The exhausted monster
The author doesn't shy away from using metaphors in her autobiography, one of such being calling a train an exhausted monster. This simple metaphor portrays the atmosphere of the author's childhood in a close community where everyone knew each other but anyone hardly spoke to one another.
People are like plants
Throughout the autobiography, the author compares a plant life to that of a human, making indirect connections or direct ones like this comparing plants to humans because they are both drawn to light.
Like an ant
Contrary to her research and conclusions to similarities of a human to the plant life, the author doesn't see herself as a plant. She sees herself as an ant, which carries single dead needles all the way across the forest and adds them one by one to a massive pile of which he can only imagine a small corner. This is how the author sees her scientific work, not as something that she can bring to an end by herself, but with her effort enlarge the already existing pile.
