Drugs Simile
The feeling of holding her baby in her arms is compared by the narrator to "a good drug coursing through my veins". She cannot explain the feeling but knows that it makes her feel better immediately. However close she is to falling apart or feeling that the end is close, her daughter in her arms manages to pull her back from the precipice and help her to keep moving forwards. It is a cure for the melancholy that ails her.
Petri Dish Simile
By comparing the writing of fiction to a biological experiment, the narrator is explaining that fiction enables us to study the results of certain actions that have consequences that do not really exist. Nobody who actually exists in real life is hurt by the plots we are studying in the dish and therefore it is a way of dissecting scenarios and decisions made that enables us to learn without having to suffer the consequences of each lesson.
Jezebel Simile
The narrator compares women attending church dressed in mini skirts to the temptress Jezebel who used her beauty and her sexuality to entrap men and to manipulate them.
Crossing a Bridge Metaphor
The narrator decides that telling her daughter about her absent father is a bridge that she will cross later. This is a metaphor for getting through a difficult situation, but waiting until it arises before starting to cross from one side of the situation to the other.
Youthful Bubble Metaphor
The young do not really live in bubbles; this is a metaphor for living a life that is protected, and seeing only what one wants to see without intrusion from outside factors.
