Mrs. Luella Bates really hits the objective here. “Mother to Son,” demonstrates this as well. The mother really tries to wrap her son's mind around the topic of not giving up. “Don’t you fall now- For I’se still climbin’, and life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.”
The Harlem Renaissance was a period in American history, which occurred in the 1920s in Harlem, New York. The cultural movement was an opportunity for African Americans to celebrate their heritage through intellectual and artistic works. Langston Hughes, a famous poet, was a product of the Harlem Renaissance. One notable piece of literature by Hughes is “Dream Deferred”. However, the discussion of African American culture isn’t limited to the 1920s.
The Harlem Renaissance was a “outpouring of writing, music, and social criticism” (Baker, 1987) aimed at destroying the ever-present racism of the 1920s. Langston Hughes, an artist of the Harlem Renaissance, was a big contributor to change, inspiring those of his own time and later on to stand up for African American rights. Penning the 1926 manifesto The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain, Hughes encapsulated the thoughts of Harlem, and urged African Americans to be proud of their own culture, “without fear or shame” (Hughes in Bernard, 2011).
Langston Hughes was one the most well known names during the Harlem Renaissance. He was a writer whose pieces ranged from novels, to plays. He wrote short stories, children’s books, translations and anthologies as well. However, his most well known pieces were his poems. Langston's writing reflected the idea that black culture should be celebrated, because it is just as valuable as white culture.
The official United States immigration facilities located on Ellis Island received more than 12 million immigrants between 1892 and 1954. Ellis Island lies near the Statue of Liberty in the New York Harbor, near the mouth of the Hudson River. Ellis Island was used to register immigrants, and also to screen out those who had contagious diseases or legal problems that would be a burden to society. Inspection at Ellis Island was primarily for the poorer immigrants arriving as third-class passengers aboard steamships, the most common mode of arrival during this time period. Passengers in first and second-class were briefly screened on board the ships, and only had to stop through Ellis Island if they had obvious problems with their health or
Langston Hughes is one of the most well named writers of the Harlem Renaissance. Mr Hughes wrote for a variety of people from children books to plays but his most famous work are his poems. He moved to Harlem to attend college but he dropped out and began spending all his time in harlem writing and working to support himself. All of his writings reflected the African american culture because he believe it was just as important as the white culture. Some of his most famous pieces of work was “ Let America Be America Again” ,”One Way Ticket” and “Democracy”.
The mother in this poem has persevered in her past and uses examples to prove that life has been difficult. She uses many figurative words and phrases that give ideas of what she has been through. “Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair, It’s had tacks in it, And splinters...” (2-4). Although it may seem that it has been easy, there have been many obstacles.
The author developed the text using figurative language by saying no crystal stair. She says that her life is not easy with those words “life for me ain't been no crystal stair” because it has not been luxurious. She says this to her son to tell him to keep going if something happens. She later says that again that she still climbing even with her hard times “Cause you finds it’s kinder hard”“I’se been a-climbin’ on”. This shows how she didn't give up climbing the stairs of life.
“Mother to Son” is a poem that emphasizes the love and concern a mother has for her son and the life advice she bestows upon him. Langston Hughes conveys a theme of perseverance in the face of adversity through the use of imagery, extended metaphor and symbolism. In “Mother to Son”, Langston Hughes uses a massive amount of imagery in order to really bring his poem to life. The speaker of the poem, the mother, describes her life in the second line, saying: “Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair”.
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”
Moreover, Hughes states, “Well, son, I’ll tell you: life ain’t been no crystal stair” (1-2). This can be interpreted as a mother seeing her son going through a severe time. The audience can anticipate that a mother has a compassionate tone towards the son. Also, the reader can hear the empathy in her voice. She knows that life is not an easy road, and she sees that her son is having a rough time.
The metaphor in this poem is comparing life to a set of crystal and broken stairs; if your stairs aren’t broken you won’t be able to become a better well-being. The universal message in Mother to Son is everybody in life will have an uphill struggle, it is your job to conquer those struggles and soon enough you could create your own crystal path. In this poem no personification, similes or denotation were used but Hughes used a good amount of Ebonics throughout this poem. This poem gives off the impression that the mother was not well educated and lived in poverty by the use of words “ain’t” and “I’se and the line “And places with no carpet on the floor” (Hughes 559). Majority of the lines contain improper spelling of words such as climbin, turnin’,
Biography/Context: Langston Hughes (1902-1967) is widely considered as one of the most successful African-American poets of all time. He was also a columnist, playwright, novelist, and social activist for African-American rights. Consequently, Hughes wrote all sorts of literature about 20th century African-Americans living in Harlem--a major black residential within the Manhattan borough of New York City--and soon became an extremely influential figure in the Harlem Renaissance, which was the rebirth movement of African-American culture in the arts during the 1920s. Hughes also had great admiration for music, and was inspired by a variety of genres/musicians such as boogie, Bach, jazz, and blues. His special love for blues music caused
Langston Hughes was an American poem born in the early nineteen hundreds, who became known as the leader of the Harlem Renaissance. He published many poems that brought light to the life of people of color in the twentieth century. There are three poems that the speakers are used to portray three major themes of each poem. Racism, the American Dream, and Hopes are all the major themes that Hughes uses to highlight the average life of a person of color. Theme for English B,” “Harlem,” and “Let America Be America Again” were three of Hughes’s poems that was selected to underline the themes.
Langston Hughes is an African American Poet who is very closely connected to his culture and expresses his feelings very thoroughly through his poetry in a jazz style. Langston Hughes is a modern poet who ignore the classical style of writing poetry and instead, in favor of oral and improve traditions of the Black culture. In majority of Langston’s poetry, many of his audience seems to take away a very strong message that many can apply to themselves or to others or his poems gives you an educational background of what’s going on in the African American community right now. For example, Langston Hughes writes a poetry piece called Afro American Fragment, which gives you a great breakdown of what an everyday African American person goes through considering that their whole history is basically taken away from them. Langston seems to show his audience that in books we never hear much about what contributions a African American person has done except for being brought to America and being a slave.
