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Irony
Definition of Metaphor
A metaphor is a figure of speech that compares two different things by saying that one thing is the other. The comparison in a metaphor can be stated explicitly, as... read full definition
A metaphor is a figure of speech that compares two different things by saying that one thing is the other. The comparison in a metaphor... read full definition
A metaphor is a figure of speech that compares two different things by saying that one thing is the other... read full definition
Part 1, Chapter 4: Bride
Explanation and Analysis—"Always Wear White":
During Bride’s makeover consult for her interview at the cosmetics firm, Jeri suggests a “monochromatic” look that is, tellingly, high-contrast:
“You should always wear white, Bride… you’re more Hershey’s syrup than licorice. Makes people think of whipped cream and chocolate soufflé every time they see you.”
In this moment, Jeri presents Bride's skin as a dessert, translating a Black woman’s body into something plated, sweetened, and ready to be consumed. The passage exposes how food metaphors—which are ubiquitous in beauty marketing—commodify Black female beauty. They aestheticize difference as flavor, appealing to the consumer’s appetite rather than to their humanity. Jeri’s advice is blunt, but it also suggests that she is well-versed in the complicated dynamics at play in racist circumstances. After all, she's effectively trying to tell Bride how to use her skin color—which her racist society often weaponizes against her—to her own benefit. For Bride, this means framing her Blackness in a certain way that will make her more likely to succeed. This, of course, might seem problematic, but it's simply a reflection of the racist ideas with which Bride has to contend on a daily basis. Having grown up with the narrative that her skin is too dark, Bride now listens to Jeri's suggestion to make people "think of whipped cream and chocolate soufflé every time they see" her, as this is simply a way to subvert the racist gaze.
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Part 2, Chapter 3
Explanation and Analysis—Toothless Grin:
Pinned under the brake pedal after crashing her Jaguar on the road to Whiskey, Bride looks up and sees the world looking down on her in an ominous way. The narrative uses personification and metaphor to convey the sense of malice that Bride experiences from the surrounding world:
The moon was a toothless grin and even the stars, seen through the tree limb that had fallen like a throttling arm across the windshield frightened her. The piece of sky she could glimpse was a dark carpet of gleaming knives pointed at her and aching to be released. She felt world hurt—an awareness of malign forces changing her from a courageous adventurer into a fugitive.
The moon “grins,” but without teeth—a mocking, rather sinister smile. Bride's entire view of the surrounding world is shot through with a kind of sinister violence, as the tree limb she sees becomes a "throttling arm." Above it, the sky metaphorically takes the form of a "dark carpet of gleaming knives." To add to this, the verbs in the passage—like "throttling," "pointed," and "aching"—are intense and vicious, which is what leads Bride to the "awareness of malign forces changing her from a courageous adventurer into a fugitive." In other words, the landscape seems so hostile that Bride feels altered on a fundamental level, no longer feeling "courageous" but instead feeling like someone who needs to constantly run from danger or harm.
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Explanation and Analysis—Colonized:
While driving to Whiskey to find Booker, Bride thinks about their relationship. The narrative uses a somewhat unexpected metaphor to characterize their bond and its impact on Bride:
The reason for this tracking was not love, she knew; it was more hurt than anger that made her drive into unknown territory to locate the one person she once trusted, who made her feel safe, colonized somehow. Without him the world was more than confusing—shallow, cold, deliberatly hostile. Like the atmosphere in her mother's house where she never knew the right thing to say or remember what the rules were.
This passage makes clear that, when they were together, Booker made Bride "feel safe, colonized somehow." This metaphor is somewhat situationally ironic, considering that colonization isn't usually seen as a good thing. To the contrary, one would expect Bride to dislike the fact that she feels "colonized" by Booker, since it would suggest that he has impinged upon her sense of personal agency. Nonetheless, though, she indicates that she feels "safe" because of his colonizing influence, thus illustrating how close she feels to Booker—so close, it seems, that she actively likes the extent to which he is (or was, when they were in a relationship) tangled up in her life.
Related Themes:
Part 4, Chapter 2
Explanation and Analysis—Balloon-Fat:
In Booker's letters, which Brides pores over at Queen's house, he uses a metaphor to describe the difficulty—and the mistake—of trying to understand racist thinking:
Trying to understand racist malignancy only feeds it, makes it balloon-fat and lofty floating high overhead fearful of sinking to earth where a blade of grass could puncture it letting its watery feces soil the enthralled audience the way mold ruins piano keys both black and white, sharp and flat to produce a dirge of decay.
The metaphorical image of "racist malignancy" as a balloon that fills until it pops illustrates the danger of trying to "understand" racist worldviews—an attempt that only "feeds" the problem and ultimately makes things worse. What's more, the passage ends with a simile comparing the end result of trying to understand racism to “the way mold ruins piano keys both black and white, sharp and flat.” This simile brings to mind a terrible mess, effectively functioning as a warning about trying to empathize with racist ideology. Doing this, the novel suggests, is not a noble attempt that will disarm racism—to the contrary, it will only make things worse.
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Explanation and Analysis—Let it Blaze:
When Bride reads Booker’s letters at Queen’s house, Booker uses imagery and a metaphor:
You should take heartbreak of whatever kind seriously with the courage to let it blaze and burn like the pulsing star it is unable or unwilling to be soothed into pathetic self-blame because its explosive brilliance rings justifiably loud like the din of tympani.
The sentence uses a double metaphor—cosmic light and orchestral sound—to present heartbreak as an energy that deserves to be celebrated rather than diminished. When Booker suggests that heartbreak should "blaze and burn like the pulsing star," he presents grief or struggle not as a wound but as something temperamental and intense. The word "pulsing" specifically suggests periodic intensification, which acknowledges that heartbreak can be a bit unpredictable—it can flare, subside, and then flare again.
Toward the end of the passage, the sentence focuses on auditory imagery, as Booker talks about the "explosive brilliance" of heartbreak sounding out "like the din of tympani." This underscores the intensity of certain kinds of struggle or hardship, though Booker once again evokes this intensity in a celebratory way. On the whole, the metaphorical and sensory language in this passage invite Bride to embrace messy, difficult feelings—something she hasn't been all that interested in doing throughout her life.
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