Simile: Andrea
Danny writes frankly, "After her first appearance at the Dutch House, Andrea lingered like a virus" (16). This simile accurately sums up his and Maeve's feelings about this new person in their lives—this new person who seems not at all interested in them, who changes big and little aspects of their daily life and understanding of family, who they expect will go away but never does. Comparing Andrea to a virus suggests that she is like a sickness that invades a healthy space, perhaps growing slowly, definitely not easily routed out.
Simile: Elna's Home
When Cyril takes Danny to the apartments where he and Elna grew up, Danny thinks while standing in front of Elna's that "the building looked like all the others, but to think that my mother had lived there made me feel like we had landed on the moon, it was that impossible" (62). For Danny, his mother is mostly a mystery, a vanished presence. She is not really discussed, especially by Cyril. Thus, Danny cannot fathom the notion of Cyril taking him right to Elna's childhood home and talking about their past.
Simile: Patterns
Danny and Maeve feel irresistibly pulled to the Dutch House, even though they know it is not wise to linger in the past. Danny admits, "like swallows, like salmon, we were the helpless captives of our migratory patterns" (74). Comparing him and Maeve to salmon and swallows, who follow their "programming" to continue along ancient, species-wide patterns suggests just how difficult it is for the siblings to act any differently and move beyond the Dutch House.
Metaphor: The Future
Danny uses a powerful metaphor to express his estrangement from Andrea: "...maybe in the future Andrea and I would find a way to talk and she would see that I wasn't her enemy, but Maeve closed that door and nailed it shut. She wasn't writing Maeve's future—Andrea was doing that herself—but what Maeve said, the way she said it, it sounded like a curse" (93). First, Patchett uses the image of a door being shut as a way to convey that Maeve is severing the connection between Andrea and herself and her brother. Second, Patchett uses the metaphor of writing to indicate how the siblings' future was being constructed. Andrea is the "author" of it since she has kicked them out.
Simile: Baseball Cards
When Sandy, Jocelyn, Maeve, and Danny come together for the first time after being thrown out of the Dutch House, Danny remarks that they spend a good amount of time talking about all the bad things Andrea ever did or said: "We traded them between us like baseball cards, exclaiming over every piece of information one of us didn't already know" (109). The simile is an effective one, comparing these memories to baseball cards—some of them are the same as someone else's, some are rare, and some haven't been discovered at all yet. Like baseball cards, these memories also have a "value," here determined by how salacious or novel the memory is.
