Beneath a Scarlet Sky: Metaphors 4 key examples

Here, Sullivan figuratively imagines the sudden bombing of Milan as an orchestra, complete with explosions of sounds which combine to produce a unified and entirely overwhelming experience for everyone in its path. An overture is an instrumental piece played at the beginning of an opera or musical performance: thus, in a metaphorical sense, this first bombing from the Allies is the introductory overture to the bombings and violence that will follow in the coming days, weeks, and months.

Pino and Mimo's introduction to the chaos of war through the metaphor of a theatrical orchestra is clever for multiple reasons. On one hand, it imagines a musical orchestra as something that evokes a sense of danger, whereas film and entertainment—the true source of the orchestra—is generally used as an escape from troublesome realities. On the other hand, imagining the bombings in Milan with orchestral qualities makes clear the constructed and performative nature of war itself—war is, indeed, orchestrated by its many players. Overall, this metaphor introduces readers to Pino’s love for music and how military violence both enhances and disrupts these sensory experiences.

In the passage above, the metaphor of a kaleidoscope conveys the immediate disorientation Pino feels in the moments following the bombing. Both Pino’s vision and his consciousness seem to be fragmented—like a kaleidoscope that is broken—and this image gets across the chaos of wartime violence. From this metaphor, readers can imagine an environment obliterated in under a minute. When the literal and proverbial dust begins to settle, Pino reattains consciousness of his surroundings and notices the body of the child from Genoa, a sight that scars him greatly, even before he notices his own injuries.

In the passage above, Sullivan expresses the depth of Pino’s emotion with a metaphor, imagining Anna-Marta herself as a piece of music who lives within Pino’s orchestral-like body. Inside of Pino, readers learn that there figuratively lives a woodwind instrument and that there are “strings vibrating in his chest." Pino loves music and imagines music to be a part of his physical body. By comparing the movement of a human heart to the movement and output of a musical instrument, Sullivan demonstrates in a poetic way how Pino’s love for Anna completely absorbs his body and his senses. These depictions also contribute to the overall theme of music's power, consistently expressed throughout Beneath a Scarlet Sky during times of both passion and strife.

In the passage above, a partisan firing squad prepares to execute Anna, Dolly, and many others on false accusations of sympathizing with the Nazi Party. During this profound moment of tension and horror, Sullivan returns to the theme of music, creating a metaphor for the overstimulating experience of bearing witness to the murder scene. Music appears throughout Beneath a Scarlet Sky as a consistent source of comfort for Pino. Pino often imagines the patterns of his life—as well as the people in it—as musical instruments, all part of the metaphorical orchestra in his mind's eye. However, in this climactic moment Sullivan utilizes music as a vehicle for horror, demonstrating how the sounds of the crowd and of the accused become a “song of savageness.” This so-called "song" is the opposite of comforting for Pino: it is traumatizing. The metaphor heightens the poignancy of the novel’s climax.