My Own Stairs

In Mother-to-Son one type figurative language is used throughout.  The metaphor of the stairs, both the crystal one and the other, rougher one.  The crystal stair is like an easy life, one with no problems or obstacles.  But the other stair, the one descried by the mother is a metaphor for the real life of an African-American woman in the times shortly after the abolishing of slavery.  She says that on her stairs are full of "tacks…and splinters, and boards torn up"  these are the problems she has encountered.  But through all this she has a message.  Don't give up.  "Don’t you set down on the steps".  And though her tone seems weary and perhaps a little sad this poem, Mother-to-Son, has inspired me, made me feel lucky.  I feel lucky to walk on my own stair, though it may not be crystal it's definitely not as treacherous as this mother's was.