Simile of Neni
"From the sounds coming alongside her voice, he could tell she was dancing, jumping, skipping around the apartment like a child bearing a handful of sweets." (pg. 29)
Mbue uses a simile to compare Neni to a happy child running around with candy to show her joy at Jende's new job. The family had lived in poverty before Jende got the chauffeur job, and now that he has it, she has regained some of the youthful joy she had beforehand, like a young child dancing around.
Simile of Lehman Brothers Tower
"Its walls seemed to stretch on forever, like an infinite spear, and though Jende sometimes pushed his head far back and squinted, he couldn't see beyond the sunlight banging against the polished glass." (pg. 53)
Mbue uses a simile to compare the Lehman Brothers' building to a spear breaking through the cloud. She does this to emphasize how enormous the building is, towering over the rest of New York, which suggests the amount of power the company has (power which eventually fades).
Metaphor of New York
Jende describes the way that New York transforms from a cold, unforgiving city in the winter to a beautiful city filled with trees in the spring. In doing so, he creates a metaphor where the changes of New York represent the changes of his and Neni's lives: they go from thinking about moving out of the city to a warmer, cheaper place, to thinking about how their lives will improve the longer Jende holds his chauffeur job and how good America has been to them. The city acts as a metaphor for their development throughout the novel.
Metaphor of Columbus Circle
Neni's favorite place in New York is Columbus Circle and she goes there whenever she feels distressed. She enjoys being at the center of New York and being surrounded by all of the hubbub of the city. However, while she sits there, cars circle around her, people walk, and life goes on as people move, literally, in circles around her. This acts as a metaphor for how the rest of New York keeps going on after the Jongas learn of their eventual deportation, because New York, just like the rest of the world, moves on around struggling people, and Neni taking comfort in a place where people circle around her with their normal lives acts as a metaphor for that.
Simile of Holding Hands
"Jende and Neni continued standing by the exit, hands linked like adjacent trees with interlocked branches." (pg. 91)
Mbue uses a simile to compare Jende and Neni to trees with interlocking branches, expressing how linked they are to each other and how they hold onto each other for support. Neni feels overwhelmed at Winston's party, but she is able to go to Jende for support and know that he will hold on, similar to how branches of a tree link to each other.
