Mother to Son

In the poem "Mother to Son" Langston Hughes expresses many tones but the main idea is to keep on moving forward through the rough and tough times. He uses many parts of figurative speech including metaphors and similes. Langston uses the metaphor "Life for me ain't been no crystal stair." to show that life is hard and there will be tough times, but you need to power through those or you'll fall behind. A quote from Forest Gump can also explain it "Life's like a box of chocolates, you'll never know what you get.". What Forest is saying is similar to what the mother is saying is that you'll get many different obstacles but you have to eat them(keep chugging).