The Writer's Paradox
The narrator observes, "For our lives were, as writers, essentially little by nature. Writers have to lead little lives, otherwise, you can’t find time for writing." In this instance, the reference to "little" lives is a metaphor for the idea that the people responsible for crafting the words that captivate millions cannot lead such exciting lives themselves and still be able to offer adventurous escapes to others. Most writing is by definition a solitary endeavor and this assertion is one which reveals the paradox of literary creation.
Spa Day
The novel is narrated by a fifty-something literature professor at a point in her life when she finds herself caught between a philandering husband and a younger man, both of whom are also college professors. A visit to a spa turns out more metaphorical than intended. "It wasn’t as though I thought I could become more alluring; it was more that I wanted to erect a fortress around my body—a fortress of care and grooming. A fortress of corporeal dignity." This is the language of intelligence and success that is trying desperately to cover up emotions and actions belonging to a more emotionally impulsive period of his life. The fortress she is really trying to construct is the metaphor itself as she looks to language to deal with an unexpected reignition of such impulses.
Foreshadowing Florence
After a short Prologue, the very first paragraph includes an explosive metaphor packed with mystery. "Even sitting three chairs away from Florence was almost too much for me to bear—lightning bolts of anger shot from my vagina to my extremities." Florence will not be fleshed out for another 120 pages, but this metaphorical imagery efficiently foreshadows how her mere presence is something capable of deeply stirring the emotions of the narrator.
Students
The narrator undergoes a substantial lessening of excitement about her job once her husband becomes embroiled in the MeToo movement and threatens to bring her down with him. It is a wholesale and comprehensive reassessment of the student body into a genderless collective. "Their lives, for the most part (at least the majority of students who attended this liberal and very expensive college), were cloaked in the postmillennial blanket of peace and prosperity, while terrible threats loomed in the shadowy corners of the larger world." The metaphorical protective "blanket" and the "shadowy corners" where threats are far away is a recognition of privilege and the bubble it serves to create. The narrator then suddenly realizes she is also commenting upon her own world and, catching herself, quickly lays claim to being a person with no understanding of the world who is occasionally given grandiose thoughts.
The Legacy
Also dismissed as grandiose, but actually insightful is the narrator's co-opting of a famous metaphorical image. "Once Trump became president, the illusion, the one imparted to them comfortably from the driver’s seat of a minivan, the idea that the world would slowly get better, that `the arc of history is long but it bends toward justice' was upended." The quote is from Dr. Martin Luther King and the symbolic imagery is a reminder that history can take a long time to right wrongs, but in the end, justice prevails. As it connects to Trump, the allusion will only be evident to like-mind readers while his supporters will first have to work out what the narrator means by "the illusion."
