The Herd
A female character engages a familiar metaphor describing masses of people in describing the man in her life. “The uselessness of the fantasy of him was becoming more clear — he could not be had; he could be held, at most, for a moment — he was like the herd itself, he ran by and left you with a mouthful of fur.” This image of a member of a herd running wild conveys the idea of the insubstantial quality of dependability. The woman is suggesting that this man was never good for her reality but now even the fantasy of thinking he could be domesticated is pointless.
Atmosphere
The narrator describes how one day there is a feeling in the air of something not quite right. “There was a thin fog that, combined with a weak sun, gave everything a tenuous feeling, like the whole earth might collapse in at any moment.” The language here begins with a literal description but swiftly moves into something beyond that limitation. The simile suggests that this series of quite natural meteorological events swerves off into the uncanny valley. The atmosphere is impacted and changed by something unseen that exists outside the easily explained. This use of metaphorical language conveys a feeling most everybody has experienced, but few can adequately describe.
Heaven
A parable is related using metaphorical imagery to illustrate the concept of heaven. “The kingdom of Heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field, and when a man has found it, he hides it and with joy goes out and sells all that he owns, and buys that field.” The metaphor seems a bit complex at first, but it is actually just a complicated way of saying something much more familiar. Heaven, according to this idea, is essentially a reiteration of the idea that the grass you don’t have is always greener than the grass you do. Whatever the man is selling winds up being worth enough exactly enough to allow him to purchase the treasure in the field. If the treasure is heaven, therefore, he was already there.
Animals
Comparison to animals is a powerful accessory to the tool of the simile. One of the most effective ways to create an image of human action in the mind of a reader is to compare it to animal behavior. “He looked, Risten thought, like he might jump on Frans like a wolverine on a reindeer’s back, sink his claws and teeth in and hang on.” A wolverine is one of those animals that a lot of people have heard about but never actually seen. In this case, the comparison is actually somewhat vague, but the principle of what a reindeer might look like after this encounter is clear enough. The idea of a wolverine’s behavior is more important than the reality.
Snow
The desolate northern setting of the story affords multiple references to snow, both literally and metaphorically. “They were entrapped by emptiness — it was like being at sea — the snow might as well have been ocean, and they a caravan of small and weary boats, adrift.” The image of an ocean of snow is very easy to imagine while reading this book in which cold wintry weather is pervasive. The vastness of an ocean becomes diminished in size so that people can take on the appearance of unmoored boats by way of comparison.
