A Hard Little Place (Metaphor)
"Only she herself knew that at the centre of her heart was a hard little place that could not feel love, no, not for anybody."
The bitterness of Paul's mother's dissatisfaction has walled her up in herself, thereby preventing her from feeling love even for her children, whom she sees as mere extensions of her outward social being. She seems very certain in this self-centered dissatisfaction of hers, but through the story this stoniness will open up as she becomes more concerned for her son Paul.
Blue Fire (Metaphor)
"His eyes were blue fire."
In contrast to most of the tacit or unapparent forces and anxieties in the story, Paul's eyes show clearly the passion and destructiveness which lies behind so many of their appearances. At first, this force seems nurturing, giving Paul special abilities, but we learn that the fire is also burning him out, until he goes mad and dies.
From Heaven (Simile)
"It's Master Paul, sir. It's as if he had it from heaven."
Bassett speaks in a lower-class dialect which may at times seem prone to exaggeration, except that it is no coincidence that he mentions "heaven" in relation to Paul's uncanny ability to predict races. Earlier, Paul claimed that he knew about his luck from God, and later, Paul dies, leaving this life for heaven. That is to say, "heaven" does not just mean somewhere unknown or random, but that which is outside of life.
People Laughing at You Behind Your Back (Simile)
"And then the house whispers, like people laughing at you behind your back."
The whispers of the house seem to come from everywhere yet nowhere in particular, which lend them an uncanny force. We know that it is specifically Paul's mother who feels dissatisfied with how much money they have, yet this dissatisfaction is larger than just a personal characteristic of hers; it is the whole society which, while respecting appearances and praising people like Paul's mother, laughs at them on a different, less explicit plane.
Stone (Metaphor)
"His mother sat, feeling her heart had gone, turned actually into a stone."
In the very beginning of the story, we learn that Paul's mother feels her heart is like a stone. However, that stony feeling is set in deliberate contrast with the stony feeling she has at the end after Paul's death. Whereas her heart felt like a stone at first because of her inability to love her children, it feels so at the end of the story because of how she has harmed her own love and turned against herself.
