Character Sketching
Just a few pages into the story, the author begins what will become a recurring process of briefly sketching in outlines of characters through metaphor and simile. This construction is allusive, pointing toward characteristic to be developed in greater detail later:
“They were walking more quickly now, and Therese did not hear Duros's answer. Once more she breathed in the damp night air like someone threatened with suffocation.”
A Home’s Smallest Real Estate
It is often a case of the most tragic irony that the smallest piece of real estate in a home is also the one which needs to be shared most intimately with those we would prefer least to share that coveted space. A bed is supposed to be a haven for relaxation, but how many nights for how many people is this idea presented as a cruel joke? Metaphor helps illuminate the reality of this real estate as a domestic battlefield:
“…a few minutes later he lumbered towards her again, as though his flesh sought blindly its accustomed prey even in the insensibility of sleep. Roughly she pushed him from her once more, though without waking him. ... If only she could get free of him once and for all—could thrust him from the bed into the outer darkness!”
A Woman of Destiny
Contemplative philosophical musings directed inward are a hallmark of the idiosyncratic text. There is much self-reflection going on here, which may be a signature of the times. With so fewer things to distract than is found in the modern world, one could actually take the time to look deep inside the self rather than focusing on just the external presentation that runs amok among the social media generation:
“She was fated to carry loneliness about with her as a leper carries his scabs. 'No one can do anything for me: no one can do anything against me.'”
Darkness
Imagery of suffocation arises once again with the utilization of the go-to metaphor of the modern age. Almost every novel written since the late 1800’s engages darkness metaphorically. The closer one gets to yesterday, the more likely the engagement:
“…when I saw the last of him, I felt as though I had plunged into an endless tunnel, that I was driving ahead into a darkness which grew more dense the farther I advanced, so that I sometimes wondered whether I should suffocate before I reached the open air again.”
Bandages?
The following example contains an idea that is quite familiar, but with a tweaking of the details that may be foreign. One is likely to have come across a number of other metaphorical images from scales to rose-colored glasses. Regardless of the oddity of this particulars in this example, the meaning is still quite clear:
“What irritates me about Marie is the way she has of living in a world of illusions. I've always had a passion for tearing the bandages from other people's eyes. I've always insisted that those round me should see things as they are.”
