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Explication Essay
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In Langston Hughes’s poem, Mother to Son, the audience is aware of whom the speaker of the poem is from the title, itself. The audience is fully aware that a mother speaking to her son because in the first line of Hughes poem the mothers says, ““Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.” According to Dictionary.com Unabridged crystal is defined as “glass of fine quality and a high degree of brilliance...[and] composed of crystal.” When one looks at the word “crystal” within the context of the poem Hughes clearly used this word to make a point that the Mother’s life hasn’t been perfect. Things made out of crystal are often considered to be pristine and held to a much higher standard; this is both true of the time when this poem was written and even applies to the modern times. Since the Mother states “Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair/” Hughes obviously lets the reader know that the woman has had a hard life.
In the next five lines of the poem, lines three to seven, the mother tells her son exactly how her life hasn’t been easy. Langston has the mother tell her son that her life has “had tacks…splinters…boards torn up…places with no carpet on the floor—…Bare.” One look at Dictionary.com Unabridged one will learn of the definition of the tacks to be “a short, sharp-pointed nail...[or] a course of action or conduct, especially one differing from some preceding or other course.” In context, both definitions, would work within the poem. If one were to be a actual ph...
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