Lord Wilmington – A Simile
“He dropped out of his circle like a lead bullet you let slip out of your hand into the sea.”
Here, Lord Wilmington is compared to a bullet that slips from one’s hand into the sea. The resemblance is drawn by means of the word “like”; therefore, the comparison is a direct one. The juxtaposition of Lord’s Wilmington and a lead bullet serves to highlight the sudden, strong, and inevitable change that came upon his life and destroyed his reputation as if he himself had sunk into a sea of shame.
The Hall at night -Simile and Personification
“Harry opened the door, the hall gaped black like the mouth of night”
This one sentence contains a simile and a personification at the same time. On the one hand, the darkness in the hall is compared to the mouth of night by means of the word “like”; therefore it is a simile. On the other, night is given human characteristics, namely a mouth; and this is a figure of speech known as personification.
These two literary devices are combined in order to give a vivid touch to the horrors that haunted Harry when he was a young boy. The hall, through which he was passing, is given the dreary aspect of being a part of something even bigger and scarier in an attempt to showcase the vortex of fears through which his mind was tortured.
The telegram – A simile
“But the fire took hold upon the telegram and shook it, so that it moved like a thing alive and in pain”.
In this simile, the telegram is compared to an animate object which can feel pain. This is symbolic of all the trouble that lay in store for Harry. The simile is used thus as a means to foreshadow all the pain and distress that are to follow the act of burning the telegram without conveying its content to the other officers present that night.
Fear – A personification
“Fear of cowardice had sapped incessantly at his heart. He had walked about with it; he had taken it with him to his bed. It had haunted his dreams. It had been his perpetual menacing companion.”
In this passage, personification -which is a common form of metaphor- is used to convey the continual aspect of Feversham’s suffering. His fear of being a coward followed him like a menacing companion at all times and left him no time to breathe.
The four feathers – A Metaphor
"..and Feversham felt those four feathers burning at his breast ."
This is a metaphor in which the four feathers are compared to fire without the express use of any such words as “like”. This is an implicit comparison asserting that fire and feathers are identical. They both burn and hurt the same way. This literary device is used to convey to the reader the amount of pain felt by Harry Feversham on account of the feathers he received.
Prudence – A Metaphor
“A few more words from Durrance and her prudence would have broken beneath the strain.”
Here Ethne’s prudence is compared to glass in its fragility and vulnerability. This is a metaphor which asserts the identical nature of Ethne’s prudence with that of glass at that precise moment. She had run from Colonel Durrance because she felt that her will would break, and she would end up saying things she did not intend to say.
