The poem’s speaker says that her life hasn’t been a “crystal stair”. Is this
literal or figurative image? What does it suggest?
Answers
Answer:
literal figure hope it helps
The phrase "crystal stair" occurs in the poem "Mother to Son" by Langston Hughes. It is one of the most celebrated American poems written during the Harlem Renaissance. This image is figurative in nature, and occurs in the 2nd line of poem.
When the mother tells her son that her life has not been a "crystal stair", she intends to convey the fact that her life has not been easy. Written in the context of racial discrimination in the US, the expression "crystal stair" embodies the privileges assured to the whites exclusively because of their skin colour. The "crystal stair" symbolises the smoothness with which the whites can move up the social hierarchy as far as political and economic circumstances are concerned. For the blacks in the US, however, life is full of "tacks", "splinters" and "boards torn up", suggesting how their identity as fellow human beings were never recognised socially and politically by the predominant whites.