Langston Hughes, an influential figure of the Harlem Renaissance, wrote 'Mother to Son' at age 21, illustrating the struggles of African Americans against poverty and discrimination. The poem, structured as a conversation between a mother and son, uses literary devices like metaphor and symbolism, notably portraying life as a challenging stairway rather than a smooth path. It emphasizes resilience, as the mother encourages her son not to give up despite life's hardships.

1. Mother To Son Literary Devices
Langston Hughes, born in 1902, was an African American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist. He is best known as a leader
of the Harlem Renaissance (1920s). In other words, Hughes established himself as unofficial poet laureate of Harlem. For his many works of
Harlem, he described the African American experience. Hughes wrote the poem called "Mother to Son," when he was 21 years old. This poem
was first published in the magazine Crisis in December of 1922. In most of Hughes' work, he explores the lives of African Americans who
struggle against poverty, discrimination and social injustice. He structures this poem as a conversation between a mother and her son. This is a
free verse poem consists of twenty lines. There is no regular rhythm or recognized rhyme in this poem. Hughes used literary devices such as
informal language, symbolism, metaphors, repetition, as well as clever use of format, and more interestingly the conversation between a mother
and her son with poetic words. In the poem, mother used the stairway as a metaphor to...show more content...
She then explains all the different struggles that she had suffered through her life span. At the beginning of the poem, she tells her son not to
give up no matter how hard it is to keep going on. In the poem, she says that "Life for me ain't been no crystal stair. It's had tacks in it" (2–3).
The use of the word "ain't" indicates that the mother is not a scholarly person. In addition to that "crystal stair" represents the smoothness and
beauty of an individual's life which was absent in this mother's life life. It seems, that the mother has been born in poverty, as the images reveal
"And boards torn up, / And places with no carpet on the floor" (5–6). This indicates that she experienced hazardous circumstances, which
somehow she needed to step over to arrive where she stands
Get more content on HelpWriting.net