In poverty (metaphor)
Claude’s mother after the death of her husband, Claude’s father, married another man who was deeply in love with her. However, their life changed little and “in spite of their endeavours, they failed to make both ends meet”. Make two ends meet means to live in poverty, and being unable to earn much money, only enough for food.
Obssessed (metaphor)
Claude’s obsession with his work came to the extremes, “he intoxicated himself with work in his craving for an immediate result”, “doubts had just driven him to despair in the midst of his delight at having terminated a successful sitting”, “he flew into a passion” every time it concerned his work. But his eagerness in work never gave the results he wanted, “stared at the canvas with an ardent fixed gaze that blazed with all the horrible agony born of his powerlessness.” His obsession became the source of his misery.
Pursue for colour (metaphor)
Claude’s desire was to catch the light, the color as he saw it with his eyes and carry it on his canvas, but he never was satisfied. Even at instances when he seemed to get it right he was disappointed the next moment. His agony was mostly high in the evenings when the sun was setting. It seemed to him that “the sun would never rise again, but had for ever carried life and all the jubilant gaiety of colour away”.
Stunned (simile)
On the day of the Salon of the Rejected, Claude was bewildered by the laughter and mocking of people. “He looked as defiant, indeed, as if he had heard bullets whizzing past him”. Though he did not want to accept that, he was deeply injured by the painful remarks of the public, as his picture was the one mocked the most.
