Useless lumps of dough (Metaphor)
In “Hands,” Madeleine J. refers to her hands as “[u]seless godforsaken lumps of dough” (59). As a blind woman who had been attended to by family and nurses since an early age, she had never used her hands for anything and feels totally detached from them, like they are foreign objects attached to her arms. Though this metaphor is somewhat run-of-the-mill, it actually reveals a lot about the secret potential in her hands that Madeleine has yet to consciously realize. Dough, after all, is a substance that can be molded into something new and valuable. Her use of this metaphor hints at the potential that her hands have had all along.
The Dog Beneath the Skin (Simile)
In “The Dog Beneath the Skin,” Stephen D. likens himself to a dog, excitedly sniffing every object around him on the city streets. This is due to Stephen’s heightened sense of smell, which brings his environment alive to him in a new way. Dogs, whose sense of smell far exceeds that of humans, seem to like to sniff things around them for a similar reason. Curiously, this heightened smell-state is triggered by a dream that Stephen had about being a dog. Hence, this comparison actually precedes Stephen’s real-life experience of acting like a dog.
Grannie’s Long Home (Metaphor)
Rebecca uses the term “Long Home” as a metaphor for her grandmother’s death. Rebecca always loved listening to stories, and she has a strong, demonstrated understanding of metaphor and symbol. The author emphasizes that the phrase Rebecca uses is not a fluke or a misplaced set of words; she is, like any poet, intentionally using words to evoke an imaginative space where her grandmother resides. This for Sacks fortifies his understanding of Rebecca as more than just a simpleton, but a complex and grounded individual with a rich and fascinating relationship with the symbolic structure of words.
The Lost Mariner (Metaphor)
The author evokes a metaphoric image of a stranded mariner lost forever at sea to describe the plight of Jimmie G., who was once a sailor in the Navy. As a Korsakoff’s patient, Jimmie G. has become lost in every passing moment with no hope for being found. He has decades of retrograde amnesia and also almost complete short-term memory loss. Like a lost mariner at sea, he has become hopelessly isolated by his neurological condition.
Arabian Nights (Metaphor)
“To talk of diseases is a sort of Arabian Nights entertainment.”
Used as the epigraph to the book, this quote from William Osler likens the talk of disease to Arabian Nights, the collection of Middle Eastern folktales that, according to legend, were told by a Queen to a tyrannical King in order to prevent the King from killing her. In essence, to talk of disease is to stave off the threat of death for just a while longer, until you can come up with another story to tell. This metaphor supports Sacks’ overall approach to adding romance and drama to his discussion of neurological disorders. It emphasizes the humanity and the inherent fear present in conversations and stories about diseases.
