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Definition of Metaphor
A metaphor is a figure of speech that compares two different things by saying that one thing is the other. The comparison in a metaphor can be stated explicitly, as... read full definition
A metaphor is a figure of speech that compares two different things by saying that one thing is the other. The comparison in a metaphor... read full definition
A metaphor is a figure of speech that compares two different things by saying that one thing is the other... read full definition
Chapter 3: The Fall
Explanation and Analysis—Acting:
Describing her own feeling of distance from the experiences on the Weylin Plantation, Dana uses a metaphor that compares herself and Kevin to “observers watching a show.” After Nigel, an enslaved adolescent, requests that Dana teach him how to read and shows her the scars that evidence past whippings, Dana notes:
I began to realize why Kevin and I had fitted so easily into this time. We weren’t really in. We were observers watching a show. We were watching history happen around us. And we were actors. While we waited to go home, we humored the people around us by pretending to be like them. But we were poor actors. We never really got into our roles. We never forgot that we were acting. This was something I tried to explain to Kevin on the day the children broke through my act. It suddenly became very important that he understand.
Dana uses a number of similar metaphors that invoke a sense of performance and acting. Noting that she and Kevin have “fitted so easily” into the 19th century despite the violence that they have witnessed, she concludes that they have been more “observers watching a show” who have merely observed “history happen around” them. Further, she adds that they are “actors” who have “humored” those around them, merely pretending to accept the racism and violence of the early 19th century. Still, she insists that they have been “poor actors” who have not fully committed to their “roles” and are acutely aware that they are “acting.” Ultimately, these metaphors highlight the distance between Dana and the enslaved people on Weylin’s farm, as Dana hopes to someday return to her own time and leave the Weylins in the past, while the others face years or decades of future enslavement. Soon, however, the past will become “real” for both Dana and Kevin when they are each, separately, forced to spend long spans of time in the past.
Related Themes:
Chapter 5: The Storm
Explanation and Analysis—A Horse's Bit:
Though Alice pretends to accept her new position as Rufus’s mistress, she privately harbors a strong desire to flee the Plantation, despite the fact that she was brutally beaten during her first failed attempt to escape. She uses a metaphor drawn from the language of horse-riding while explaining to Dana her disinterest in trying to make peace with Rufus, who had previously offered to free their children as an incentive for her cooperation:
“It don’t matter what he says,” she told me. “Did he show you any free papers?”
“No.”
“When he does, and you read them to me, maybe I’ll believe him. I’m tellin’ you, he uses those children just the way you use a bit on a horse. I’m tired of havin’ a bit in my mouth.”
I didn’t blame her. But still, I didn’t want her to go, didn’t want her to risk Joe and Hagar. Hell, I didn’t even want her to risk herself.
Though Dana relays Rufus’s promise to free their children, the more jaded Alice notes that he cannot be trusted, and unless he has actually drawn up “free papers” for the children, then he is likely only using this promise to further manipulate Alice. Though Dana, who needs Alice to give birth to Hagar in order to secure Dana's own existence in the 20th century, pushes Alice to make peace with Rufus and stay at the Plantation, she argues that he “uses those children just the way you use a bit on a horse,” adding that she is “tired of havin’ a bit in my mouth.” Here, Alice’s metaphor imagines Rufus as a horse-rider, who controls his horses using such tools as bits, which allow a rider to manipulate the mouth of a horse and direct the way the horse goes. Alice’s metaphor, then, suggests that she is tired of being controlled, even if Rufus is willing to offer her greater material comforts and conveniences, an offer she ultimately views as manipulative.
Related Themes:
Chapter 6: The Rope
Explanation and Analysis—Two Halves:
In a climactic scene in the novel, in which Dana fatally stabs Rufus as he attempts to sexually assault her, Rufus uses a metaphor that imagines Dana and Alice as “one woman”:
“You’re so much like her, I can hardly stand it,” he said. “Let go of me, Rufe!” “You were one woman,” he said. “You and her. One woman. Two halves of a whole.” I had to get away from him. “Let me go, or I’ll make your dream real!” Abandonment. The one weapon Alice hadn’t had. Rufus didn’t seem to be afraid of dying. Now, in his grief, he seemed almost to want death. But he was afraid of dying alone, afraid of being deserted by the person he had depended on for so long.
Earlier, when Dana is recalled to the past, she is shocked to discover that Alice has committed suicide following Rufus’s false claim to have sold their children as punishment for her attempt to escape the Plantation. A frenzied, mourning Rufus suddenly confronts Dana, though their relationship had previously been primarily platonic. In this scene, his metaphors emphasize the strong connection between Dana and Alice, who is in fact Dana’s ancestor. He describes her and Alice as being “two halves of a whole,” a metaphor that suggests that he perceives Dana as a potential substitute for Alice now that Alice is beyond his control for good. Despite the occasional feelings of affection Dana holds for Rufus, she cannot tolerate being sexually assaulted by her own ancestor, and she stabs him twice, killing him.
Related Themes:
