There There: Metaphors 6 key examples

In his first chapter, Tony Loneman references a line from the MF Doom song "Rhinestone Cowboy": "Got more soul than a sock with a hole." He explains its multiple meanings: a hole in a sock shows the sole of a foot, while it also shows the sock has soul. Tony applies this lyric to a metaphor about his own life:

What I liked is that I understood all the meanings to it right away, like instantly. It meant soul, like having a hole in a sock gives the sock character, means it’s worn through, gives it a soul, and also like the bottom of your foot showing through, to the sole of your foot. It was a small thing, but it made me feel like I’m not stupid. Not slow. Not bottom rung. And it helped because the Drome’s what gives me my soul, and the Drome is a face worn through.

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In his first chapter in Part I, the narrator describes one of Dene Oxendene's memories, looking back on the first time he saw someone tag. Dene scrutinizes their choice of tag and understands its metaphorical implications:

Dene waited for his moment, watched the kid tag in the condensation on the bus window three letters: emt. He understood right away that it meant “empty.” And he liked the idea that the kid was writing it in the condensation on the window, in the empty space between drops, and also because it wouldn’t last, just like tagging and graffiti don’t.

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Edwin Black's first chapter as narrator in Part I begins with him on the toilet. He has severe constipation, which serves as a metaphor for his entire life. As a well-educated man with a degree in Comparative Literature, he intended to write and learn about Native American culture and stories. But by the time of the novel, he has retreated to his mother's house and no longer does any academic work on his subject. Here Edwin describes himself trying to overcome his difficulties:

I'm on the toilet. But nothing is happening. I’m here. You have to try. You have to intend, and not only tell yourself but really sit there believing. It’s been six days since my last movement. One of the bullet-point symptoms on WebMD was this: the sense that everything didn’t come out. This feels true about my life in ways I can’t articulate yet. Or like the name of a short-story collection I’ll write one day, when it all finally does come out.

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In a chapter on Opal in Part III, the narrator describes Opal's obsessions and superstitions, as well as her long history of regrets. After the previous chapter, which shows her as a young woman with a variety of unusual behaviors, this chapter shows her as an older woman with many memories and experiences. The narrator describes these in a metaphor:

So she bore those years, their weight, and the years bored a hole through the middle of her, where she tried to keep believing there was some reason to keep her love intact. Opal is stone solid, but there is troubled water that lives in her, that sometimes threatens to flood, to drown her—rise up to her eyes. Sometimes she can’t move. Sometimes it feels impossible to do anything.

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In the first chapter of Part III, Opal eats dinner with her grandchildren, who act unusual. The table is oddly quiet and oddly lacking in any arguing or fighting among the kids. In a metaphor, she compares her feelings in reaction to this strange behavior with a bump she once had with spider legs in it:

Opal didn’t want to force the issue. She really didn’t know what to say about it. It was like something was stuck in her throat. It wouldn’t come back up and it wouldn’t go down. Actually it was like the bump in her leg the spider legs had come out of. The bump had never gone away. Were there more legs in there? Was that the spider’s body? Opal had stopped asking questions a long time ago. The bump remained.

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In his first chapter as narrator in Part III, Daniel Gonzales writes an email to his brother Manny, who has passed away. In the letter he describes his new 3-D-printed guns, as well as his emotions, particularly on the subject of their mother, who is severely depressed. Daniel depicts their mother's depression metaphorically through the image of a votive candle dropped on the floor:

The other day she dropped a votive candle on the kitchen floor [...] shattered, and she just left it there in pieces. [...] all out there in the living room like your picture on the mantel [...] feels like it cuts me whenever I see it, how you graduated from high school and we all thought [things] would be okay from then on because you did.

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