This poem is a great example of a writer who separates himself from the speaker of the poem. Langston Hughes was a Black man who wrote during the Harlem Renaissance; this poem is one of his many works. In "Mother to Son," he has crafted a different voice than his own to deliver a particular message. The speaker of this poem is a Black mother who employs metaphors to convey some much-needed truths to her son about persevering in the face of adversity.
Because this is the voice of a mother, Hughes uses a casual and realistic diction that reflects a familiar relationship. The mother's word choice also reflects her background; this is not the voice of a highly educated member of society who has coasted through her life. She uses vernacular such as "ain't," even reinforcing the rough grammar with a double negative. Her word choice depicts the dialect
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dialect of particularly Southern Black people from this era in words such as "I'se" and "kinder." She truncates the endings of words such as "climbin'" and "reachin'" to further connote her historical context. This is the voice of a hard-working mother whose humble background has given her the courage to keep climbing life's stairs, even in places where she is caught by metaphorical "tacks" and "splinters."
The historical context here is of paramount importance to the overall meaning. The poem was written in 1922, long before the civil rights movement. The speaker is a mother who wants to encourage her son to learn from her own life experiences. Likely born only a couple of decades after the Civil War, she has certainly faced adversity. She has struggled and faced a life that has been "bare" in places. Yet no matter the difficulty, she kept "climbin'," refusing to give up. This mother is adamant that her son refuse to "set down on the steps" now that he's reached a place in his life where it's "kinder hard."
Hughes has crafted the mother's voice in this way to reflect both her historical context and to imitate a natural speech pattern that a mother would use with her son in typical conversation. Her goal would not be to impress him with complicated words but to use her everyday speech to convey a crucial message: life is difficult, but she has proven through her own victories that her son can overcome any challenge.