Bulldozer
The father of the protagonist of the story has already been dead for a few months when the story begins. "Arthur hadn’t forgotten how upset his mom had been after the funeral, how she’d gone through the kitchen like a bulldozer when they got home." The simile is being used here to convey a sense of grief and mourning at its most palpable. The comparison of Arthur's mom bulldozing away alludes to the need in the emotional turmoil of the moment to clear away all memories of her husband because they are too difficult to bear.
Snowflakes
Arthur's mom joins her son in the courtroom throughout the proceedings against. The narrator notes that her appearance was usually perfectly maintained but "Pretty soon, she looked as if she was covered in melting pink snowflakes." The simile is actually comparing pink tissue paper to snowflakes. She has spent so much time daubing her teary eyes with pink tissue that the result now looks like snowfall on her dress.
Angel Wings
A discussion on the nature of angels leads to the use of similes to make the point of comparison. "Some angels are like peacocks. Others are less flashy. Like city pigeons.” The difference here is conveyed absolutely through the similes. One need only be familiar with the difference between what a peacock and a pigeon looks like to understand.
Bad Luck
In the wake of his father's death, Arthur has been weighed down with emotions he cannot even begin to fully understand. "It was a big mirror of bad luck hanging over his head every day." Because standard definitions aren't up to the job, he must embrace metaphorical imagery to get at the heart of his confused mixture of feelings. This description comes just after he has literally thrown rocks into mirrors to help create an art project. The literal reality of the broken mirrors around him is finally what allows him to get at the center of his metaphor.
Character Description
This novel is unusually light on the use of metaphorical imagery to describe character. Even when it is engaged, it is usually fairly straightforward such as noting a "landlord looked like a gangster. Greased-back dark hair." What is important to remember is that the story is set in the early 1960's. The simile back then conveys a distinctly different image than it would today. Except for the gold chain around the landlord's neck, that is, which conforms both to the slicked-back hair gangster of the past as well as the "gangsta" of the modern era.
