Words like bullets (Simile)
As Mandisa works to piece together what happened on the morning of Amy's murder, and worries about her son's implication in the event, she gets information from her neighbor. The news is terrible, and the implications of what she has heard wounds Mandisa: "Each word rolled off her tongue as a bullet from a gun: bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!" (37). This simile is significant because it builds a parallel between Mandisa and Amy. Although it is Amy who loses her life, Mandisa must face the upheaval of her own world and is doomed to live with the ugly consequences of someone else's acts for the rest of it.
Rumor as a soldier (Metaphor)
The rumor of forced migrations was mocked for a long time. When Blouveli residents were finally forced to face the truth, it was too late to fight the inevitable. The rumor had grown: "Then one day, the rumor, all grown and bearded, armed with the stamp of the government, returned. It was not smiling. Like its authors, it had learned to bury its sense of humor when dealing with the African problem" (43). By personifying the rumor as a grown, threatening man, this metaphor works to show that with the government, even the seemingly innocuous can turn into something terrifying and powerful.
Criminals as maggots (Simile)
Mandisa describes the police and their reign of terror over black people. As a consequence of the distrust that has been cultivated between black people and the police, crime has run rampant in townships: "The police are not our friends. They are to this day worse than ineffectual...Therefore the perpetrators of evil, those who have made crime a career, live in the benign atmosphere cultivated by that corruption. As warm wet dirt breeds maggots...so have criminals thrived" (36). The government has created a terrible situation in townships like Guguletu, and in doing so has ensured that it is a situation that will quickly reach its breaking point and cause a revolt against it.
Soldiers as "unruly children" (Simile)
When the forced migration comes, the government sends in hundreds of men to facilitate the move. They sweep through towns and hustle people out of their homes, dismantling the tin shacks behind them: "In a cloud of pink-fleshed faces peeing from beneath heavy helmets, beefy hands sprouting from camouflage uniform, the white men set upon the tin shacks like unruly children destroying a colony of anthills" (49). This simile works to show how little regard these men had for the lives they were destroying.
Betrayal as "thick, turgid nectar" (Metaphor)
Mandisa endures many hardships very early in life. Even though she takes care to not get pregnant, she winds up pregnant anyway. This causes her relationship with the love of her life, Mxolisi's father, to disintegrate. She is forced to marry China and give up her hopes of going to school. She spends the next few years working hard in a home that treats her like a second-class member. By the time China abandons the family, she has been hardened by life. This doesn't lessen her heartbreak: "If the knowledge of my pregnancy had been bitter, China's betrayal was the thick turgid nectar of the plump aloe leaf" (89). This vivid metaphor evokes the pain of his betrayal.
