'Unfamiliar River'
Stacy Kidder explicates, “A large passenger jet was parked on the tarmac, and a disordered crowd was heading toward it in sweaty haste. Deo felt as if he were being carried by the crowd, immersed in an unfamiliar river. The faces around him were mostly white, and though many were black or brown, there was no one whom he recognized, and so far as he could tell there were no country people.” The metaphoric ‘unfamiliar river’ accentuates that Deo is unaccustomed of other individuals in the jet; he is plainly among aliens.
Knots
Stacy Kidder writes, “He (Deo) began to realize how constricted his intestines and stomach had felt, as if wound into knots for months on end, as the tightness seeped away.” Kidder equates the shrinking of Deo’s intestines to knots to emphasize the repercussion the tension on Deo’s body. Besides, the knots infer that he had not nurtured himself appropriately owing to the commotion of the war.
