Isobel and Conflict (Simile)
Although Isobel is not naturally angry or antagonistic as a girl, her family life is so fraught with conflict and anxiety that problems seem inevitable. The difficult need for Isobel to "keep out of trouble" is explained using one of Witting similes: "It was like being asked to walk into a crack in the wall—it was just not possible" (6). Asking Isobel to keep out of trouble is construed here as an absurd request, since some trouble or other will necessarily arrive in the presence of a character as arbitrary, temperamental, and indeed troublesome as Isobel's mother.
Grace Personified (Metaphor)
Isobel's state of grace is presented not simply as a virtue, but as an animate force that seems capable of commanding and directing the young girl. For instance, when Isobel feels the urge to hurry through her chores and read about the lives of the saints, she feels that "She could not help it; grace told her to withdraw and she did what grace demanded, though it was more of a holding position now than an inner joy" (43). Here, Witting's metaphorical turn shows exactly how compelling Isobel's grace can be. Yet such personification has another effect: it aligns Isobel's increasingly demanding and decreasingly pleasant "grace" with the actual people—nuns, parents, and friends—who themselves compete for Isobel's obedience and attention.
Isobel's Unpleasant Memories (Simile)
Although Isobel finds a boarding house and gets a job, she cannot fully shake her recollections of an upbringing marked by poverty, conflict, and disappointment. This reality is captured when Isobel visits her helpful Aunt Noelene and finds herself abashed by her Aunt's kindness: "Isobel was blushing as the past rose round her like a stench of stale urine" (71). Isobel's memories of less welcoming times intrude in a manner that is gross, almost nauseating in its imagery. There is nothing shameful about the adult Isobel, though her mother's earlier treatment forms a shameful contrast to Aunt Noelene's solicitude.
The Language of Intellectualism (Metaphor)
Isobel feels a new sense of acceptance and understanding after she makes her initial contact with the "special crowd," and Witting captures the extent of this positive change with a turn of metaphor: "She walked to the boarding house entranced, full of wonder at hearing her own language spoken in a foreign city" (97). By treating the world of the intellect that the "special crowd" inhabits as a region of its own, with a language of its own, Witting lends special clarity to Isobel's position. So far, Isobel has had to navigate a "foreign city" of people who, like the boarders and her co-workers, do not share her intellectual leanings. Now, however, she has the opportunity not simply to learn more about literature, but to treat literature as the basis for sympathy and communication—the "language"—that binds her to others.
The Funereal Boarding House (Simile)
As Isobel sours on life at Mrs Bowers' boarding house, the comparisons employed by the narrator come to reflect Isobel's negativity. For instance, Witting describes part of a routine boarding house meal in the following manner: "Betty came back with a tray and served out canned peaches and jelly, decorous, as if at a funeral" (120). Such "funeral" imagery, applied to an everyday and harmless occurrence, indicates Isobel's change in opinion for the worse regarding her surroundings. And the mention of a "funeral" is important in another way: it indicates that Isobel's relationship with life at the boarding house is itself dying or dead, as proves true when Isobel leaves Mrs Bowers' premises on bad terms.
