“You’re like a cat who’s been licking the cream” (Simile)
Regina says this to her brother Ben right after they meet with Marshall, their business partner in the cotton mill deal. She compares her brother's glee at having secured funding to a cat who is licking the cream, an image that evokes how smug and excited he is about the imminent deal.
“…there are people who eat the earth and eat all the people on it like in the Bible with the locusts.” (Metaphor & Simile)
Addie tells Alexandra that there are people who take and take, using a Biblical metaphor. She uses the metaphor of eating the earth to represent the greed of the Hubbards, and then compares them to the locusts in the Bible to show how their greed leaves ruin in its wake, like the plagues of locusts described in the Bible.
"Nobody could blame you if the whole thing just dripped away right through your fingers" (Metaphor)
While Regina and Horace argue about him putting up the 75,000 for the deal, Oscar uses the metaphor of a liquid substance dripping away through Ben's fingers to represent the threat of the business deal falling through.
"Ben Hubbard wanted the cotton and Oscar Hubbard married it for him" (Metaphor)
In a moment of uncharacteristic candor, Birdie reveals that Oscar only married her because he wanted to inherit the plantation her family owned. She uses a metaphor to explain that Oscar married the plantation itself, as a way of showing that she was never part of her husband's desire, that their marriage was only ever a business transaction.
"The world is open" (Metaphor)
When Regina and her brothers finally settle on a deal that is attractive to all of them, Ben talks about the fact that "the world is open" and that there are many people like them seizing business opportunities. The image of the world as "open" represents how justified the Hubbards feel in their own greed, their sense that they can take what they please.
