mother to son

mother to son

Monday, June 17, 2013

Hello, I am Sammy Westfall.

This is a book is a poem by Langston Hughes called “Mother to Son.” It is a poem about how a how life is not going to be perfect. You are going to have to go through struggles and troubles. You will have to overcome obstacles because life is not supposed to go smoothly. The poem is written like the mother is saying this advice directly to her son. This makes us, the readers, feel like we are receiving the advice ourselves and that is a really nice feeling. It makes us relate to the poem more and think about the times when our own mothers told us things about life. Has your mother ever given you speeches about how life is and will be? This is exactly what this poem is trying to make us feel. The writer of the poem, Langston Hughes, uses imagery* to describe the poem to us. He describes that life is going to be a more of a “bare and dark” staircase instead of a “crystal staircase.” One good thing about his poem is that he doesn’t use long words to describe things-‐ he doesn’t have to! We, the readers, can imagine the staircase just as well-‐if not better-‐ with simple words that we can understand easily!

I divided the poem into different parts and painted some pictures for each one. I used watercolors to paint them. I tried painting different things that just a staircase over and over, so that the book would not be so repetitive.

I hope you like it!

Sammy W*Imagery- vivid descriptive language that appeals to one or more of the senses


1


Well, son, I'll tell you:Life for me ain't 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.


1


But all the time I'se been a-climbin' on,And reachin' landin's,And turnin' corners,And sometimes goin' in the darkWhere there ain't been no light


1


So, boy, don't you turn back.Don't you set down on the steps.'Cause you finds it's kinder hard.Don't you fall now—


1


For I'se still goin', honey,I'se still climbin',


I


And life for me ain't been no crystal stair


Analyses


Painting AnalysisThis poem was really interesting to illustrate. Most of the poem is a description of ta staircase-‐ which represents life. Of course, life is not actually a staircase, so I had to imagine what it would look like in my head. The cover is really simple and I like it like that. I only used one shade of the same color clue so I thought that would keep the attention at the poem mostly. I thought that blue would ?it because it is a really calm color and I thought that was what a crystal staircase is supposed to be like. The ?irst page is a mother talking to her son. I decided to paint their pro?iles separated by abstract lines. I thought this line sort of represented how they are connected and maybe even give the impression of speaking. Next, I tried to draw the opposite of a crystal staircase-‐ one with cracks, thorns, and tacks. I also added some ghostly ?igures to represent the troubles we will face in life, because I did not want to literally draw the troubles. For the next picture, I illustrated “And sometimes goin’ in the dark/ Where there ain’t been no light.” I did this by simply drawing a plain, black shape. I think this kept it straightforward and did not take away from the poem. In the next Here, I drew that same boy, older, but falling down. From the line “Don’t you fall now.” This is less of a reality and more of a warning picture. This is to show that though he may fall, should not give up. This is my favorite picture in the book, maybe in all of the picture. It shows the hand of the mother reaching out to the kid. It is sort of a continuation of the last picture. It is true, nothing like this happens in the poem. Also, it does not even really match the words in the poem that it corresponds with. But I think that it ?its, because it shows the mother helping the boy back onto the staircase-‐ just like she is helping him with life by sharing this advice. This last picture, I think, is a nice little ending that just shows the crystal staircase for the ?irst time since the cover. It is again, really simple and I like it like that. Overall it was really nice to paint this poem, though it was hard to get the staircase drawings look good at the beginning. I think this is my favorite poem of the collection, and hope that I did it justice.


Mother to Son” by Langston Hughes is a very relatable poem for people all over. It is written in the point of view of Hughes’ mother. She is giving him advice about life as if she were talking directly to him. She metaphorically tells him about life-‐ comparing it to a staircase. She uses this metaphor to tell him how life is going to be a perfect stroll in the park. It is not meant to be easy and fair. In fact, it may even just be the opposite. It is going to be a challenge where you will have to overcome struggles and face your fears. “It's had tacks in it,/ And splinters,/ And boards torn up,/ And places with no carpet on the ?loor” But though it is hard-‐ you are going to have to keep on going and not give up-‐ just as she has. After all of this time, she has not given up and even to this day-‐ she is still climbing. Langston is passing on the lesson to us, the readers-‐ just as his mother has.

Hughes incorporates many different poetry techniques in his poem such as imagery, metaphor, and emphasis. He uses emphasis especially in the following line. “And places with no carpet on the ?loor— / Bare.” He gives the word “Bare” its own line in the stanza and it follows a dash for even more emphasis. When reading this poem out loud, you are forced to take a long pause before saying the word “bare.” This really makes the staircase feel empty and shows his theme and message more clearly-‐ that life is not going to be a “crystal staircase”. He also uses a lot of imagery. I can imagine this perfect, glassy crystal staircase and also a twisty, dark, broken, creaky staircase in my head. He has really good word choice to create this imagery-‐ though he does it in a very interesting way. Instead of using long, complicated, descriptive words to create this imagery, he just uses simple words that we can easily relate to and create pictures of like “bare” and “dark”. He uses really unostentatious words that are not meant to sound pretentious and showy. He makes it really relatable as well, by starting with the lines “Well son, let me tell you” as if he is telling us the lesson. Also, how the lines “And sometimes goin in the dark/ Where there ain’t been no light” makes it seem informal and casual so we really feel like the audience of the poem and think of lessons from our own mothers. This makes us really feel like the poem was made for us.

Poem Analysis


mother to son

Documents

crystal staircase

painting analysisthis

dark staircase

crystal stairmonday

painting dierent things

langston hughes

time ise

simple words