Esther the Innocent
The innocence of Esther is situated quite early on because the novel is an exercise in realism depicting how the corrupt prey up the innocents of this world. That innocence of Esther and the corrupting influence upon her is brilliantly foreshadowed in this metaphorical delineation:
“Her religion was like a garden—a little less sedulously tended than of yore, but no whit less fondly loved”
Esther the Mother
The changes which Esther undergoes as a result of the forces of society are presented in metaphorical terms as well. Such as the description of a woman during those very first transformative moments when she becomes a mother:
“The door was thrown open, and Esther was wheeled into the passage. She was like a convalescent plant trying to lift its leaves to the strengthening light, but with in this twilight of nature the thought of another life, now in the world, grew momentarily more distinct.”
Temptation
The author wrote of his novel that it is “the story of the servant girl with an illegitimate child, how she saves the child from the baby farmers, her endless temptations to get rid of it and to steal for it.” For the religious Esther, temptation almost manages the transformation from the metaphorical into the literal and so temptation plays a major element in the plot. Part of the theme of the novel is revelation that class distinction and economic inequality is the direct result of the use of temptation as tool of power to dehumanize the underclass:
“An expression of hate and contempt leaped into her handsome grey eyes, and, like a dog's, the red lip turned down. She suddenly understood that this pasty-faced, despicable chap had placed the coin where it might have accidentally rolled, where she would be likely to find it.”
“betting is the curse of servants”
As with the underclass today and their dedication to changing circumstances overnight by hitting the lottery, one of the endless temptations facing Esther is to change circumstances through gambling. While dealing with the lure of that temptation, Esther is given sage advice with a specific tragic example of the tale of what happened to the husband of Mrs. Latch when he failed to heed it this metaphorical maxim.
“She stood on the platform watching the receding train. A few bushes hid the curve of the line; the white vapour rose above them, evaporating in the grey evening. A moment more and the last carriage would pass out of sight. The white gates swung slowly forward and closed over the line. “
This entire paragraph serves the role of metaphor. It is sort of a metaphorical realization of the proverbial observation “the more things change, the more they stay the same.” This novel begins with this opening paragraph describing 20-year-old Esther Waters. It is then repeated word-for-word as the opening paragraph of Chapter 45, now describing a much-changed Esther almost 40-years-old living a world around her that does not seem to have changed much at all.
