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Metaphor
Explanation and Analysis—Remorse as a River:
Barnes uses metaphor to give shape to Tony's remorse and guilt. Reflecting on his role in Adrian's death, Tony wonders:
What if by some means remorse can be made to flow backwards, and can be transmuted into simple guilt, then apologized for, then forgiven?
Here, remorse is likened to a river, a current moving forward with unstoppable momentum. The image dramatizes Tony's desperate wish to reverse time. If the current could be forced upstream, the remorse of his adulthood might collapse back into the ordinary guilt of his adolescence, into something that could be confessed and absolved. The metaphor, here, insists on the futility of Tony's desire. Like a river that cannot flow in reverse, remorse cannot be undone once it has gathered force.
This metaphor resonates with the recurring image of the Severn Bore, the tidal surge that Tony watches as a young man. The Severn Bore makes the river appear to flow against its current, mirroring Tony's longing to reverse the current of his own life. Yet the phenomenon is fleeting. In the same way, Tony's revisitations of memory give the illusion of control, but the past remains fixed.
By linking remorse to a river and recalling the Severn Bore, Barnes underscores the permanence of consequence. Time cannot be turned back, and guilt cannot be washed away.
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