Don't Give up ("Dealth Of a Salesman" vs. "Mother to Son")

Essay by hanxiao07High School, 11th grade March 2006

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After a long and tiresome day, one may feel like he or she is going to collapse and fall down, but somewhere around that person, there's always a friend there to encourage that person to keep on going. Similarly, in Langston Hughes's poem, "Mother to Son", one can see a passionate aspect of a loving relationship of family going through difficulty in hope for a better life. Likewise, in Arthur Miller's book, "Death of a Salesman", one can also see a family struggling through to get a better position and life in the society.

Parents are usually set as an idol for their child as to not giving up on life. This can be seen in "Mothers to Son", for which the mother explains to her son that her life had not been fancy or easy, but she is trying to get past it. While climbing her stairs, she states that she is "reachin' landin's, / and turnin' corners, / and sometimes goin' in the dark".

Although these may seem like usual problems someone may face on a staircase, but in the poem, they actually mean that she has encountered in her life. The mother says that she "reaches landings", which means that she has come up on place where she could rest but did not and kept on going. When she says she "turns corners", it means that her life is changing and she has to turn away from her original path. Her final comparison is when she says that she has to "go into the dark", which means that there are times in her life when she does not know what she can do to help herself. Similar in "Death of a Salesman", Willy has also come to face these problems in his life.