Opening Line
The opening line of the novel is a metaphor. However, it is a subtle type that one might refer to as a soft metaphor, perhaps. The symbolic status may not be as immediately obvious as the typical sort of usage of this literary device, but the imagery is equating Linda Vista metaphorically with the “land ho!” of someone who has been become lost at sea. Of course, there is also a bit of literal truth to that imagery as well:
“Linda Vista, with its rows of yellow houses, is where we eventually washed to shore.”
More Obvious
For instance, by way of comparison, the comparison made through the use of the simile in this example is a much more obvious example of metaphorical imagery. That which is being compared loses the subtlety expressed in the opening line and stands assertively as being symbolic in nature:
“The footprints began at the car, which looked, from a distance, like a shining blue box that had dropped from the sky.”
Absolutely Nothing, Say it Again!
What, the question poses, is war good for? The answer being nothing, but that is, of course, an opinion relative to the details. Fighting wars to end genocide is, most people probably agree, a good thing. Fighting a war to increase profits of companies making things for battle, well, not so much. And then there is the more poetic answer which qualifies in both instances:
“Ma says war is a bird with a broken wing flying over the countryside, trailing blood and burying crops in sorrow.
A Father’s Gaze
The first-person narrator uses metaphorical imagery to especially good effect in delineating the characterizations of family members. For instance, one can viscerally visualize the image of the father in this economically efficient descriptive passage:
“He would gaze beyond a person’s shoulder as though watching storm clouds gather on the horizon. Neither holding the clouds back nor inviting them on, his eyes merely took in their approach.”
A Child’s Gaze
The narrator often lapses into a childlike sensibility when describing that father, even when recollecting memories from childhood from the distance of adulthood. Another particularly effective use of metaphor engages the defining metaphor of the modern age to describe the disorienting effect of identifying so closely with a parent:
"I grew up studying my father so closely as to suggest I was certain I saw my future in him…I would answer to names not my own and be ordered around like a child. I would disappear into every manner of darkness only to awaken amid a halo of faces encircling my body. Shame would crush me.”
