Langston Hughes was a great story writer and poet. He has written numerous pieces of work that has made him a key literary figure in the Harlem Renaissance. He expressed his thoughts, feelings, and views of the Harlem Renaissance through his writing. In his writings he has showed people how he and the people around him felt during the Renaissance era. The two pieces of work that I will be comparing are the short story "Thank You, Ma'am- and the poem "Mother to Son-. The short story "Thank You, Ma'am- and the poem "Mother to Son-, both by Langston Hughes are similar yet different in many ways. In the following paragraphs I will explain the similarities and the differences.
Besides being written by the same author the two literary works are a like in the sense that they are both giving advice to young people. An example from "Mother to Son- is "So boy don't you turn back, don't set you down those stairs cause you find its kinder harder, don't you fall now-. Basically this statement is saying that when times get harder don't give up, just keep on going. An example from "Thank you Ma'am- is when Mrs. Jones says " I were young once and I wanted things I couldn't get, I have done things, too, which I would not tell you son "neither God, if he didn't already know-. This passage is saying that you don't get everything you want in this world and you don't get to do everything you want in this world. You .
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have to just take what you can get and be happy. Both works are sharing there experiences with younger people to try to help them to learn from the mistakes they have made in their life. They give the young people their advice showing kindness and by delivering messages in a sort of hidden way that you have to think a little before getting.
Also both stories are written with the same kind of language. An example of this is words like "M' am-, "No' m-, and "Yes' m- from "Thank You, M' am- and words like "I' se- "a-climbin' ", and "aint- from "Mother to Son-.