In Volume 1, Chapter 9, the narrator uses a simile laden with imagery to describe Hope Leslie's "open, fearless, and gay character," and the conditions that allow that character to develop:
It may appear improbable that a girl of seventeen, educated among the strictest sect of the puritans, should have had the open, fearless, and gay character of Hope Leslie; but it must be remembered that she lived in an atmosphere of favour and indulgence, which permits the natural qualities to shoot forth in unrepressed luxuriance—an atmosphere of love, that like a tropical climate, brings forth the richest flowers and most flavorous fruits.
Despite enduring a great deal of tragedy at a young age (her parents die one after another, her sister is kidnapped, and most of her adoptive family is killed in a violent raid), Hope grows up in an "atmosphere of love" that helps her blossom like flowers and fruits in a tropical climate. The imagery of Hope's character being "brought forth" not just like any flowers and fruits, but like "the richest flowers and most flavorous fruits" is significant. Hope lives in what is now Massachusetts, as does Sedgwick and many of her readers. Tropical flowers and fruits would be shockingly vibrant and flavorful were they to appear there, and it would seem like only a matter of time until the climate killed them. In the harsh political environment of Massachusetts, Hope, like tropical flowers and fruits, seems at once eerily out of place, miraculous, under threat, and incredibly alluring.
Hope's "open, fearless, and gay character" is something Sedgwick wants young women to admire. But the novel shows that maintaining this character is incredibly difficult, especially for people who are not as well insulated from violence as Hope. Even though she loses many family members when she is young, Mr. Fletcher protects her from directly experiencing some of the trauma that, for example, Faith endures. Whereas Faith is present for the raid at Bethel, Hope does not witness any of the violence because Mr. Fletcher has taken her with him to Boston. As she grows up, he dotes on her because she reminds him of her mother, with whom he was once in love. As a result, Hope really does grow up in a kind of greenhouse that allows her to flourish. Magawisca, on the other hand, is figured as an innately and persistently good character who nonetheless grows bitter toward the Puritans because she does not grow up so protected. Again and again, the novel makes the point that it is good to be like Hope, but that violence and bitterness (experienced most acutely in the novel by American Indian characters like Magawisca and Mononotto) makes it almost impossible to remain "hopeful."
In Volume 1, Chapter 10, Hope asks Esther why she never told her that she knew Everell when they were both in England. Hope uses a simile to tease Esther for her sensitivity on the matter, and Esther uses imagery to twist the simile into a dramatic response:
"Raise up your eyes and look at me, dear Esther, and do not let those long eye-lashes droop over your pale cheek, like a weeping willow over the monumental marble."
“Oh, Hope Leslie! if it were not sinful, I could wish that monumental marble might press the clods on my cold bosom.”
Hope's simile compares Esther's eyelashes to a weeping willow planted above the "monumental marble" marking someone's tomb. The weeping willow, with its drooping branches, was often planted near graves. It stood as a perpetual symbol for the grief of the dead person's loved ones, who could not themselves spend every moment crying over the grave. This kind of symbolism was far more prominent in the 19th century than in the 17th century, so this simile subtly marks out the fact that the novel is written from a 19th-century perspective.
Esther responds by claiming that "if it were not sinful" (meaning that if Puritanism did not treat suicide and suicidal ideation as a sin), she would wish to be the corpse lying beneath the "monumental marble," feeling the weight of the "clods" of earth pressing down on her "cold [dead] bosom." Esther's response, which evokes the image of this young woman dead and buried, seems to be a bit of an overreaction to the situation. She feels ashamed and embarrassed of her feelings for Everell, which she once expressed to him and which he told her he did not reciprocate. It is awkward that they have run into each other again, but it is hardly a reason for Esther to die. Still, if we take Esther at face value, her reaction to Hope's simile demonstrates just how different the young women's temperaments are. Hope is lighthearted and can make light of an awkward situation, whereas Esther's imagery makes clear that she feels utterly weighed down by her dreariness.
Esther did once believe she was on her deathbed with illness brought on by the guilt of her feelings for Everell, and her belief that she was going to die is what urged her on to confess her feelings in the first place. Her death-wish in this instance might stem from a kind of regret that she lived to tell the tale of her rejection. Despite this adversity, Hope's life seems to have been rather more difficult than Esther's. She has lived through the deaths of many family members and the loss of her sister. Tragedy seems to have given her a thicker skin than Esther. Sedgwick imagines many of her readers to be girls around the same age as Hope and Esther, and the dichotomy between the two serves to encourage a kind of "hopeful" resilience among these readers.
Repeatedly, the novel uses an imagery-laden metaphor comparing biological bloodlines to waterways. One instance occurs in Volume 2, Chapter 2, when Hope meets with Magawisca in the cemetery, and Magawisca tells her that it might be difficult to reunite her with Faith:
I cannot send back [...] the stream that has mingled with other waters to its fountain.
As the conversation continues, Hope is shocked to learn that Faith has married Oneco:
“My sister married to an Indian!”
"[...]Think ye that your blood will be corrupted by mingling with this stream?"
Magawisca first compares Faith herself to a stream that has "mingled with other waters." She later clarifies that she does not just mean that Faith and Oneco are different people who have mingled, but rather that their marriage stands to mix "your blood" (Hope and Faith's) with "Indian" blood. The idea of two streams coming together suggests the image of irrevocably mixed water (or blood). There is no separating water that has homogenized. Even if the streams are separated once more, each will contain some of each original stream. Oneco and Faith have come together to create a stream that is now and forever both white and American Indian.
What Magawisca is getting at is not just Oneco and Faith's irreversible marriage. Hope does not immediately say anything about the children Faith and Oneco might have, but Magawisca defensively interprets her shock as revulsion at the idea of mixed-race children. Especially by the 19th century, when Sedgwick was writing, "miscegenation" (having children of mixed race) was considered taboo and even criminal by European Americans. During the colonial period, people of European descent created racial categories to classify different types of humans. Racial categories were never stable, but mixed-race children were seen as a threat to the imagined boundaries between categories. If the boundaries crumbled, there could be no rationale for white supremacy because there would be no difference between white people and people of color. By asking Magawisca if Hope thinks her blood "will be corrupted by mingling with [Oneco and Magawisca's] stream," she is challenging Hope to either be upfront about her racist beliefs or to abandon the idea of racial hierarchy altogether.
