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Mother To Son By Langston Hughes Analysis

937 Words4 Pages

Summar Underwood Walking on Broken Stairs.
There is a simple truth that most of us will learn: Life is harsh. But we also learn that we can’t give up. Even if it hurts, we have got to keep going. We learn through personal experience or maybe even from a parent, like in the poem, “Mother to Son” by Langston Hughes. In this poem life is described as a crystal stair, a odd comparison, but one that is beautifully illustrated by using flaws in the stairs as a metaphor for flaws in her life, describing how she kept climbing to show how she went on with life and how stopping or sitting is giving up.

The author describes the stairs as splintery, broken boards to illustrate problems or mistakes that have “hurt” in the Mother’s in life. My evidence for this is in the text where it reads “ life for me ain’t been no crystal stair. It’s had tacks in it, and splinters, and boards torn up, and …show more content…

Confirmation is found in the text “I’se been climbin on, and reachin’ landins and turnin corners,” As was stated before climbing on is referring to her going on with her life, in consideration of life meaning stairs and you would climb stairs to continue you up them. Landings could be talking about times where she reached a goal of hers, akin to paying off a car or buying a house. This is because landings are usually resting points after a certain number of steps are complete, so they become goals for you in a way. Corners could be changing your path in life for something better since you're changing the direction the stairs are going, it would be like changing the direct of your life. For example, choosing to go to college at a later age, or going to rehab when you have addiction problems. To summarize, he shows the mother persistence despite her troubles in life by telling how she climbs the

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