Mother To Son Literary Devices

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Tacks, splinters, and torn up boards. Doesn’t this seem like a wonderful place to live? For the mother in the poem “Mother to Son” this was her everyday reality. Unlike most people there was no one there to help her when she fell down or lead her in the right way, she was always working for everything she had in her life. The hardships of life are represented by a dark beat up staircase in the poem “Mother to Son” by Langston Hughes. Throughout the poem Langston uses powerful symbolism, diction, and form to show how someone coming from nothing can still come out on top. Throughout the poem the author references a beat up staircase which represents life and and its hardships. “Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair” symbolizes how she wasn’t …show more content…

The powerful diction in the poem sets the tone for the over meaning of the poem. “Splinters” representing the troubled times which stuck with her through her life like a splinter under skin. “Bare” means that there was no cushion to the problems that came to her. She had to face the whole problem at once without any help. “Turnin’ corners” or to change her direction in life in order to come out on top in the end. Throughout the poem the speaker's diction accentuates her persistence to live and end atop all the problems. The form of the poem represents the ups and downs of her life, if one were to turn the poem sideways the good times are longer lines and the hard times are shorter lines. “Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair” is one of the longer lines due to the fact that she is talking about what good life could have been for her like the beauty of a “crystal stair”. The shortest line is one word, “Bare” representing the stark reality of her existence. Another short line is “And splinters” which stands for the painful moments of her life that have stuck with her. The form of the poem shows that the last line being the longest represents how happy she is to have overcome her painful

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