Orphan Life
The narrator uses a simile to convey the cold sterility of that is almost all moments of existence for a small child living in an orphanage. “Sister Marie’s words settled down over Adele like a warm and familiar blanket, and she closed her eyes.” The metaphorical comparison here is specifically directed toward illuminating the deficiency of even the most elemental of necessities that would be found in a real home. This moment becomes a portrait of how orphans must make do with less and seek comfort in the abstraction of ideas in the absence of their literal manifestation as objects.
A Warrior’s Heart
The protagonist of the story is a ten-year-old boy named Peter Augustus Duchene who is training to become a soldier at the request of his guardian. The guardian used to soldier with Peter’s father. It is quite clear that Peter has little actual interest in this career and another person comments on its lack of suitability. “He is a gentle boy and not really cut out for soldiering, I do not think. There is a lot of love in him, a lot of love in his heart.” The metaphorical commentary on the content of the gentle boy’s heart actually serves less as commentary on Peter than it does as a commentary on what it takes to become an effective soldier. The metaphor is really suggesting that to be a good soldier requires certain heartlessness.
A Question From the Heart
Young gentle Peter visits a fortune teller early in the story who tells him that his baby sister is still alive even though his guardian informed him she had died. When he asks how he can find her, the fortune teller cryptically answers that he must follow the elephant. Later on, during the mind-numbing repetition of learning to march, Peter’s mind wanders. “The longer he marched, the more convinced Peter became that things were indeed hopeless and that an elephant was a ridiculous answer to any question — but a particularly ridiculous answer to a question posed by the human heart.” The juxtaposition between marching for no serviceable reason and the metaphor of a question originating in the heart underlines the ridiculous quality of both. The image almost seems to be asking the question of a ten-year-old kid learning how to march or elephant as an answer to that question is more ridiculous.
Setting
The opening line of the book situates the setting of the story as taking place long ago in a city called Baltese. The unfamiliarity of the city’s name instantly gives it a fairy tale quality, making it an essential component of the story. This essential quality of the setting is then later enhanced. “The city of Baltese felt as if it were under siege — not by a foreign army, but by the weather.” Throughout the story are multiple references to the harsh coldness of winter. The repetition serves to create a motif, but it is not until this particular description of the setting that the motif coalesces into a specific metaphor.
The Lexicon of the Pachyderm
The arrival of the elephant through the unusual means of appearing as a result of an unintended magic trick serves to capture the imagination of all of Baltese. Soon enough, the presence of the elephant works its way into the lexicon of daily life. “I was, you understand, in the presence of the elephant.” This statement becomes a pre-internet example of a meme gone viral. It is what people in the Baltese utilizing in their daily discourse as a metaphor expressing the idea that they had been unexpectedly surprised or profoundly moved by an event completely unrelated to the elephant itself.
