Amma's dreadlocks sticking out “like candles on a birthday cake” (Simile)
Evaristo writes that Amma's peroxide dreadlocks were “trained to stick up like candles on a birthday cake.” This simile creates an image that allows us to visualize what Amma looks like.
Joseph’s machine-like sexual advances (Simile)
The ruthlessness of Joseph's sexual advances toward a grieving Grace is enhanced through the use of a simile. Grace's one-year-old infant has only recently passed away before Joseph begins pushing to try for more children. This pressure to create an heir to the family farm harms the couple's marital relations, and is made into a profound image of discontent in the way that Joseph “enter[s] her like a machine.” This simile conveys a brutality and mechanicalness of an act of sex that once was loving and passionate.
Shirley "sweating like a pig" (Simile)
When Shirley confronts Carole at Amma's after-party, she has a "menopausal sweat" that causes her to feel embarrassed mid-conversation. Carole notices, and notes that Mrs. King is "sweating like a pig." However, this somehow vulnerable comparison of a human being to a pig causes Carole to pause and consider that her teacher, while stubborn, bitter, and misguided, is still a person who was just trying her best after all. The comparison, while perhaps cruel, also leads Carole to have sympathy for Shirley.
Roland's "blackness and gayness" as "footnotes" (Metaphor)
Roland refuses to let his race and sexuality define him or his accomplishments. For him, "neither his blackness nor his gayness are the result of conscious political decisions," and as such, they are "footnotes" in his life rather than "intellectual or activist preoccupations." Roland compares the identity labels of black and gay to small notes at the bottom of a page rather than entire chapters in a book, a metaphor that highlights the fact that while he may be both black and queer, for him those labels are central to neither his intellectual achievements nor his personal politics.
The "Gestapo HQ" that Shirley must battle (Metaphor)
With government-mandated changes, Shirley loses the freedom to create classes that "respond[] to the fluctuating needs of a classroom of living, breathing...children." The Gestapo was the Nazi police force employed by Hitler to root out any form of opposition to his government. This comparison, though perhaps somewhat insensitive, conveys that the new systems mandated by the British government are severely limiting Shirley's teaching freedoms.
