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For I'se still goin', honey,
I'se still climbin',
And life for me ain't been no crystal stair Langston Hughes – Mother to Son

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She is moving forward and so should he. To continue climbing is hard for everyone – take her for example, she’s still going, and her set of stairs has not been easy. Hughes ends the poem with the metaphor the mother gives to her son – the idea that life was not “a crystal staircase”, luxurious and glam, but something much harder to tackle.

Hughes ends his poem with a literary device called inclusio, in which he brackets the body of his poem between the repeated line,

Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.

This brings readers full circle and ends the extended metaphor with a conclusive punch.

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100

1 year

The mother explains ton the son that as long as she is climbing and reaching for better he should as well. She once again repeats that her life “ain’t been no crystal stair”. Reminding her son that he may not have seen the struggles she went through but doubles down and explains to him that it was.

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2 years

This means to me that she is doing well and is trying to be as strong as she can and do everything in her power to make her and her son’s life the best that she possibly can.

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100

3 years

She is telling her son that she has still not given up and that she is still making progress to better herself. She is still moving forward even if there are many obstacles in her way. She repeats that her life hasn’t been a crystal stair to show the importance of ‘climbin’ and moving forward in life.

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100

5 years

Life have been very rough on her as she continues to walk. Even so she does not give up no matter what circumstance she is put under and she wants her son to do the same

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6 years

Life is still moving even when it gets hard. Reusing the first line for the last line hows repetition and shows us that this is an important quote. It is mean to show that they still got to where they are today even those it has not been easy.

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6 years

When the mother says “i'se still climbin” she wants her son to know that the stairs are still going.
The author uses repetition saying “crystal stair” again to emphasize that it is important to know that like can not be the way you want it to be.

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123

9 years

I think it means that she’s been struggling and making her way up to being successful. I really can’t relate to this much because I’m not the type to give up. This is a very good poem. I like it because never giving up is a main focus in it and you can relate to alot of it.

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I felt that there were guests concealed behind every couch and table, under orders to be breathlessly silent until we had passed through. F. Scott Fitzgerald – The Great Gatsby (Chapter V)

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This situation is really odd for Nick since he is so used to seeing Gatsby’s house filled with people.

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344

8 years

This could be truth to one of my other suggestions. He doesn’t really have a lot of friends, because he is too busy worrying about Daisy, that he doesn’t bother socializing.

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It was strange to reach the marble steps and find no stir of bright dresses in and out the door, and hear no sound but bird voices in the trees. F. Scott Fitzgerald – The Great Gatsby (Chapter V)

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Nick is used to seeing Gatsby’s extravagant parties, so the silence is odd to him. The whole purpose of Gatsby’s parties was to try to meet Daisy, and now that he has, the parties have lost a major function (though he might still want to use them to display his wealth).

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Bobby Briggs

9 years

A synesthesia is shown here. It is a mixture of the senses, for example, what does gold really smell like?

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I felt sure he wouldn’t eat a spoonful. F. Scott Fitzgerald – The Great Gatsby (Chapter V)

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Nick says that Gatsby will probably be too nervous and excited to eat that night. Now that Gatsby has Daisy, he neglects basic necessities like food because of how important she is to him.

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164

8 years

Nick, at this point, is still outside and doesn’t know that Gatsby and Daisy are getting friendly yet; for all he knows, it could still be tense inside and Gatsby wouldn’t eat out of embarrassment or other overwhelming emotions from an encounter with Daisy

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“Come back in an hour, Ferdie.” Then in a grave murmur: “His name is Ferdie.” F. Scott Fitzgerald – The Great Gatsby (Chapter V)

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This line is possibly here to develop Daisy’s character. In Chapter 1, her employee was simply referred to as “the butler,” yet here she knows her driver’s name, which may show that she isn’t completely separated from normal life.

But this murmur is really just Daisy being Daisy. This sort of humor is characteristic of her, and Nick already explained why she murmurs:

She hinted in a murmur that the surname of the balancing girl was Baker. (I’ve heard it said that Daisy’s murmur was only to make people lean toward her; an irrelevant criticism that made it no less charming.)

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so take the lively air,
And, lovely, learn by going where to go Theodore Roethke – The Waking

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The words “lively” and “lovely” are internal and slant rhymes.

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We both looked at the grass—there was a sharp line where my ragged lawn ended and the darker, well-kept expanse of his began. I suspected that he meant my grass. F. Scott Fitzgerald – The Great Gatsby (Chapter V)

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The two lawns could be considered metaphorical for the divide, where the rich people can afford the well-kept expanses. Nick is not exactly poor, but this just shows how absurd Gatsby’s wealth is.

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The History of Herodotus, Vol I (Chap. 1) Herodotus (Ft. G. C. Macaulay) – The History of Herodotus, Vol I (Chap. 1)

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Cicero referred to Herodotus as the “Father of History” for a number of reasons, one of which was the fact that Herodotus' narrative is the earliest major work of Greek prose to remain intact. Herodotus is also known as the “Father of Lies” because much of what he relates in The History is inaccurate or dubious. Much of his information of the past came from oral tradition, and he often presents multiple varying accounts of the same event.

What the History is really about lies behind this: man, giant-sized, seen against the background of the entire world, universalized in his conflict with destiny, the gods, and the cosmic order. The medium that is most fertile in showing the true nature of reality is the human mind, remembering, reflective, and fertile most of all when its memory and reflection are put at the service of its dreaming and fantastic side.

Approaching Herodotus in this way, leaving room for fantasy and Herodotus' invention, will yield a much more meaningful reading experience when approaching this magnificent work that stands, after Homer, at the beginning of the Western Canon.

Greene, David, trans. “Introduction.” Introduction. The History. Chicago: U of Chicago, 1987. 20. Print.

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Cicero referred to Herodotus as the "Father of History" for a number of reasons, one of which was the fact that Herodotus' narrative is the earliest major work of Greek prose to remain intact. Herodotus is also known as the "Father of Lies" because much of what he relates in *The History* is inaccurate or dubious. Much of his information of the past came from oral tradition, and he often presents multiple varying accounts of the same event.

But it would be a mistake to read Herodotus with the same critical eye with which we read modern historians. David Greene eloquently summarizes a way in which to consider Herodotus' history in a fruitful way in his introduction to his translation of the work:
>What the *History* is really about lies behind this: man, giant-sized, seen against the background of the entire world, universalized in his conflict with destiny, the gods, and the cosmic order. The medium that is most fertile in showing the true nature of reality is the human mind, remembering, reflective, and fertile most of all when its memory and reflection are put at the service of its dreaming and fantastic side.

Greene, David, trans. "Introduction." Introduction. The History. Chicago: U of Chicago, 1987. 20. Print.

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Cranly James Joyce – Ulysses (Chap. 1 - Telemachus)

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Cranly is Stephen’s (now estranged) friend from A Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man.

ACCEPTED COMMENT: This is a memory of physical closeness that did not end well for Stephen.

ACCEPTED COMMENT: (See Portrait chapter 5)

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gunrest James Joyce – Ulysses (Chap. 1 - Telemachus)

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A raised circular platform in the center of the tower’s flat roof, once used as a swivel-gun mount.

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