Metaphor for confinment
In the fourth chapter, a fog falls over the house, making it impossible to see anything outside. The fog only intensifies even further the idea of entrapment and the characters inside the house feel as if time stopped for them. Because of this, the fog can be considered as being a metaphor used to transmit the idea that the characters do not perceive time in the same way as they did before they were taken hostages and is also a metaphor for confinement, the characters feeling even more isolated from the outside world because of the fog.
Safe space
The mansion is a safe place for many characters despite the situation they find themselves in. Only in the mansion are the children form the terrorist group are able to really be children, enjoying watching the TV and being taken care of by the other hostages. Also, in the mansion, some hostages are able to let themselves go and enjoy things that they would otherwise refuse to admit that they like doing. Because of this, it is safe to assume that the mansion is a metaphor for a safe space for many characters in the novel.
Metaphor for power
The terrorists are powerful only because they have the possibility of killing the other people in the house. They have guns that remind the others who are in charge and the terrorists took the hostages’ power by not allowing them to have anything that could cause harm. The hostages are not allowed to even touch the knives in the kitchen when they are cooking. Thus, the firearms and the knives are seen in the novel as a metaphor for power.
Metaphor for change
The first time Coss and Hosokawa meet and have sexual relationships marks the beginning of Coss’s changing process. Until them, Roxanne was cold, emotionless, focused only on herself and on what she needs. However, love changes her and she transforms from a distant diva to an actual human being. Love is the catalyst that awakens in Coss her humanity. From that point on, she becomes a mother figure to one of the young terrorist who has a talent for singing and takes him under her wing, teaching him what she knows. But Coss is not the only character who changes for the better when she falls in love. Carmen and her lover also change and become better human beings. Thus, love in the novel is used as a metaphor for positive change.
Rusalka
Rusalka is the centerpiece of Coss’s repertoire and it is relevant to the novel because the situation described in Rusalka and the one the hostages and the terrorists find themselves in are similar. Rusalka is about a water goddess who gives up her powers so that she could stay with her human lover. But the goddess is cursed and so, when her lover is unfaithful, her embrace becomes deadly. The opera ends with the water goddess embracing her unfaithfull partner and killing him in the process and thus punishing him for his sins. Just like the water goddess, many characters risk their life for love. The hostages have done the same, loving the terrorists in a parental way or even in a romantic way and beginning to plot and think about ways they could protect the terrorists when the day will come. But the terrorists’ fate does not lie in the hostages’ hands, for these transgressors will have to take responsibility for their own actions in the end.
