Ahmed's identity
Ahmed uses different metaphors to describe what the "other" side of her identity is like: “I have at least the whole of my life to answer a question: Who am I? And who is the other? A gust of wind at dawn? A motionless landscape? A trembling leaf? A coil of white smoke above a mountain? I write all these words and I hear the wind, not outside, but inside my head. A strong wind, it rattles the shutters through which I enter the dream.” These metaphors are used to suggest that Ahmed is trying to work out what this unknown side of herself is, and what it looks and feels like. Ultimately, this unknown aspect of herself is her female identity, which she later discovers and embraces.
The wound metaphor
The text draws upon issues of gender saying that women have a shared "wound." This wound is a metaphor for the physical, emotional and psychological pain that women go through due to their inferior status in society. The novel particularly looks at female subservience in marriage, and also the perceived inferiority of daughters, compared to sons.
Roadside metaphor
In the following passage, the author uses a metaphor to describe what being born a woman is like: "To be born a girl is a calamity, a misfortune that is left at the roadside where death passes by at the end of the day." This metaphor depicts women as being unwanted and unloved, as they are "left at the roadside."
Mirror metaphor
Ahmed describes the pain she feels when she considers her identity, and how she has been living a lie her whole life. She says: “Pain, too, comes from depths that cannot be revealed... The mirror has become the route through which my body reaches that state, in which it is crushed into the ground, digs a temporary grave, and allows itself to be drawn by the living roots that swarm beneath the stones. It is flattened beneath the weight of that immense sadness which few people have the privilege of knowing. So I avoid mirrors.” Here, Ahmed describes how mirrors cause her to feel intense pain, as they remind her about her appearance and the fact that it doesn't match how she is feeling on the inside. As such, the mirror becomes a metaphor for her confused identity, caused by her parents' decision to raise her as a son.
