Large plans vs. small plans (metaphor)
“For many years Blackwell’s Island had been Soapy’s winter hime”, and it means that Soapy’s life has been miserable for a long time. Soapy’s life drama stays unknown, and only in the end of the story it turns out that there was time when “his life contained such things as mothers and flowers and high hopes and friends and clean thoughts”. But now his only aim is to get into prison, which produces ironic effect, but in its sense it is tragic. And this tragedy becomes more vivid with the help of metaphoric contrast of large plans vs. small plans: “richer New Yorkers made their large plans to go to Florida or to the shore of the Mediterranean Sea each winter. Soapy made his small plans for going to the Island”. Soapy’s low self-esteem is presented through the metaphor.
Feelings of deep misery (metaphor)
Soapy’s life has been an arena of circumstances and accidents, and the approaching winter forces him to look for a place to stay. The only way to reach his goal is to be arrested, which means that he has to commit a crime. Every his attempt to get arrested ends with a failure, and he gets more and more miserable. Either he is “filled with sadness”, or “sick at heart” each time walking away. After being so unlucky Soapy realizes that “no cop was going to arrest him”, and this “sudden fear caught Soapy” with all the possible agony.
A king (simile)
Soapy simply became desperate, when none of cops paid attention to him as to a possible criminal. New-York cops “seemed to believe he was like a king, who could do no wrong”. Soapy would prefer to be a king than a homeless person, but in reality the only thing he wished for was to be arrested.
