"Open-mouthed waves" (Metaphor)
This metaphor likens the ocean’s waves to an open mouth. The author uses this and other metaphors to characterize the sea as a living being with many secrets and stories. The waves may reveal their secrets to passersby, or swallow them whole, just like an open mouth.
The giant serpent "is attached to the lives of the river people like skin." (Simile)
The narrator indicates that the serpent permeates every aspect of life in the Gulf of Carpentaria. This being is so much a part of the lives of Carpentaria’s inhabitants that it is like their own skin.
"Throw words around…like string" (Simile)
This simile emphasizes the great power that words have in Carpentaria. Throughout the novel, words have a nearly magical power to shape reality. Comparing speech to throwing string around shows how words can create a tangle of confusion and damage that has real consequences for people and events in Desperance.
"Will Phantom is mud" (Metaphor)
As the employees of the mining company continue to hunt for Will, Will moves so swiftly, like an animal, that he becomes invisible to them. This metaphor emphasizes the extent to which Will is not just like mud but practically becomes mud, part of his surrounding environment, such that his would-be captors cannot see him, even when they shine their flashlights right in his direction.
"Plastic shopping bags from the rubbish dump rose up like ghosts" (Simile)
The author uses a simile to compare plastic shopping bags to ghosts. In this way, she paints a picture of a haunted, dystopian environment in which garbage and dust pollute the land and the ocean.
