"Well, son, I’ll tell you:
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.
But all the time
I’se been a-climbin’ on…
Mother to Son by Langston Hughes
Extended metaphor
Ah, Margarida, this is your best one yet. Thank you for sharing this. I will have to look up the entire poem. Langston Hughes is a poet I love, but don’t know well enough. This excerpt is a real treasure!
Hi Julie,
I read your reply to my simile/metaphors when I was on holiday so didn’t reply to your question about the Thomas Hardy quote.
It refers to the West Country dialect which the genteel would have considered the use of certain “local” words to be uncouth and mark out the speaker as one of the commercial or working class.
In the novel Elizabeth is living with (who she believes to be) her father and he, although originally of farm labourer stock, has risen to be the Mayor of Casterbridge and finds Elizabeth’s use of dialect to be non-genteel.
She says " If you’ll bide where you be a minute…"
He replies “Bide where you be!” " Good God are you only fit to carry wash a pig-trough that ye use words such as those?"
Elizabeth reddens with shame and says “I meant, Stay where you are father”.
We learn that from that time Elizabeth tries to change her use of dialect words:
Hardy’s reference to the beast comes from Revelations 13:17 “and that no one might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, the name of the beast, or the number of his name”
“Life is a highway / I wanna ride it all night long”—Tom Cochrane
“Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.”—Mother to Son, Langston Hughes
Julian, this is such a wonderful response to my question. I totally understand the quote now, plus I’ve learned some wonderful colloquial phrases. I’m especially intrigued by “dumbledores” and “hag-rid”. What did dumbledores mean? Humble bees doesn’t clarify it much. Is it particularly British? What is the connection to Harry Potter? I’ve seen “hag-ridden” in reading, and always thought it meant something like bothered by outside forces, but now I see “suffered from indigestion”! The various uses of these words, both the dialect words and the classier versions, are fascinating! Thank you for taking the time to write this all up. I will go back to this comment often.