American poet Langston Hughes' poetry focused on race-related issues of his era in language that was readily accessible to his readers. His poetry reflects a love of humanity together with race pride and bitterness over the treatment of African Americans. The poem "Mother to Son" contains all these elements. It is both a poem of racial protest and racial affirmation. Above all, the poet speaks for life and hope. The poem is written in the first-person, and the narrator's voice is that of a mother passing onto her son both the knowledge and the lessons she has learned in life. Her motivation is to initiate her son in the realities of life, as well as her philosophy of life. Hughes uses the poetic device of the dramatic monologue that is a poem written as a speech made at some decisive moment in life. The mother/narrator's purpose is to instruct and to inspire. Her purpose is to teach her son to keep things in perspective in spite of difficulties. No matter how many hardships are encountered in life, she tells her son to kee
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