Connections

The three poems by William Blake, Langston Hughes, and Weldon Kees all share the common theme of parenthood but each takes a different approach on the subject. The poems are somewhat cryptic to me as only "Mother to Son" is the most easily accessible poem of the three.

"Mother to Son" seems to be about a mother informing her son about the hardships of her life as she says that "Life for me ain't been no crystal stair", which seems to be a metaphor similar to that of the "silver spoon"  in the sense of how one's life plays out. The mother goes on saying that her journey "had tacks on it....splinters...and places with no carpet on the floor", which is supposed to represent obstacles and hardships she faced in life. She talks about persevering as says that she has been "climbin' on and reachin' landin's" even in times of uncertainty as she mentions "goin' to the dark where there ain't been no light". Afterwards the focus shifts to her son as she tells him not to give up in the face of life's obstacles with the phrases "don't you set down on the steps" and "don't you fall now". With a mother addressing her son about the hardships of life, the obstacles she's referring to wouldn't be gender centric since her son wouldn't have the same experiences as a male. Since this is a Hughes poem, its reasonable to conclude that the hardships she refers to are those that would arise from racism.

"The Chimney Sweeper" has a boy that's sold to child labor by his father and sweeps chimneys for his "master" or "owner". It seems that Tom Dacre is the boy who was sold by his father, even though it is established that the speaker is not Tom. With the angel in Tom's dream telling him that "if he'd be a good boy He'd have God for his father and never want joy", Blake establishes a connection between Tom and the beginning of the poem. If this is true, who is the speaker?

""For My Daughter" is the most difficult to decipher since it is vague, I can't tell what the poem is about. It seems to be about a mother talking about her daughter but it not certain that the speaker is in fact someone's mother.