Love Under Oppression
The authority of oppressive regimes informs every aspect of life for the characters. Literally every single element of life is defined and shaped by that oppression. This leads naturally to expressions of desire for a better world expressed through metaphor:
“I wanted love to grow back, like the grass when it’s mown down. To grow differently, if need be, like children’s teeth, like hair, like fingernails. To spring up at will, wild and untended.”
Personification
Personification of inanimate objects can be a very effective means of using metaphorical imagery to convey an overall feeling of tone and mood. The narrator’s stated dislike of cauliflower soup and the observation that it stinks up the entire kitchen combines with the simile here to provide psychological insight:
“Her grandmother took her plate, stomped over the stove, and poured Tereza’s soup back into the pot. The spoon rattled like a bellyful of angry cutlery.”
Liver and Alcohol
The narrator states quite simply that “father died.” But then immediately produces two metaphorical images of the cause of that death which came from some very serious consumption of alcohol:
“His liver got to be as big as that of a forced-fed goose.”
“His live is as big as his songs for the Fuhrer.”
Hazelnuts
The taste of things often produces the need for a simile. That comparison can convey the specificity of a certain taste better than any other type of descriptive prose. Sometimes, however, the comparison is a bit more abstract and yet even then the point is clear:
“We sat in the scruffy park and ate Edgar’s hazelnuts. Edgar said, They taste like gall.”
Rumors
Living under an oppressive state makes the passage of rumors an almost daily occurrence. When facts are in short supply, rumors become pervasive. As this example shows, they also have the power to become metaphorically pestilential:
“We too passed the rumors, as if they contained the deadly, creeping virus that might finally catch up with the dictator.”
