Mom to Son analysis

 The poem, Mother to Son, is inspiring and moving. I’m not likely to say it is the best poem among all the poems, but I can say it is the most relevant to our real world and meaningful to adolescent people like us. When I finish reading this poem at first, I feel sympathy for the mom in the poem. I don’t know what has she experienced in her life, but I can feel that her life was not easy. After I read it a couple of times, I can say this mother uses the most sincere and lively words to make her son understand how the world is like. “Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.”, which is a metaphor in the poem, points out the hardness of life. For her, life has tacks and splinters. She uses such vivid words to point out people’s lives must have difficulties and problems. Everyone cannot escape from the problems and difficulties in their real lives. Those vivid words can persuade and make it easier for her son to understand how life is like. Later, this mom uses her own experience to tell her son how to deal with those difficulties: face them. It might be profound for her son to understand the complexity of the society and human’s lives, so she still uses stairs as a symbol of life, and uses tacks and splinters as a symbol of challenges in lives. The sentence, “But all the time I've been a-climbing’ on”, reveals the courage of this mother. Although the lives might be tough, you cannot escape from it. This mom sets herself as a model for her son. She did not escape from it but try to face it and be tough. “And sometimes going the dark Where there ain’t been no light. So boy, don’t you turn back.”, points out that never give up to face the challenge in your life. There is no such time machine to make you restart some main points in your life. All you need to do is to face it so that you can get higher and higher. Maybe everyone’s life is like stairs, someone gives up in a midway, so they stayed in the middle of the stairs, but someone tries to face the challenge and finally make it, so they are getting higher and higher. This mom wants her son to be the person who is brave and getting higher and higher. I love this poem because the point that in this poem is useful and persuasive in our real worlds. The lives cannot be even like she said, people must face the difficulties and challenges in their lives. And those challenges and difficulties make the lives more meaningful. People who can handle those things can get better and better. This mom uses such vivid metaphor to tell her son what should you do when you have some problems and challenges in your life. It’s also useful for those adolescent people to understand the idea that never gives up and try to face the problems.
How can we handle the problems in our lives specifically?
What other advice you have to your son or the people who are growing up?
What makes you write this poem?
What challenges you faced in your lives and how could you make through them?