Metaphor for God’s tenderness and compassion
The rising and the falling moon is used as a metaphor for the love and kindness of God. According to Saint Julian of Norwich, whom Atwood alludes to, all people are the same to God when the moon is rising and when it is falling. God supports the universe in his hands and means love and forgiveness to all mankind.
Metaphor for unity and togetherness
Soup is used to imply solidarity, unity, and togetherness. The creatures of God converge together in a lighted circle to eat soup and it is only the bad men who are not present at such gatherings. Even the children of Oryx who cannot eat fish relish the soup. It is at the gathering for eating soup that they come with torches to assist Snowman-the-Jimmy who had hurt his foot. Everything is peaceful when the creatures are eating soup.
Simile for peace and tranquility
The bubble is metaphorically used in the story to mean peace and sheltering from the chaos in the outside world. Atwood writes that the children of oryx hatched out of an egg that was like a bubble. The simile means that in the egg, the children were sheltered from the troubles and chaos in the outside world. For example inside the egg, there were all the nutrients that the children liked. There were leaves, grass, and berries. Inside the egg, it rained but there was no thunder, signaling that it was all peaceful and tranquil. The people outside the egg were ruthless towards one another and animals. The children of oryx were shielded from all the chaos.
Simile for dexterity at knot works
Atwood describes the bad men who are immobilized by Amanda and Ren as looking like macramé. Amanda and Ren had attended the Gardeners school were they had learned the craftsmanship that depended solely on making knots. One of the two bad men tied Amanda using ropes but she tore away and extricated herself from the ropes. The man was then tied by Amanda and Ren using the same rope he had used on Amanda. At that juncture, the troublemaker is described as looking like macramé to show how skilled the two were.
