Metaphor: Hammer
In the following metaphor, Morrison likens the aftermath of Bacon's Rebellion, in which rich and poor white Virginians saw their relations sour, to a hammer being used to pound, subdue, and crumble: "Any social ease between gentry and laborers, forged before and during that rebellion, crumbled beneath a hammer wielded in the interests of the gentry's profits" (11). It effectively shows the power of the gentry.
Simile: Plan
Vaark doesn't care much for the business of slavery, and is somewhat disdainful of the grotesqueness of the wealth it deposits in the hands of the few. Yet when there is a chance that he too might become wealthy, he decides he can put aside his misgivings about slavery and invest in the sugar plantations of the West Indies. He thinks: "And the plan was as sweet as the sugar on which it was based" (35), a simile that shows how beguiled he is by this new business venture.
Simile: Sorrow
Lina does not care for Sorrow, remarking that "In the best of times the girl dragged misery like a tail" (55). This simile compares her misery to a tail, which is an actual part of an animal that never goes away. This comparison helps show how endemic misery is to the poor Sorrow, and why Lina is wary of her.
Simile: Florens
Having been abandoned by her mother, Florens is desperate for human affection. Thus, no matter "however slight, any kindness shown her she munched like a rabbit" (97). This simile paints an image of Florens as small, docile, furtive, and quick to gobble up sustenance—in this case, love and affection.
Metaphor: Rebekka and the Women at Sea
Rebekka and her fellow women in steerage cannot do much while they are traveling to the new world. They are rarely allowed on deck and their sense of time and space is twisted. In the following metaphor, Morrison compares the women's impression of the passage of time to the sea, which has no beginning and no end: "for them, unable to see the sky, time became simply the running sea, unmarked, eternal and of no matter" (85).
