The Image of the Mother in Langston Hughes' "Mother to Son"

THE IMAGE OF THEMOTHER IN LANGSTON HUGHES’S POEM, “MOTHER TO SON” As a child of the early twentieth century, Langston Hughes endured trying times. Hughes and his mother lived most of their lives in poverty. As a young teen, Hughes began writing poems about the world he saw through his eyes - a world of racial segregation and prejudice. This was the basis of many of his poems, and it was these poems that allowed him to influence the Harlem Renaissance. To him the image of the African American family is centered on the mother. The mother is the point around whom everything about the family revolves. She is indeed the epitome of the African proverb or specifically the Akan proverb that says:” The death of a mother marks the end of one’s family”. It is this image that permeates through Langston Hughes poem, “Mother to Son”. Although sometimes the father may share this role that the mother plays in the African American family structure, as portrayed in for example the movie “Pursuit of Happyness”, it is quite rare. Single parenthood here is more often than not, about the mother who has been pushed into this horrible situation probably due to her husband’s imprisonment for one crime or the other, the sheer neglect of his family or his demise which might have been as a result of drug use or gun fights.
A closer look at the poem reveals that in the African American family structure, not only is the mother mostly a single parent who is saddled with the financial burden of the family needs, but she is also a counsellor or a very strong motivational figure; she uses her experiences in life to guide the growth of her children. In the poem “Mother to Son” just as the title suggests, it is a mother's advice to her son. The words of this poem offer strong encouragement and a sense of hope in a harsh world. Her words offer a positive outlook despite the difficult climb. At one point, the tone changes as it becomes a bit sarcastic - she mentions that things get "kinder" (kind