Devil-Bug
The most interesting character—arguably, of course—in the text is the doorman to the underground and somewhat nefarious gentleman’s club that is the beating heart of the plot. The metaphorical language in his physical description alone is enough to draw the reader’s fascination:
“His teeth were fast clenched, but his lips, hung apart, shriveled with a fixed and grotesque grin ; like the smile of a fiend, frozen into marble.”
Justice in the Quaker City
Corruption reigns in the Quaker City and some are not afraid to say so out loud and in public. Nor to use the strength of metaphorical language to hit the point of their irony. Justice in the Quaker City is called:
“A Strange Monster…One moment it unbolts the doors of the prison, and bids the Bank-Director, who boasts his ten thousand victims, whose ears ring for ever with the curses of the Widow and (he Orphan, it bids the honest Bank- Director, go forth ! The next moment it bolts and seals those very prison doors, upon the poor devil, who has stolen a loaf of bread to save himself from starvation.”
Drunk
In referencing the psychological state of a person who has been drugged, the author draws a parallel with the state of overzealous consumption of fermented grapes transformed into alcoholic beverages. Rarely has metaphor been used so efficiently to describe the consequence of this action. Oblivion sounds so much nicer than “the fruit of getting blotto.”
“There are men who can never call to mind the incidents of a sight of intoxication. With these men wine is oblivion.”
First Love
The plot centers around an attempt to corrupt a young maiden lost in innocent throes of first love. It is this state of mind which leads her toward the darker side of desire. The metaphorical imagery use to describe this state is almost poetic enough to have been written in verse:
“She knew not that this fluttering fascination, which bound her to his slightest look or tone—like the charmed bird to the lulling music which the snake is said to murmur, as he ensnares his prey—she knew not that this fluttering fascination, was but the blind admiration of the moth, as it floats in the light of the flame, which will at last consume it.”
You Think?
Following the Preface is a section titled “The Origin and Object of This Book.” A quick summary of that section is provided in the form of a rhetorical question. You know, one of those question that doesn’t really need to be answered because the answer is so obviously:
“Then, Philadelphia is not so pure as it looks?”
