Just Keep Climbing Langston Hughes

Just Keep Climbing “Life’s not fair” is a common and relatively true phrase. Langston Hughes illustrates the toughness and possible unfairness of life in the poem “Mother to Son”, providing the metaphor of everyone’s life being a staircase to climb. This metaphor is used as life advice and given to the audience (a boy) by the speaker (his mother); and brings to light the idea that everyone has their own struggles in life, but determination will cause less suffering than surrender. In the beginning it becomes clear that this is an epistolary poem, more specifically a letter of advice from a mother to her son. She starts by making it known that her life has not been and will probably never be considered easy. She introduces this idea by comparing life to a staircase, “Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair”

She continues this comparison by explaining the staircase she has been climbing, or the life she has been living. “It’s had tacks in it/And splinters/And boards torn up” (3-5). While all of these are literal obstacles one might encounter on a real staircase, they are also symbols that represent the obstacles in the speaker’s life; She must overcome these stuggles in order to continue climbing the stairs, or living her life. However these are not the only things in the speaker’s way, she has also spent many times feeling as if she is lost in her life or has no direction. “And sometimes goin’ in the dark/Where there ain’t been no light” (12-13). The description of being fully submerged in darkness shows a sense of unawareness and confusion. When one is in complete darkness they have no sense of direction, where they are or where they are headed; That feeling causes guessing to be their only hope of finding light. The speaker at this point in the poem has reached a time in her life where she has lost sense of who she is, or what the right direction is toward the future. Being lost causes her to lose