life problems with real life examples, for example, “reachin’ landin’s “, “climbin’on” and “turnin’ corners”. It means that mother is telling to her son that she has faced a lot of problems in her life. Problems were tough like climbing on a mountain but she never give up in her life. In this poem, mother also represents other black women and their struggle in their life. This poem also tells us about the hard time of black women has gone through. In spite of hardships, the advancement of mother in this poem represents progress of African-American women. This poem is mostly about African-American youngsters because the language of poem is not grammatically incorrect, for example, words like “reachin’ landin’s”, “climbin’on” and “turnin’ corners” are mostly used by black African-American.

Furthermore, mother advices her son that there is a need of determination and courage in life because she knows that her son is also going to face rough times in his life. Then after, mother gives examples of her life to like she has seen tough time in her life but she never lost her courage and determination during journey to her destination. Therefore, now she is a successful woman. Hughes in this poem has used some words very cleverly, for example, “goin’in the dark, where there ain’t been no light”, so that reader can easily imagine the situation in front of its eyes. In the above mentioned line of poem, Hughes has compared the difficulty of walking in the dark room with the hardships in life. So that, reader can feels the hardships in life as walking in dark room. Therefore, mother is preparing her son to fight against all hard times and to never ever give up in life. The last four lines of poem is an advice to son from his mother that don’t sit or turn back because of your problems, just keep on marching ahead and never give up. There is repetition of some similar meaning words which makes this poem more realistic rather than just a poem. In a daily life, when some one teach us about something then they repeat their words so that we could not forget their teaching in our whole life. Finally, mother tells to her son that she is still going through hardships but she is still fighting against it, for example, the line number 18 says “For I’se still goin’, honey,” , ” I’se still climbin’ ” it means that she is still struggling against obstacles of life. Hughes has used same technique in this poem so that reader could not forget the main idea of this poem.

“Mother to Son” poem by Langston Hughes teaches a lesson to those people who get scared of hardships in life. And, loose hopes to overcome from their hardships. This poem demonstrates that if we will work hard then we can win any race in this world no matter how rough is our way. In this poem, Hughes has done wonderful work with the use of metaphors, repetitions and informal words this which makes poem as a real life story and reader can visualize whole story in front of its eyes.