The hat’s smell
The imagery of the hat is facilitated by the narrator’s comparison of its smell to the smell of a baby. In this sense, the simile becomes crucial and pivotal in its presentation:
“He wore that hat home from the hospital when he was born, and he was baptized in it. It still smelled like a baby and had yellowing food stains on it.”
The knock on the cove counter
‘‘Two Years for Non-Support’’ is a song that gets to the narrator’s mother, particularly the song’s chorus as she knocks on the cove counter twice. The imagery of the knock is enhanced via the comparison to a judge’s gavel. The narrator notes: “Ma loved the chorus because she could knock twice on the cove counter, like a judge banging her gavel.”
Insecurity
As most of the white folks begin leaving Columbia point, the narrator notes how his family was beginning to draw attention onto themselves. Insecurity is suggested when the narrator uses a simile in which he compares how exposed they felt walking the streets at night like sore thumbs:
“Many of them had fled to the Southie projects. And my family was beginning to stick out like a sore thumb on those scary walks back to our apartment at nightfall.”
The children
Mrs. Schultz, a woman of German descent who lives upstairs is unreceptive to the idea of having to climb over children in their underwear. She, therefore, wakes them up to send them inside the house. The imagery of these children wrapped in sheets is enhanced through their comparison to mummies.
The narrator notes: “She [Mrs. Schultz] was bothered by the idea of having to climb overloads of kids in their underwear, all wrapped in sheets like mummies.”
The construction workers
The narrator compares the construction workers staring at his other through the fence to animals in a cage. The narrator’s choice and employment of this simile enhance the reader’s perception of the imagery of the construction workers. The narrator notes: “I was horrified to see them looking at Ma that way, like animals in a cage.”
