Mother to Son

Summary

Mother to Son is a twenty-line poem by Langston Hughes, first printed in The Crisis, the magazine of the NAACP edited by W. E. B. Du Bois, in December 1922, and collected four years later in Hughes's first book, The Weary Blues (1926). It is a dramatic monologue: the whole poem is spoken by a mother to her son, in her own voice and in the speech of a working Black woman of the time. She begins with a plain announcement. Well, son, she will tell him: life for her ain't been no crystal stair. Instead of a gleaming, easy staircase, hers has had tacks in it, and splinters, and boards torn up, and places with no carpet on the floor, bare. But all the time she has been climbing on, reaching landings, turning corners, and sometimes going in the dark where there has been no light. Then she turns her experience into a charge. So, boy, don't you turn back. Don't you sit down on the steps because you find it's kind of hard. Don't you fall now, for she is still going, still climbing, and life for her ain't been no crystal stair. The poem ends where it began, but the repetition now sounds like a badge of honor rather than a complaint. The whole poem rests on one extended metaphor. A crystal stair suggests ease, wealth and beauty; the mother's stair is worn, rough and sometimes unlit. Each hazard stands for a hardship she does not need to name, and her climb stands for a life of steady effort. Hughes's short lines and the rhythm of her speech make the poem sound spoken rather than written. The poem should be taught as what it is, a mother's lesson in perseverance. She does not pretend life is easy, and she does not let her son quit. Her example comes first, then her words. In a classical Christian classroom the poem sits naturally beside the biblical call not to grow weary in well doing and beside the honor Scripture gives to the counsel of a mother.

Plot or Argument

• No crystal stair (lines 1-7)

  The mother tells her son that her life has not been a crystal stair but a rough one, with tacks, splinters, torn-up boards and bare places with no carpet.

• Still climbing (lines 8-13)

  All the time she has kept climbing, reaching landings, turning corners and sometimes going on in the dark where there was no light.

• Don't you turn back (lines 14-20)

  She charges her son not to turn back, sit down or fall because the way is hard, for she is still going and still climbing, and she repeats her opening line.

Characters

• The mother, Speaker

  A hardworking woman who has climbed a rough stair all her life and now urges her son to keep climbing too.

• The son, Listener

  The young man she addresses as son, boy and honey, who seems tempted to give up.

Lessons

• Example before advice

  The mother first tells what she has done, climbing through every hardship, and only then tells her son what to do. Her words carry weight because her life backs them up. Students can learn that the most persuasive teachers practice what they preach.

  • What has the mother done before she tells her son not to turn back?
  • Why does her own story make her advice stronger?
  • Who has taught you more by example than by words?

• The extended metaphor of the stair

  Hughes builds the whole poem on one image. Tacks, splinters, torn boards and dark stretches each stand for a hardship. Students can practice reading a metaphor all the way through and saying what each part might mean.

  • What is a crystal stair, and what kind of life does it stand for?
  • What hardships might the tacks, splinters and dark places stand for?
  • What are the landings and corners in a person's life?

• Do not grow weary

  The mother's commands, don't you turn back, don't you sit down, don't you fall, teach perseverance plainly. Hughes wrote in a time of segregation and poverty for many Black families, which makes her steadiness heroic. Scripture also calls believers not to be weary in well doing.

  • Why does the mother say don't you three times?
  • What tempts people to sit down on the steps?
  • How can a family or a church help someone keep climbing?

Context

In the early 1920s many Black Americans had moved from the rural South to Northern cities in the Great Migration, where they found work but also crowded housing, low wages and discrimination. The Crisis, edited by W. E. B. Du Bois for the NAACP, published news, essays and creative work by Black writers and helped launch the Harlem Renaissance.

Composition

Hughes was twenty-one when the poem appeared in The Crisis in December 1922, a year after the same magazine printed The Negro Speaks of Rivers. He used the speech patterns of the working people he knew for the mother's voice. The poem was collected in The Weary Blues (New York: Knopf, 1926).

Reception

Mother to Son became one of Hughes's most anthologized poems and a classroom staple, especially for its extended metaphor and its spoken voice. Its phrase crystal stair has been borrowed in titles and speeches as shorthand for an easy life that most people never have.

Comparisons

• Dreams

  Printed a few months later, Dreams gives a son similar counsel in pictures of a broken-winged bird and a frozen field.

• The Pilgrim's Progress

  Bunyan's Christian must climb the Hill Difficulty, a steep and narrow way, instead of taking the easy paths around it; the mother's stair is a similar picture of the hard road that must be climbed.

• Up from Slavery

  Booker T. Washington tells his own climb from slavery through hard work and schooling, a prose story of the perseverance the mother models.

• If—

  Kipling's father gives his son long, measured advice about endurance; Hughes's mother gives the same lesson briefly, in her own dialect and from her own scars.

Quotes

For Students

A reading companion for classical Christian high school students. See the student guide.

Reading Guide

Watch for

• The crystal stair in line 2, and how the mother's stair is different.
• The list of hazards in lines 3-7: tacks, splinters, torn-up boards and bare places.
• The climbing words in lines 8-13: climbin', reachin', turnin', goin'.
• The turn at So boy in line 14, where her story becomes advice.
• The repeated last line and how it sounds different at the end.

Key terms and names

Dramatic monologue

A poem spoken entirely by one character to a listener; here the mother speaks to her son.

Extended metaphor

A comparison carried through a whole poem; life as a staircase is the extended metaphor of Mother to Son.

Crystal stair

An imagined staircase of shining glass, a picture of an easy, beautiful and comfortable life.

Landing

The flat platform at the top of a flight of stairs or between flights, a place to rest before climbing on.

Dialect

The particular way a group of people speaks; Hughes writes the mother's words as she would say them.

The Crisis

The magazine of the NAACP, edited by W. E. B. Du Bois, where the poem was first printed in 1922.

Seminar Questions

1. Comprehension What does the mother say her life has not been, and what has it been like instead?
2. Comprehension What three things does she tell her son not to do?
3. Interpretation What might the dark places with no light stand for in the mother's life?
4. Interpretation Why does the poem end with the same line it began with? Does it mean the same thing the second time?
5. Interpretation Why do you think Hughes wrote the mother's words in her own way of speaking?
6. Big Question Why is it so tempting to sit down when life is hard, and what helps a person keep climbing?
7. Big Question What do children owe to the parents and elders who have climbed hard stairs before them?

Faith Connections

• Galatians 6:9 (Scripture)

  And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not, the same charge the mother gives her son.

• Hebrews 12:1-3 (Scripture)

  Christians are told to run with patience the race set before them, looking to Jesus, who endured, lest they be wearied and faint in their minds.

• Proverbs 1:8-9 (Scripture)

  My son, hear the instruction of thy father, and forsake not the law of thy mother: Scripture honors the very kind of counsel this mother gives.

• Bunyan, The Pilgrim's Progress, Part I (the Hill Difficulty) (Great Conversation)

  Christian climbs the steep Hill Difficulty on hands and knees rather than take the easy paths around it, which lead to destruction.

Logic and Rhetoric

Central argument: Life has not been easy for the mother; it has been full of hazards and darkness; yet she has kept climbing and is still climbing; therefore her son must not turn back, sit down or fall when life is hard for him.

Rhetorical device: Extended metaphor. Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair, followed by tacks, splinters, torn-up boards, landings and corners, carries one image through the whole poem.

Debate: Resolved: The mother's example teaches more than her advice.

Memory Work

Well, son, I’ll tell you: Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair

So boy, don’t you turn back; Don’t you sit down on the steps, ’Cause you finds it’s kinder hard

Writing Prompts

Essay: Explain what the mother teaches her son about perseverance and how the image of the stair helps her teach it.

Comparison with The Pilgrim's Progress: Compare the mother's climb in Mother to Son with Christian's climb up the Hill Difficulty in The Pilgrim's Progress. What keeps each climber going?

Creative Prompts

• Poetry

  Write a short poem in the voice of a parent, grandparent or teacher who uses one extended metaphor, such as a road, a river or a mountain, to tell a young person to keep going.

• Classroom

  Have students read the poem aloud in pairs, one as the mother and one listening as the son, then write the son's reply in a few lines.

• Essay

  Explain how Hughes uses the extended metaphor of the stair to show both the hardness of the mother's life and the strength of her character.

Further Reading

• The Weary Blues, Langston Hughes

  His first book of poems (1926), which collected Mother to Son.

• The Big Sea, Langston Hughes

  Hughes's 1940 memoir of his childhood, travels and the Harlem Renaissance.

• The Life of Langston Hughes, Arnold Rampersad

  The standard two-volume biography.

• Langston's Salvation: American Religion and the Bard of Harlem, Wallace D. Best

  A study of religion in Hughes's life and work.