The Image of the Mother in Langston Hughes’ “Mother to Son”

As a child of the early twentieth century, Langston Hughes endured trying times. Hughes and his mother lived most of their lives in poverty. As a youthfulness teen, Hughes began writing songs about the cosmos he saw by dint of his eyes a world of racial segregation and prejudice. This was the basis of many of his poems, and it was these poems that allowed him to influence the Harlem Renaissance. To him the image of the African American family is centered on the mother.The mother is the hitch around whom everything about the family revolves. She is indeed the epitome of the African proverb or specifically the Akan proverb that says The death of a mother marks the end of ones family. It is this image that permeates with Langston Hughes poem, Mother to Son. Although sometimes the father may share this role that the mother plays in the African American family structure, as portrayed in for example the movie Pursuit of Happyness, it is quite rare.Single parenthood hither is more oft en than not, about the mother who has been pushed into this horrible situation probably due to her husbands imprisonment for one crime or the other, the sheer neglect of his family or his demise which might impart been as a result of drug use or gun skins. A closer front at the poem reveals that in the African American family structure, not only is the mother mostly a single parent who is saddled with the financial burden of the family needs, but she is also a counsellor or a very squiffy motivational figure she uses her experiences in breeding to guide the growth of her children.In the poem Mother to Son just as the title suggests, it is a mothers advice to her son. The words of this poem offer strong encouragement and a sense of hope in a harsh world. Her words offer a positive outlook despite the difficult climb. At one point, the tone changes as it becomes a geek sarcastic she mentions that things get kinder (kind of) hard, when actually it has been worse than she makes i t sound. It awaits as if she does not want her son to chit-chat so much of the bad, but to simply focus on what was yet to come.Life has not been a crystal step for her, yet suggesting to him that those difficulties are, if not ultimately surmountable, at least worth struggling against and she is telling her son that it entrust not be easy for him either, but not to give up. Again, she is a disciplinarian and a subgenus Pastor who ensures that her children grow both physically and spiritually into well accepted people in their society.She believes in the pen Trainup a child the way he should go and when he is old, he lead never depart from it. She does not spare the rod when it becomes necessary. After describing the stairway of her life, the mother addresses the son by saying that he should not sit d bear or fall down just because his staircase is hard to climb. In the mothers eyes, the son should never give up. Instead he should see her as an example because it wasnt easy fo r her, but she never gave up. In the poem she says So boy, siret you turn back. entert you set down on the steps Cause you finds its kinder hard. Dont you fall now ____ For Ise still goin, honey, Ise still climbin, And life for me aint been no crystal stairThe mother again is a teacher she trains her children even to the point of career choice. At only twenty years of age, Hughes wrote the poem Mother to Son. The poets mother, who speaks in the congresswoman of the African- American teaches him he need not abandon that tradition in order to write poetry. all told poetry, she says, need not be about crystal stairs. It can have tacks and splinters in it, and places with no carpet on the floor.It need not conform to white conventions in either form or subject it can be bareyet it need not ignore those conventions if they can be of use (In fact, the line, And life for me aint been no crystal stair is written in iambic pentameter, the most traditional of English poetic meters). The poet discovers, from listening to his mother-muse, a way to bring the African-American experience into poetry. He finds a way to move forward, to keep climbing.We can read in this poem, then, a kind of metaphor for the young poets artistic coming of age. From his mother he learns the value and power of his vocation. He hears in her song his own voice which is to serve as the source of inspiration or the starting point of his poetry career. Obviously, through his many literary works, Hughes sought to build up his community (family) of African-Americans by instilling in them a sense of pride and triumph.This theme was frequently applied to his works as he wrote to encourage his readers to fight the battle against racism. In this poem as represented by the mother, he had hopes of somehow making a difference, a difference in which the world could change from its biased ways. One may be put off by tacks and splinters such as racial discrimination and sometimes circumstances may appear B are but he must .