Death Cleans the Oven
The novel effectively begins with a metaphorical image. And it is an effective metaphor, indeed, as it utilizes the collective power of fairy tales to imprint a concept upon readers across a wide range of cultural and generation differences:
“Here’s a picture of her the day she died. She had a stroke while cleaning the oven…of course you can’t see her face for the oven, but you can see where she had her stockings rolled down for housework and, although this is a black and white picture, her house-dress actually is black since she was in mourning for Kathleen at the time, as well as Ambrose…Mercedes found her like that, half in half out of the oven like the witch in Hansel and Gretel.”
Kathleen
Kathleen is a major character, and not just because of relationships. She is a major figure because of how people feel toward every bit as much as how she demonstrates herself to the reader. More subtly, metaphorical insight into her mind provides insight into she feels toward others:
“Kathleen glares at the accompanist, with equal parts fury and disbelief. And the accompanist looks back — calm, level gaze. Insolent, more like it, how dare she? Handsome features cut like sculpture into her face, so at odds with the puffed sleeves and schoolgirl braids. Kathleen looks away dismissively from the beanpole in a hand-me-down dress.”
The Scarecrow
A simple scarecrow also plays a rather significant role in the story. For at least one character, it is a thing of terror; a manifestation of horrific possibility and another allusion to fairy tales and fantasy. Thus, it is almost inevitable that the scarecrow dies a metaphorical death and that this death is endowed with a meaning well beyond the mass of straw:
“James tosses the scarecrow across the creek. It lands with a thud next to Frances, its neck bleeding straw, its legs splayed crazy on either side of the teeming wooden stake. Frances can feel the scarecrow looking up at her. It has no head but she can see its expression anyway, pathetic and sad: `Why did you do this to me?’ Lying there like a dying soldier wanting to give her a message from his dying throat”
Extended Metaphor
This is a story infused with the power of metaphor. The author knows how to pull the power of the figurative out of the holster and is not afraid to shoot. Some passages, indeed, read almost like poetic description shaped and formed into big, wide paragraph-sized stanzas:
“On the lonely stretch between where the houses end and where the sea bites into the land, a tree casts a network of shadow...It’s a figure come out from under the branches and onto the street. It stops, drifting in place like a plant on the ocean floor. Then it travels again all the way down the street to the graveyard. It passes among the headstones that have flourished with the town, but it does not linger at the freshest mound. It continues to the edge of the cliff. There, it lies down on its stomach and places its neck upon the lip of the precipice, as though the earth were a giant guillotine. It looks straight out to the sea that stretches four thousand miles due east, and sings.”
The Darkness
The darkness is the 20th century’s greatest gift to literary metaphor. Let’s face it: that was one dark century. Pick up just about any novel written since the late 1800’s and chances are somewhere within there will appear “darkness” intended as metaphor. By this point, of course, it is difficult to locate any particularly inventive utilization of darkness, but don’t give up hope. They can still be found:
“How unhappy are they who have a gift that’s left to germinate in darkness. The pale plant will sink invisible roots and live whitely off their blood.”
