"Guilt is a hunter." (Metaphor)
Joana experiences guilt as a hunter that persecutes her. This is because she feels responsible for abandoning her family and leading the Soviet police to send her cousin Lina to a forced labor camp. The metaphor demonstrates that Joana experiences her emotion so powerfully, she literally feels that it chases her down and takes her hostage. The metaphor also becomes a motif that draws a parallel between the four narrators, each of whom feels hunted by different emotions.
"January’s teeth bit sharp" (Metaphor)
Emilia's metaphor brings to life the harshness of the freezing cold landscape that the refugees must travel through. It is so cold that it is painful and feels like an attack. The metaphor also emphasizes the parallel between the natural environment that surrounds the refugees on their dangerous journey and the violent war that rages around them. Just like the weather, the war is merciless and soldiers seem to wait around every corner, ready to bite.
"Her words had squeezed at my throat" (Metaphor)
Emilia recalls how she felt when Mrs. Kleist mistreated her and told her her father was dead. "Her words had squeezed at my throat, run down through my windpipe and strangled the air from my lungs." Mrs. Kleist's words, and especially her heartless insistence that Emilia's father is dead, have a very powerful effect on Emilia. She does not only feel them at an emotional level; she also experiences them as an attack on her body. The air is knocked out of her. The effect of Mrs. Kleist's words also reflects her physical mistreatment of Emilia. She makes her work long hours. Moreover, she gives Emilia to the Russian soldiers, who rape her.
"hundreds of gray faces all so tired and drawn, they looked like boiled meat" (Simile)
This simile highlights the miserable effects of war. Here, Florian scans the refugees who are crowded into the cathedral at the port of Gotenhafen. They are so worn out by four years of war, and so tired from their long journey to the port, that they begin to lose their human appearances. Rather than having the vibrant tones of human skin, they appear gray and lifeless, like worn-out objects.
"The ice ached and groaned, like old bones carrying too many years" (Simile)
This simile brings to life the precarious situation that the refugees face as they cross the frozen lagoon to get to the port. Ingrid died when Russian planes shot through the ice. Now, the rest of the group must try to cross again. There are so many people crossing the lagoon to get to the port that ice is depicted as tired and weary. The simile thus foreshadows that the ice could break again, just like old bones that are worn out from a long-standing burden.
