Eve of the Apple (Metaphor)
When recounting to Pepe the story of how she discovered she had two navels, Connie describes the innocence she had before she learned the shameful truth about her body: "I was the Eve of the apple at five years old: that was when I found out." In this metaphor, Connie emphasizes the state of blissful ignorance she occupied by comparing herself to Eve, the Biblical figure of the first woman, who was expelled from the unspoiled paradise of Eden when she ate from the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
Like Pigs' Eyes (Simile)
While telling Pepe the story of how she grew up concealing her two navels from scrutiny, Connie relates the horror she felt when it became fashionable for women to wear clothing that exposed their midriffs. Had she followed the trend, Connie says her navels "would have been like pigs' eyes peering out." In this simile, Connie illustrates her younger self's terror of being judged as unattractive and freakish by likening her twin bellybuttons to pigs' eyes.
Up to My Neck in Clubs and Charities (Metaphor)
While talking to Pepe about her history, Connie says that she could see herself "getting older, painting [her]self thicker—a regular hard-boiled veteran, up to my neck in clubs and charities." In this metaphor, Connie illustrates the overwhelming amount of responsibilities she took on volunteering by describing herself as up to her neck, as though the clubs and charities were a physical liquid threatening to drown her.
Laugh at the Little Goose (Metaphor)
When Concha recounts how Connie left boarding school after a scandal involving her father's embezzlement of public funds became a news story, the image of her distraught daughter evokes amusement rather than concern: "For a moment I was tempted to laugh at the little goose." In this metaphor, Concha refers to her daughter as a "little goose" to disparage the girl's moral standpoint and convey that she believes Connie was being silly and irrational.
The Mirror's Cracked World (Metaphor)
At the end of the novel, Pepe considers how Paco and his father have both lost their former selves upon visiting the newly independent Philippines. Explaining Pepe's thoughts, the narrator writes, "The mirror’s cracked world was safe no longer; was perilous with broken glass, teeming with ghosts." In this metaphor, the mirror—a reference to the mirror portal between worlds that Alice enters in Lewis Carroll's novel Through the Looking-Glass—is a now-broken barrier holding back a reality in which standard logic doesn't apply. With this metaphor, Joaquin emphasizes how Pepe's encounters with Connie and Connie's mother, and Paco and Mary, lead him to conclude that he is not safe from the madness that has reached them and his father alike. Pepe has not been to Manila himself, but he now inhabits a world where fantasy has mixed with reality to an startling degree.
