Mother To Son By Langston Hughes Analysis

Art is an expressive outlet for people to be able to get an important point across. That could either be affected by social/political issues taking place at the time or their personal experiences. These events and experiences have led to the breakthrough of many texts. Langston Hughes, the author of poems, Mother to Son and Let America be America again captures the Harlem Renaissance period, which was a social and artistic revival of the African American community. His poems explore the themes of stereotyping and taking action. John Lee Hancock also reinforces these themes through his moving film The Blind Side. The social contexts in which these texts were made help the public dive into and have an understanding of these events.

The film
The poem written from a mothers perspective giving loving advice to her son about the challenges life will throw, yet the importance of never giving up, subverts the usual stereotype that African Americans live a bad life, abusing drugs and being criminals. The audience feels the warmth and care from her southern dialect, “Don’t you fall now – for I’se still goin’ honey, I’se still climbin’’ and “life for me aint been no crystal stair”. The informal language also portrays a truthful motherly figure. The poem includes an extended metaphor, the person compares her life to a stair case, “life aint been no crystal stair, it’s had tacks in it, and splinters, and boards torn up, and places with no carpet on the floor- Bare.” This is a metaphor for the lack of comfort and poverty she lives in. Symbols like ‘tacks’ also symbolise the discomfort of life’s obstacles. By the smart use of informal language, symbolism, extended metaphor and repetition supports the idea that African Americans can make the right choices and are not necessarily limited to the life people see them as living all the time. Just because of the harsh circumstances they are going through. As the persona puts it. ‘Don’t you fall now, for I’se still going,
When Mrs Tuohy noticed him she immediately opened her home to him, giving him a place to stay, clothes to wear and soon became his legal guardian. Wingate Christian School also enrolled him after the sport coach’s inspirational words, “You don't admit Michael Oher because of sport, you admit him, because it's the right thing to do.” The biology teacher at the school shows compassion when helping him pass his exams by verbally giving him the test. And convincing the other staff that he does understand what they are teaching him, “He's been listening the whole time. It's amazing what he's absorbed. I'm not saying he's going to pass but Big Mike is not stupid.” The action that