Extended Metaphor In Mother To Son, By Langston Hughes

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In "Mother to Son," Langston Hughes uses an extended metaphor and throws in other metaphors as well. He first starts to compare life to a staircase. However, this is not a luxury staircase that is made of glass. It is a cheap, worn down, and broken staircase. He uses this metaphor through the entire poem to describe the mother's life as extremely hard and agonizing. As the poem progresses, he uses smaller metaphors to describe the staircase and to explain that the mother has always tried to climb it. At the beginning, Hughes says that her staircase has tacks and splinters in it, boards torn up, and places where there has been not carpet. These words have a very broad meaning and can be interpreted multiple ways. In addition, the author shows