An ecstatically happy letter (metaphor)
One morning Joan received a letter from her daughter Isabel, which told the mother about the daughter’s honeymoon. Joan did not just read it; “she gulped it down” with great interest and “everything swimming a little in the radiance of her relief”. The enthusiasm with which the mother receives news from her daughter proves how much she loves her.
Life period (metaphor)
Pnin has rather difficult times when he lived in Central Europe, and these times he call it metaphorically “Nansen-passport period”.
A single one (metaphor)
One of Pnin's colleagues is a professor whom Pnin has once called a “Bachelor of Hearts,” because he was not married and assuming that he liked women. This humorous notice brought Pnin a lot of satisfaction as he rarely managed to say anything witty.
A car compared to dog (Simile)
An image of a car moving along the hills is supported by a simile to a dog: “It moved warily and unsteadily, and whenever it changed its mind, it would slow down and raise dust behind like a back-kicking dog”. The compared objects add a poetic atmosphere to the narration.
