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Langstone Hughes: Poems

Hughes structured the poem as a conversation between a mother and his son. The mother

narrates to her son how she has experienced life; the mother describes her life symbolically,

she uses symbols such as dark corners,splinters, tacks, and uncarpeted floors. She encourages

her son not to look back and focus forward. In her case, moving forward is represented by the

staircase with ‘‘tacks” and ‘‘splinters.’’ Regardless of the bare stairs, she still climbs to reach

turning corners and endure in the darkness. The theme portrayed in this poem is the theme of

struggle. The mother encourages her son not to give up in life; she persevered her struggles

with hope to reach the highest level.

The poem “I too” describes an African American man who is either a servant or a

slave; he does not have a defined identity. He begins by saying he too can “sing America,”

this shows that he claims to have the patriotic right of an American in regards to him being a

‘darker’ brother. The theme of racial discrimination is evident in this description. The

segregation of the pasona from sitting at the table and eating in the kitchen shows the

prejudice of the persona. Regardless of the discrimination, he believes that “tomorrow he will

join the table and no one will dare to send him to the kitchen, instead, he will appear

“beautiful,”, and discriminators will be ashamed.

In both poems, their speakers are struggling and fighting towards achieving. They

have hope that the future will be better if they persevere in their current situation. Change is

not straightforward, but a struggle, after the battle, there is a better life. The mother
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encourages the son to have faith and endure struggles for a better tomorrow. The “Dark” man

also perseveres eating in the kitchen happily, knowing that “tomorrow,” he will join the table,

and no one will chase him away. The moral lesson from the poems is to encourage people to

persevere the challenges they face in life as they struggle to see a better feature. The

motivation of the characters in the poem is having faith in a brighter future and success softer

struggle.

The motive of the author Langstone Hughes is to give hope to individuals who are facing

different challenges in life. He describes struggle as a part of human life and shows the

positive result of endurance. A challenging situation is not there to last forever; they are there

for a short period and later to be a life experienced.

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Work cited

Hughes, Langston. Selected Poems of Langston Hughes. Vintage, 2011.

Mullen, Edward J. Critical Essays on Langston Hughes. Ed. G. K. Hall. GK Hall, 1986.