Mother to Son
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Langston Hughes was only 20 years old when he wrote "Mother to Son". It's amazing that by that age, he had already dealt with and began to discuss the hardships that African-Americans faced, such as poverty, discrimination & inequality. It was through vivid, figurative language that Hughes enabled to bring the poem alive. Hughes used strong symbols and metaphors to express the trials that the mother in the story endured. This symbolic poem received strong, applauding cheers from African-Americans. Through this poem, Hughes encouraged fellow African-Americans not to cease until they have reached to the top of their goal.
Hughes was very creative to use a motherly figure as a strong symbol in this poem of hope. Then using the son as a symbol for all the struggling African-Americans, he creates this visual scene for the reader to immerse into. He successfully used images of two different types of stairs as two different types of lives and he distinguished that the crystal stair is a metaphor for the American dream and the stairway that the mother is talking about is that of constant struggle and discouragement. Hughes used the term "crystal stair" to indicate that if a stairway is made of glass, it is clear, smooth and well-laid out...