No Crystal Stair

uses the poetic device of an extended metaphor to emphasize the life of the mother. The metaphor compares the life of the mother to a crystal staircase. Langston ensures the device’s effectiveness by making the first and last line of the poem "Life for me ain't been no crystal stair." This metaphor depict that the mother has not had a good or prosperous life. The crystal staircase symbolizes wealth and

child to overcome their battles, more specifically in this poem to never “turn [their] back.. [to never] set down on the steps”(14-15). In the beginning of Mother to Son, the narrator figuratively describes how life wasn’t a “crystal stair[case]” for them, but in fact, stairs that had had “tacks...splinters..boards torn up… places with no carpet...bare”(2-7). Repeatedly describing the coarse stairway with adjectives that are associated with ideas of pain or struggle intentionally exposes the reader

some people, no matter how hard their life gets, they strive to make it higher whether their stair is rough or crooked, they still continue to go in order to make their life better. Challenges in life can come in different forms, such as: Poverty, addicts… The poem “Mother to Son” by Langston Hughes, this poem focuses on life, it is a poem of encouragement which a mother gives to her son. I choose “Stair” to be the most important word in this poem because the mother uses this word to let her son

voice of the generations of African-Americans whose troubled history--from the slave-ships, to the plantations, to Reconstruction, to the Great Migration to the urban North--"ain't been no crystal stair””. As a matter of fact, Marie Rose Napierkowski and Mary Ruby agree, but also mention how the “crystal stair” is a metaphor to represent dreams, wealth, ease of life. “These connotations contrast with images in the poem that show how rough and discouraging the mother’s actual life has been” Napierkowski

Langston Hughes was a substantial American poet, playwright, and novelist who was a major contributor to the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s because of his African American themes. He sought to voice the stories of his people in methods that revealed their actual culture, including their suffering, their love of music, and language. In his poem, “Mother to Son”, a mother tells her son about the sufferings she has faced, but continued to live life constantly knocking down each obstacle relentlessly

4) Does the wall separate the two neighbors or bring them closer together? Between two neighbors, the wall between doesn't seem to aid any practical purpose because after telling us how they meet every spring to mend the wall between them, the author thinks that it is just like an outdoor game for them and a waste of time to bill a wall. "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" by Robert Frost 1) Why is the title important? What does it tell us? The title is important because it kind of time-machine

The mother in Hughes poem says, “So boy, don’t you turn back./ Don’t you set down on the steps/ ‘Cause you finds it’s kinder hard./ Don’t you fall now --/ For I’se still goin’, honey,/ I’se still climbin’,/ And life for me ain’t been no crystal stair” (901). The mother is teaching her son a lesson in determination and resilience. She wants him to understand two axioms: 1) no matter how unbearable life becomes, giving up is not an option, and 2) if she can persevere through tough times, then

be illustrating their view of the meaning of life and success in one way or another, but from different perspectives. Langston Hughes describes the hardships of life by using an old, worn down stairwell as a conceit.¨Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair. It’s had tacks in it, And splinters And boards were torn up, And places with no carpet on the floor—Bare.¨Langston is talking about the poor in this message, specifically poor black Americans who were facing injustice and civil rights issues in

institutes harsh objects on the stairs in order convey the obstacles the mother has to overcome: Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair. It’s had tacks in it, And splinters, And boards torn up, And places with no carpet on the floor— Bare. (2-6) Unfortunately, the mother experiences tough times, which Hughes clearly conveys through his word choice. Hughes metaphorically compares life to a crystal stair, which the mother’s life has not

may be difficult, but you must work hard. In lines 1 through 7 the speaker, Langston, talks about a mother describing her life to her son by using an extended metaphor. The mother first starts by saying; “Life for me [hasn’t]… been no crystal stair” (2); this means that from her experiences about her life wasn’t clear and didn’t come with an “instructions package.” The poet uses imagery to let the readers have a clear visual of his metaphor about life. The mother delineates that her life