In one of his early poems, Mother to Son, Langston Hughes tells his readers that one must have courage and determination to overcome life's obstacles. This poem is best known for its dramatic use of monologue and the symbolism of the "crystal stairs". However, the poem also uses other literary devices such as metaphors, repetition and dialect to create a certain characteristic, impression and image. Among all the different literary techniques and devices manipulated by Langston Hughes, I would like to discuss his use of age, gender, and memory to uncover the multi-layered meanings from mother to son. On the surface, the poem is the monologue of a tired man. mother telling her son about life's difficulties, as shown in the title. Why did Hughes choose to use a mother's voice rather than a father's in this poem? I take the absence of the father in the poem as a clue. Such an absence and the speaker's account of her struggles perhaps imply one of the many struggles the poem's son will experience and reinforce the speaker's own struggle to raise a child and cope with harsh reality without a husband. Given such a complex situation, the age and gender of the narrator adds a story to what the poem is about and sets the mood and tone. Additionally, age and gender characterize the entire poem creating the narrator's maternal voice. This, combined with the use of dialect in the poem, Hughes managed to create a certain impression of the narrator: a middle-aged, warm and approachable woman, without formal education but with much life experience and wisdom. Through such manipulation of the speaker's age and gender, Hughes recounts a mother's personal struggle and further offers encouragement and breakthroughs in life...... middle of paper ... ... reliable literary devices such as symbolism, metaphor, repetition and language, Hughes uses age, gender and memory to set tone, create a unifying voice and theme of overcoming struggles with determination and courage . The age and gender of the speaker in this poem are particularly significant in that they not only set the tone, but also give voice to the poem's most dominant and important theme: the collective memory of Afro- Americans. Therefore, Hughes's use of age, gender, and memory transforms Mother to Son into something more than a short narrative poem of a tired and worried mother giving life advice to her son. Works cited “Collective memory -”. Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Internet. February 19, 2010..Hughes, Langston. “From mother to son. » Collected Poems of Langston Hughes. New York: Vintage, 1995.