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Bianka Ortega

Hammond

ELA 9

14 November 2018

Life Advice

Life is not easy-going, there are many obstacles you have to go through in order to

succeed. Hughes has a mother explain to her son that life is full of twists and turns through an

extended metaphor. He also uses literary language such as; imagery, and symbolism. Keep going

and working through life even when it gets painful and complicated.

Hughes reflects how hard life is through imagery to get a visual picture. The mother

explains that there are “places” in life “with no carpet on the floor.”(Hughes,6). There are areas

that will pass in life that are plain and boring. This helps to visualize the “carpet” on the bare

“floor” with nothing there but wood. There are “sometimes” where you are “in the dark” “where

there ain’t been no light”(12-13). There are places where there is no guidance and no light to

shine a pathway to show where to go. This shows the dark with no light with a visual of a dark

room where there is nothing to be seen.

The Author uses symbolism to have the struggles of life represented. The mother tells her

son that, “Life for” her has not, “been no crystal stair.”(2). Life is not perfect and clear like a

“crystal” staircase. He has a crystal to represent clearness and perfection. Life has “tacks in it and

splinters.”(3-4). Life has painful moments and memories. He has tacks and splinters reflect pain

that passes through life. “I’se still climbing.”(19). It is a climb to succeed. It is like a
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neverending climb. “Don’t you fall now.”(17). Do not give up now, keep going and you will

make it.

Life is a struggle, it is full of ups and downs. Langston Hughes perfectly demonstrates this

through imagery and symbolism.