"Mother to Son" is my favorite Langston Hughes poem. It's the poem that grabbed my interest back in college and made me seek out more of his work. You can
read it here.
Discussion Questions:
1. What is the message of this poem?
2. What imagery reinforces that message?
1. Basically, even when life gets rough, you have to keep going, like climbing up a rough staircase. You can't just give up because things aren't going smoothly.
ReplyDeleteExactly.
Delete2. All the problems in our lives are like splinters, and tacks, and torn up boards, and bare places. They're annoying, and they can be painful, but we can keep going anyway. Reaching landings is like hitting a milestone in your life, accomplishing something. Turning corners is trying something a different way. Going on in the dark is like how you can't always see how something is going to end up. A crystal stair is easy to climb, smooth, and predictable, and life isn't like that. Life is more like the rough staircase.
ReplyDeleteI love it. Spot on.
Delete1. That life is hard, and even when it's painful or difficult, or just uncomfortable, you still have to keep on living and you can't just give up. We have this horrible steep staircase at my school/church, and my friends and I always talk about how we need to get an escalator to replace it, but now I guess I'll feel guilty every time we say that, since building an escalator is sort of giving up on life haha!
ReplyDeleteHaha! Well, now you can memorize this poem and recite it as you climb that awful staircase.
DeleteSometimes a task or idea or experience being too hard does mean you need to stop and try something new. But that isn't true of life itself. You can't just sit around and wait for the staircase of life to turn into a beautiful and perfect climb.
2. The tacks she (she as in the mother) mentions and the bare, uncarpeted parts of the staircases and the splinters and the torn up boards, meaning like all the rough patches. But she also mentions landings and corners, which I think the landings are like the moments of peace in a life, and the corners times when you don't know exactly what to expect. She also says she's had to climb the staircase in the dark, like when you're just doing what you know best, and hoping to get out of the confusion soon. I also think saying that it's not a CRYSTAL staircase is an interesting thing. I mean, maybe I just am uninformed, but I've never heard of a crystal staircase before, besides maybe in a Grimm's fairy tale. But crystal is something wealthier people have, and crystal is just smooth glass. So it's implying that she's not walking a smooth, well cut staircase, and also glass is transparent, so it's also implying that like when you turn corners, you aren't surprised by what's around it, because you saw right through the glass.
ReplyDeleteYes! Life isn't always hard. Life isn't always easy. Sometimes, you can rest. Sometimes, you have to step out in faith even though things are dark.
DeleteYou're right, a crystal staircase is kind of an imaginary thing. And it could be good, as in rich and fancy and smooth and perfectly balanced, maybe glittering... but it makes me think of Elsa's ice palace in Frozen, right? A crystal staircase would be really pretty... but also smooth and slippery. It could be treacherous.