The simile of endurance
Jean McConville gives birth to fourteen children, but ten survive. The author wonders how a woman could take care of ten children when he writes, "To bear ten children, much less care for them, would seem like an impossible feat of endurance." The author compare's Jean's ability to take care of ten children to an impossible feat of endurance. When giving birth to these many children, Jean was not competing for any prize, but she knew very well that it was her responsibility to raise them to maturity single-handedly.
The Simile of Vertigo
After the death of her husband, Arthur, Jean is left with the responsibility of raising ten children as a widow. Jean is jobless and what she only has is the meager pension left behind by her late husband, which cannot sustain the family even for one year. Jean is demoralized because she does not know what to do, and she even decides to rely on her elder children to help her take care of their younger siblings. The author compares Jean's restlessness to vertigo when he writes, "She stayed at home mostly, leaning on the older kids to wrangle the younger ones, steadying herself, as if from vertigo, with one cigarette after another."
The metaphor of Jean's words, 'Watch the children until I come back.'
Jean's words represent the hope that she will come out triumphant and come back to reunite with her family. When the gangs bundle her into the waiting van, Jean tells Archie to watch over the children. Unfortunately, Jean never reunites with her family because she is brutally murdered. After thirty years, the children discover that their mother was killed. Life's metaphor is evident in this book because you can see someone now but never see that person again.
The metaphor Ireland Republican Army (IRA)
The author compares the IRA to a criminal gang because its execution activities towards innocent people are not justifiable. When they go to kidnap people, they use guns and wear masks just as criminals do. When IRA goes to kidnap Jean, the author writes, "There were men and women. Some had balaclavas pulled across their faces; others wore nylon stockings over their heads, twisted their features into ghoulish masks. At least one of them was carrying a gun." The author's description of the IRA compares them to dangerous criminals.
The metaphor of the pigeon holes
The author metaphorically uses the pigeon holes to represent the unforeseeable future. Archie is unsure if he will see his mother again despite being assured by the gang that she will be back. A gang of more than twenty people with guns and other cruel weapons coming for one woman dwindles Archie's hope of seeing his mother again. The author says, "On the second level, one of the walls was perforated by a series of vertical holes called pigeon holes. Peering through these openings, Archie watched as his mother was bundled into the van, and then it drove out of Divis and disappeared."
