Previous
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
Chapter 1
Explanation and Analysis—Fallen Kite:
In Chapter 1, Charlie uses a series of similes to describe what it is like to watch Laura's body fall into the river. One of the similes later turns into an important extended metaphor:
And it is sudden when she falls. Fast. Like a white kite spearing the ground, its tail lolling lazily behind. She folds and crumples. Like a doll. Like a bag of wet bones. With a soft, horrible thud when she meets the earth. A sound that reminds me that she’s just loose meat. And I guess I shouldn’t be, but I am shocked by her lifelessness.
Related Themes:
Chapter 2
Explanation and Analysis—Mosquito Murder:
In Chapter 2, Charlie contemplates Laura's death; he saw her beaten and hanged body with his own eyes, but it makes no sense to him how someone could have done such a thing. His incredulity is immediately followed by a moment of situational irony that helps make sense of the contradiction:
Unlock with LitCharts A+What I really can’t begin to understand is how it happened. How somebody could do it. How anybody could kill a girl. How they could take her into the bush and beat her down and hang her from a bare limb in her nightdress. How they could watch her die. How they could leave her there. How they could be capable. I snatch at a mosquito in front of my face. Wipe it on my shorts. I flinch. They’re everywhere. I hate insects.
Related Themes:
Explanation and Analysis—Brick:
Charlie is overtaken with dread in the aftermath of Laura's death, a feeling that he repeatedly describes as a metaphorical brick in his stomach. One instance of this motif occurs in Chapter 2, while Charlie sits in his bedroom thinking about Laura's surviving sister:
Unlock with LitCharts A+This dread is lousy. When it hits, it’s like someone has turned the dial that controls gravity. Everything sinks hard and cold and fast. It winds you. It’s that same feeling, that same sad panic you confront when you can’t sleep, when your mind wanders and you remind yourself, for no reason at all, that you’re going to die one day...And in that act of knowing, something rushes inward and twists at your heart and you can’t breathe right. The knowing, it’s a cold kiln for this brick. It’s stuck firm. It’s not going anywhere.
Related Themes:
Chapter 5
Explanation and Analysis—Snow Dome:
Throughout the novel, Charlie sees his snow dome (what American readers might know as a snow globe) as a metaphor for the stifling effect Corrigan has on its residents. One instance of this motif occurs in Chapter 5, when Jasper talks about religion:
Unlock with LitCharts A+“Somethink else I could never understand,” he says, “is how people, ages ago, could look up at the moon and still reckon the world was flat. Flat, Charlie. See, that’s what I mean by people thinkin they’re the center of things....Everyone was convinced it was orbiting round them, not the other way round. It’s crazy. Like they were living in the middle of one of them snow domes. You know, the ones you’re supposed to shake up.”
Related Themes:
Chapter 7
Explanation and Analysis—Loosen the Valve:
In Chapter 7, Charlie reveals what Eliza has told him about Laura's death. He introduces the frantic confession with a metaphor:
Unlock with LitCharts A+This is what Eliza tells me.
This is what happened.
And I’ve got to get it out quick, I’ve got to loosen the valve on it and let it go, fizzing and spraying, because it’s too hard, it’s too heavy, it’s too much. I can’t hold on to it for too long because it’ll burn.
Related Themes:
Explanation and Analysis—Fallen Kite:
In Chapter 1, Charlie uses a series of similes to describe what it is like to watch Laura's body fall into the river. One of the similes later turns into an important extended metaphor:
Unlock with LitCharts A+And it is sudden when she falls. Fast. Like a white kite spearing the ground, its tail lolling lazily behind. She folds and crumples. Like a doll. Like a bag of wet bones. With a soft, horrible thud when she meets the earth. A sound that reminds me that she’s just loose meat. And I guess I shouldn’t be, but I am shocked by her lifelessness.
Related Themes:
Explanation and Analysis—Snow Dome:
Throughout the novel, Charlie sees his snow dome (what American readers might know as a snow globe) as a metaphor for the stifling effect Corrigan has on its residents. One instance of this motif occurs in Chapter 5, when Jasper talks about religion:
Unlock with LitCharts A+“Somethink else I could never understand,” he says, “is how people, ages ago, could look up at the moon and still reckon the world was flat. Flat, Charlie. See, that’s what I mean by people thinkin they’re the center of things....Everyone was convinced it was orbiting round them, not the other way round. It’s crazy. Like they were living in the middle of one of them snow domes. You know, the ones you’re supposed to shake up.”
Related Themes:
Chapter 9
Explanation and Analysis—Volcano:
In Chapter 9, just when everyone is celebrating Charlie's triumph of stealing peaches from Mad Jack Lionel's yard, they see smoke in the distance. The smoke, which Charlie describes with vivid imagery, is both real and a metaphor:
Unlock with LitCharts A+A pillar of smoke, dense and dark. A volcano is erupting. It is distant, but not too distant. It looks to be perilously close to the town center. And there is a moment where we all quietly take it in, that single column, climbing and writhing straight up. There isn’t a breath of wind. And we pay it due regard. This is a dark spirit with substance. Everyone in Corrigan knows there is something real here, that this is something to truly be afraid of, that this kind of smoke holds fire at its heart.
Related Themes:
