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Metaphor
Explanation and Analysis—Vein and Vertebrae:
In the long flashback to the war in Chapter 5, Samad interrogates a local child as to where he found U.S. dollar bills deep within a European war zone. Archie is shocked by Samad's dedication, hassling an innocent child on the off chance it might help the British cause. The narrator compares Samad's and Archie's different levels of commitment to defending their country, using a corporeal metaphor to describe Archie's complacent nationalism:
A vein in Samad’s forehead was fighting passionately to escape his skin. He wished to defend a country that wasn’t his and revenge the killing of men who would not have acknowledged him in a civilian street. Archie was amazed. It was his country; in his small, cold-blooded, average way he was one of the many essential vertebrae in its backbone, yet he could feel nothing comparable for it.
Archie, as a native Englishman, is part of the country's "backbone." This metaphor casts Archie as an indelible part of his country, like all citizens; but as "one of the many essential vertebrae," he does not feel the need to defend his country personally, only to fit in and coordinate with the rest of society. Despite his bone-deep connection to Englishness, he does not feel a strong connection to it.
In contrast, as Samad interrogates the child, his fervor for the war effort seems to try to "escape his skin." As an immigrant, Samad's Englishness is more surface-level, a new title put onto complex life experience. Still, though, Samad, a brown immigrant whose Englishness only goes skin-deep, is more patriotic than Archie.
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