When describing the “magic” of the Sunday gathering at the Grancys’ house in the first part of the short story, the narrator remarks about Mr. Grancy’s happiness with a metaphor:
Some human happiness is a landlocked lake; but the Grancys’ was an open sea, stretching a buoyant and illimitable surface to the voyaging interests of life. There was room and to spare on those waters for all our separate ventures; and always, beyond the sunset, a mirage of the fortunate isles toward which our prows were bent.
Wharton writes this metaphor during a happy early scene. The narrator’s admiration of Mr. Grancy is evident. He compares the Grancys’ happy marriage to “an open sea” stretching with an “illimitable surface.” Importantly, their happiness was easily shared with friends: “there was room and to spare on those waters.” This elaborate, extended metaphor conveys that the narrator’s initial friendship with Mr. Grancy was filled with love and admiration. This foreshadows Mr. Grancy’s downfall and the narrator’s complex feelings about Mr. Grancy later in the story. In addition, describing the “mirage of the fortunate isles toward which our prows were bent” foreshadows that those fortunate isles with Mr. and Mrs. Grancy will not come to pass. This serves to highlight the tragic grief that comes with Mrs. Grancy's impending death.
Furthermore, this evocative metaphor demonstrates Wharton’s sophisticated and descriptive prose throughout the story. Her writing style is characterized by long sentences and figurative language such as this metaphor about an “open sea.” This writing style adds to the initial formal and erudite tone and creates a rich image of Mr. and Mrs. Grancy’s happiness. In turn, this makes for a greater shock when the narrator experiences Mr. Grancy’s downfall and obsession with the portrait.
In Part III, Mr. Grancy chronicles his experience after his wife died, telling the narrator about how he comes to believe that the portrait of his wife is effectively conscious. After returning from five years in Rome, Mr. Grancy comes face to face with the portrait and immediately feels isolated from the painting he once adored. He declares that the portrait must be keeping his wife’s spirit trapped. Wharton writes this realization with a complicated simile and metaphor that convey Mr. Grancy’s beliefs about the portrait:
So the idea came to me: ‘It’s the picture that stands between us; the picture that is dead, and not my wife. To sit in this room is to keep watch beside a corpse.’ As this feeling grew on me the portrait became like a beautiful mausoleum in which she had been buried alive: I could hear her beating against the painted walls and crying to me faintly for help [...].
Recounting his realization, Grancy first uses a simile, saying that “to sit in this room is to keep watch beside a corpse” and that “the portrait became like a beautiful mausoleum.” These are both similes that compare the unaltered portrait to a “corpse” and a “mausoleum” that keep his wife imprisoned. However, these similes do keep a distance between the actual, dead Mrs. Grancy and the life-like portrait.
However, in the next sentence, Wharton employs metaphors to take this a step further, demonstrating that Grancy truly believes that his wife lives on in the portrait. He says “I could hear her beating against the painted walls and crying to me faintly for help.” This is no longer just a simile: the portrait is not just “like” a mausoleum—Grancy perceives it to be a painted prison for his wife. This evolution from simile to metaphor demonstrates the symbolic nature of the portrait and how Mr. Grancy’s grief twists his perception, focusing on the portrait as his sole tether to life.
For Claydon, the portrait of Mrs. Grancy is his prized possession and the epitome of beauty. He goes to great lengths to possess her as his own, altering the portrait until he can finally keep it after Mr. Grancy’s death. When Claydon reveals his plot to the narrator at the end of the story, he uses a metaphor about owning the moon:
Even when he saw the picture he didn’t guess my secret—he was so sure she was all his! As though a man should think he owned the moon because it was reflected in the pool at his door
This is a significant metaphor because it relates to Wharton’s thematic exploration of love, obsession, and control throughout “The Moving Finger.” Claydon equates the portrait to the moon, saying, “as though a man should think he owned the moon because it was reflected in the pool at his door.” This elaborate statement conveys Claydon’s disdain for Mr. Grancy and his desire to possess Mrs. Grancy through her portrait. The metaphor implies that Mrs. Grancy (and her beauty, like the otherworldly moon) was only temporarily bestowed upon Mr. Grancy and could not be possessed by him.
However, this metaphor is also a bit hypocritical—Claydon asserts that Mr. Grancy cannot “own the moon,” but Claydon himself seeks to own Mrs. Grancy. He objectifies her and wants to possess her, thus reducing Mrs. Grancy to her beauty while demonstrating his own jealousy and obsession.
