Isolation
One thing is inevitable about feeling isolated and alienated from others. Eventually, the loneliness of the long distance situation catches up to you. No matter how long much you enjoy being alone, loneliness is always lurking in the shadows:
…she knew she must end her solitude. Her aloneness was catching up with her; that was all.
Opening Paragraph
The metaphorical imagery commences almost immediately. The first paragraph is not even half over before the literal description of the weather turns figurative:
The promise of another deluge was suspended in the afternoon half-light. The sun—hanging somewhere behind the sky, somewhere they could not find it—was unable to dry the roadbed or the thick foliage along the mountainside…
Jane Eyre
The relationship between this novel and Jane Eyre is impossible to break apart. Once Clare begins reading the Bronte novel, she becomes subsumed into that other world by noticing the similarities between her story and Jane’s. It is only on a metaphorical level, but Clare and Jane become bonded into a sisterhood spanning time, space and the nature of reality.
The Title
The very title of the book is the central metaphor of the book, of course. And one entire paragraph is devoted to explicating the meaning of the metaphor, mostly through the use of additional metaphor:
No voice to God. A waste to try. No way of reaching out or up.
Magnanimous Warrior
Another metaphor-rich paragraph is the one which commences the chapter titled Magnanimous Warrior. It is almost poetic in the manner in which is eschew conventions of narrative prose to become an exaltation of the glory of its subject:
She in whom the spirits come quick and hard. Hunting mother…Warrior who sheds her skin like a snake and travels into the darkness a fireball.
