Ironic Opening
The novel begins with a simple description of an unidentified girl exiting a house and standing on the steps. And then the first use of metaphorical language is engaged. Considering the title and seasonal imagery to come and how that is implicated with such significance, the description here is ironic to say the least:
“It was the beginning of a June afternoon. The springlike transparent sky shed a rain of silver sunshine on the roofs of the village, and on the pastures and larchwoods surrounding it.”
Wharton's Complexity
Wharton possesses a strong and robust talent for extending a metaphor across complex sentence structure. One of the most lyrical examples of this also touches upon seasonal imagery, as does so much of the figurative language in the novel:
“The air was cool and clear, with the autumnal sparkle that a north wind brings to the hills in early summer, and the night had been so still that the dew hung on everything, not as a lingering moisture, but in separate beads that glittered like diamonds on the ferns and grasses.”
Psychological Insight
Wharton also shows a distinct talent for using metaphorical language to provide a quick, sharp and incisive penetration into the mind of a character without staying in there too long to give too much away. Here she gives just a glimpse into the character of Charity by revealing how her protagonist views others.
“Every instinct and habit made her a stranger among these poor swamp-people living like vermin in their lair.”
“Charity felt herself a mere speck in the lonely circle of the sky.”
The narrative moves inexorably toward the breakdown of Charity’s self-esteem and the devastation of hope. The good news for readers it that when someone arrives at a point in which they see themselves in such spectacularly insignificant light it usually means that either a surprising turn of events is in store or the final tragic conclusion is just around the corner. Such is this Charity's case. But which? The turn or the tragedy?
Charity's Myopia
Not long after ruminating on her insignificance in the universe, Charity is endowed with an improvement of vision. Wharton turns to her considerable toolbox of metaphorical powers to describe how she turns her focus from the distant to the near to see more clearly.
“As everything else in her consciousness grew more and more confused and immaterial, became more and more like the universal shimmer that dissolves the world to failing eyes, Mr. Royall's presence began to detach itself with rocky firmness from this elusive background.”
