Mother To Son Theme

Family and the growth of children into adults is a central idea in many poems. Langston Hughes’s “Mother to Son” and Richard Wilbur’s “The Writer” are examples of the use of children as inspiration for poems. Although the kids may go through hardships, these two poems encourage their children to be successful in life. Both poems may have similar themes, but the two authors take very different approaches to writing the poem by using different forms and choices of literary devices. To begin, “The Writer” and “Mother to Son” share similar themes throughout the poems. The first of which is hardships. In “The Writer” the speaker describes how becoming a writer will be a struggle for his daughter. The speaker also goes on to allude to the hardships he had in life when he was becoming a well known poet. On a similar note, “Mother to Son” brings to life a talk that a mother is giving her son, telling him “Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair” (Hughes) in hopes of encouraging him not to give up. In addition to hardships, both stories also revolve around hope. The speaker in “The Writer” wishes his daughter will be successful, and speaks at length about how she hangs on every word like great writers. When his daughter stops writing, the speaker feels worried because he does not want her to fail. Similarly the

For instance, he explains a scene when his daughter was typing away and thinking through every single word she wrote.Wilbur writes that each word is a matter “Of life or death.” (Wilbur) Most people will not have a child that will be a writer so they cannot, as easily as Langston Hughes’s poem, place their own children as the subject. Both Richard Wilbur and Langston Hughes use metaphors to portray the speakers’ children’s lives. “Mother to Son” uses a staircase to symbolize the child 's life while “The Writer” uses a boat sailing on the sea as its