Louise’s illusion (metaphor)
Louise considered herself indispensable, she ruled in the house and thought that she was the most important person, as everything depended on her decisions and proper organization. But with the appearance of Anne Marie back in the house, and with a son on her arms, this “illusion vanished” as Anne Marie tried to be as needed as possible and some issued put in order even better than her mother.
Beneficial death (metaphor)
When the narrator’s father died, the boy was yet a baby and could not remember him, but he considered this death as the most preferable one as it “gave freedom” to Jean-Paul. The narrator means that with the death of his father he himself was left for his own discretion and it was his father’s death that helped him to become a person he was. The narrator says that “had my father lived, he would have lain on me at full length and would have crushed me”. As to his mother it was not so much beneficial as his father’s death “sent her back to her chains” meaning that she was made come back to the house of her parents and lead there a life established years ago.
A habit to bond (metaphor)
When Sartre was yet a child, he took his first steps in writing were poems. He communicated with his grandfather in rhymes, and it became a habit for them. In fact, the author refers to it as “a new bond” appearing between the grandfather and the grandson.
Realization of imagined (metaphor)
The main symbol of the novel – the words – become for the author “quintessence of things”. He tries to reveal what words were to him, in his interpretation the words were the means for realizing what he imagined: “nothing disturbed me more than to see my scrawls little by little change their will-o’-the-wisp for the dull consistency of matter: it was the realization of the imaginary.”
