Langston Hughes and William Blake were both prolific writers. They wrote about various things that many people, especially African Americans, could relate to. Langston Hughes" "Mother to Son" is a poem about a mother enlightening her son that life for her hasn't been easy. "The Little Black Boy", the poem written by William Blake, is about a little black boy who questions his mother on the differences between blacks and whites. The children in each poem learn a life lesson from their mother; however, they are learning about two different life lessons and the ages of the sons seem to differ in each one. Despite this difference, they both were remarkable.
In both poems, the sons are learning about life issues. In "Mother to Son", the narrator describes to her son that no matter what obstacles come in her way, she keeps climbing the stairs. "Tacks," "splinters," and other obstructions hinder her ascent, but she refuses to "set down on the steps." Looking deeper into the poem, the tacks placed on the staircase in the mother's path could be a specific oppressive incident placed there by another party. A splinter in the staircase is a negative consequence of the staircase itself. Therefore, the mother's "splinters" may have been the results of her actions upon her ongoing journey towards success. The mother also makes reference to "boards torn up." If boards were torn up or missing, then the mother had to skipped that step. This teaches the son that one small step does not comprise an entire staircase, so it may be necessary to skip some steps in life but you can still make it to the top. Some parts of the stairs may not have carpet on them. This simply implies that there were times that the mother fell and there was nothing there to cushion her fall, just the hard wood floor. Not only would it hurt to stumble and fall, but she had to get up and continue to climb to the top. .
Despite the hardships that the mother faces, she keeps climbing towards her goal.
