Angel simile
Elsa describes her mother as being as "beautiful as an angel," emphasizing that her mother is a protective figure.
Bird with a broken wing
Elsa is described in the following passage with a simile: “She limped, unaided around the house, like a bird with its wing broken." By comparing her to a bird with a broken wing, London emphasizes the tragedy of her situation.
Light metaphor
A metaphor is used to describe Elsa from the perspective of Frank, showing that she represents a sense of hope: “You are the light that swirls around me, Darkness lies over the desert.”
Like a terrible dream
After Frank's stay in the isolation ward, he describes it as being "like a terrible dream... you couldn't remember much about it. But you were not the same." This simile emphasizes the trauma of staying in the isolation ward, and how it emotionally affected the children who had to stay there.
Animals in a burrow
In the following passage, Frank uses a smile to describe how he had lived with strangers frequently during his life: "Over and over again, Frank thought, he, Meyer, and Ida had been forced to live within breathing distance of strangers, like animals in a burrow." Ultimately, this simile emphasizes how dehumanizing the experience was for Frank.
