“And with that the fire burned blue and the door blew open and twelve men entered, one by one.”
The power of the devil is made manifest this metaphor that introduces the jurists he has chosen based entirely on Daniel Webster’s rather less than strict requirements: American, dead or alive. The metaphor works to instill a chill in the reader because of the unnatural quality of fire burning blue. Or, at least, it did until gas ovens. Prior to that, not a lot of readers had easy access to watching a blue flame so the otherworldly and unnatural element of that description has lost some of its punch over time.
“If Jabez Stone had been sick with terror before, he was blind with terror now.”
The unnatural and rare glimpse of a flame burning blue is immediately followed with the even more unnatural and rare glimpse of American men dead since the Revolutionary War walking through that now-open door. Jabez only gradually comes to realize the full extent of the consequences of dealing with the devil which is, of course, the embodiment of the unnatural state of things.
“You see, for a while, he was the biggest man in the country.”
Here is an example of a metaphor that—unlike the one referencing blue flame—has grown more powerful over time. If a reader needed reminding of the status of a title character at the time of publication, then it is even more necessary now. The biggest man in the country is a metaphorical reference to the one-time fame of Daniel Webster and as a metaphors go, it is not far from literal because Webster’s name was about as recognizable as any at the height of his fame, even if the vast majority who knew the name could not have picked him out of a lineup.
“a mouth like a mastiff, a brow like a mountain and eyes like burning anthracite”
Odd as it may seem, this phrase is not a description of the title character one might naturally expect. The words that follow anthracite is “that was Dan’l Webster in his prime.” What’s pretty cool is that this description is not just a creative display of the use of simile, but also an example of the literary device of parallelism as a way to efficiently delineate by physical and psychological character.
“Like hounds just before they get the fox, they looked, and the blue mist of evil in the room thickened as he watched them.”
A masterful sentence which is almost all figurative and manages to combine both a simile and a metaphor to create a panoply of comparisons that coalesce into cohesive thematic imagery. The animal simile is consistent with the predatory nature of a jury made up of infamous figures in American history. The metaphor of as a blue mist connects back to the unnatural quality of the flame while also the use of the “mist” subtly implies the dissipating power of the devil.
