Women's lives
In Ireland in the early and mid-1900s, women's lives were dictated by society. The narrator uses a metaphor to describe them as, 'But 1940s Ireland was a living tomb for women.' The metaphor describes the lives of women as a living tomb to show how controlled and awful they were.
Nuala's mother on the grass
When her the mistress of Nuala's father came and offered her mother money so that she (the mistress) could leave with her father, her mother collapsed on the grass. The narrator used the simile to describe how she lay on the grass, 'She was a rounded shape in the grass, like a small cow.' The simile likens the manner in which Nuala's mother lay in the grass to a small cow.
Fingers of victims of The Holocaust
Nuala went to a shop and saw a magazine that had pictures of victims of The Holocaust. She described them as, 'They were desperate bony fingers reaching out from under the wooden walls of huts. Fingers like sticks.' The simile likens the fingers to sticks because of how thin they were.
Dublin
Nuala says that she viewed Dublin like a spy behind enemy lines. The simile is used to liken how Nuala saw Dublin for she looked at it as a visitor and not as a resident of the city. Therefore, she viewed it just like a spy viewing an enemy's territory.
Nuala's first sentence
Nuala describes how she understood her first sentence as a child. She described it as,'...I was puzzling at a line when all of a sudden the meaning of one word I understood hopped across-like the ping pong ball hopping along the line in a sing along to join the meaning of the next word I understood.' The simile likens how she understood the sentence from word to word to the hopping of a ping pong ball in a sing along.
