In Chapter 5, Chapel uses simile and metaphor to describe what it was like learning to write with Lydia:

My hand was a crab walking sideways / And leaving crab tracks, sideways across the page. / Then she held my hand and the tracks straightened / As if the crab walked on two feet in one line.

In this metaphor, Chapel's hand is a crab walking sidewise: a foreign creature acting almost on its own accord. With Lydia's hand on his own, his hand becomes similar to a crab walking as if it was a human—on two feet, now leaving a straight line behind it in the sand. Comparing Chapel to a crab is somewhat reminiscent of the simile comparing Chapel to a wild beast in Chapter One, although with far less negative of a connotation. Both animals, however, belong free in the wild, pursuing that which they want to naturally pursue.

The fact that Chapel uses simile and metaphor is almost more important than the specific simile and metaphor he uses. Chapel, in a chapter written in poetic verse, is describing himself learning to write with figurative language. In other words, he is just like any other author, employing tools of the trade deftly and skillfully. The use of figurative language highlights Chapel's intelligence and how skilled he is as a writer. Chapel is as worthy of an advanced education as anyone else, but he is deprived of one due to the color of his skin.