Mapmaking
One of the characters is working for an institute that is pursuing the project of mapping the ocean floor. Another considers how this is a big challenge but not nearly as challenging as mapping a person’s life. “How do you make a map of that? The borders people draw between themselves. The scars left along the ground of one’s heart.” The metaphorical imagery here is clear enough. Mapmaking requires clear and distinct topography. Human existence is not nearly as distinct and is defined by blurred lines and unseen borders.
Black Cake
The title of the book is situated throughout as a metaphor, but one particular line boils things down to a precise simile. “Every time his mother made a black cake, it must have been like reciting an incantation, calling up a line from her true past, taking herself back to the island.” The comparison of making the titular cake to an incantation hints at its symbolic meaning. It is a metaphor for the intrinsic value cultural origins and therefore something is considered almost magical to a member of that culture.
Plum Pudding
The problem with the metaphorical image of black cake is that defining the precise cultural origin of anything is a tricky endeavor. “Black cake was essentially a plum pudding handed down to the Caribbeans by colonizers from a cold country. Why claim the recipes of the exploiters as your own?” The incantatory symbolism of the mother making black cake is compromised, according to one son, by it also being a metaphor for imperialism. He insists that the recipe for black cake is not culturally pure at all but could only come about through the cultural miscegenation of colonial oppression. Plum pudding, of course, is historically associated with British colonialists rather than any indigenous culture they oppressed.
Cell Phones
Considering how omnipresent cell phones have become in everyone’s daily life, it is perhaps surprising that their presence as metaphor in literature has remained relatively small. “Byron’s phone is vibrating along the kitchen counter, its screen flashing, one-two, one-two, like lightning strikes in a wall of clouds. Byron feels like the phone. Byron feels like the phone.” This is an example of how the technology can effectively be used to convey human emotions. The comparison of the flashing to lightning is tangible. The comparison of Byron’s emotional state to the vibrating phone is less concrete but still manages to convey the idea of his agitation.
Bunny and Covey
Covey finds a close friend in the water. Meaning that the two friends establish a bond over a love of swimming. “She felt as though she’d found a sister on land and in the water.” The simile in this case is straightforward as it describes a friendship sharing the closeness of family. The addition of the land and water aspect hints at how comfortable Covey feels in the water and suggests that the pool is a place that is more special than the rest of daily life.
