“there may be an opening at the South Pole, or a whirlpool like the Maelstrom”
The entire novel revolves around the substance of this particular simile. If the narrative allows the character to proceed to the South Pole and there is neither simple opening nor Maelstrom-like whirlpool, there’s very little reason to go on reading. Occurring early on, the big mystery is not whether, but which.
“the prisoner is treated like a king”
This novel is an example of utopian/dystopian fiction which tells of a strange civilization at the South Pole where everything is upside down. The satire here is rather obvious, serves a specific purpose: this is not really a dark dystopian nightmare, but an ironic satire of a utopia.
"like the wind"
This familiar simile appears to be a favorite of the author to describe a departure so sudden it is almost like disappearing. The simile occurs four different times in the text; three of times showing up within the space of just a couple of pages.
“It looks like Egyptian papyrus”
The manuscript of the title is strange for a number of reasons. One of those reasons is that this seemingly throwaway comparison is a simile of great significance. When spoken, it is a simile; a metaphorical comparison of something that cannot realistically be the thing to which is compared because Egyptian papyrus is said to be almost non-existent at the time the story takes place. Things really get stranger when it turns out that this statement is not a simile at all; impossible though it may be, the document in the copper cylinder actually is ancient papyrus.
The Kosekin Civilization
The novel’s controlling metaphor is the Kosekin civilization itself. As previous implied, they symbolically represent a perspective of our world turned upside down. Antarctica is their home, yet it is a tropical paradise. They prefer darkness to the light, bad health to good health and cherish death more than life. By establishing the Kosekin as metaphorical opposites to everything with which readers are familiar and take for granted, they can more effectively serve the author’s purpose of satire through a greater ease of drawing distinct parallels made with civilization as we know it through starkly defined differences.
