A false Knowledge (Metaphor)
Dad believes that white people wanted to hide the real Knowledge and fool black people. They deployed their phrenologists, their backward Darwinists, and forged a false knowledge to keep us down, he explains. But against this demonology, there were those who battled back: “Universities scorned them. Compromised professors scoffed at their names. So they published themselves and hawked their Knowledge at street fairs, churches, and bazaars”. The metaphor shows the importance of the real Knowledge and a struggle for it between people of different generations and races.
An era of chronic welchers (Metaphor)
The narrator highlights that the period of his early childhood was “an era of chronic welchers” – a rotten time when moral values were graded and nobody cared about high spirits and manners: “the disgrace was so broad that [racial slur deleted] actually bragged of running out on kids”. The metaphor highlights the peculiarities of epoch when the narrator grew up, its laws and rules of behavior.
Called to fatherhood like a tainted preacher (Simile)
Dad had seven kids by four women and he loved all of them and took care of each of his children so no one could complain of him or blame him in irresponsibility or indifference. He spent a lot of time educating his children, teaching them all best Christian qualities – love, friendship, care and understanding. His father also had many children but he was cruel man and didn’t care of them, he didn’t love them and Ta-Nehisi’s Dad decided that he will never be like his father. It is said that he was called to fatherhood like a tainted preacher and this simile is used by the author to highlight the value of his fatherhood, although it was tough for him to care of all his children and he worked hard for them, he was a good father and loved his children.
Claws of rage (Metaphor)
Rage is a strong feeling, which may be dangerous for a human and brings more problems than advantages. When one feels rage one is not able to control oneself and then everything is possible. It is very rare that a person can control his/her rage and Ta-Nehisi, as it happened, was this kind of person. When he heard that Big Billy called his mother “bald-headed bitch”, he was mad, “I would feel the claws of rage digging into me, but my nature never allowed them to hang on for long.” The metaphor is important for discovering his character.
Knowledge is a disease (Metaphor)
The image of metaphor is one of the most important in the story. It represents power of human, our ability to develop ourselves and find out more about the world around us. But the knowledge is also some kind of disease, and, as the narrator says, some took to it faster than others. But eventually we all got it. The metaphor represents another point of view on Knowledge as something rather unpleasant but still important for self-developing.
