Simile: Music
In the first chapter, Solomon describes his family and how he lived a happy and peaceful life together with his wife and children. In that description, Solomon mentions how the sound of their three children inside the house was like music to their ears. The comparison highlights the fact that Solomon and his wife felt intense pleasure listening to their children. The simile is made poignant, however, given that Solomon is to be separated from them and miss their childhoods completely.
Metaphor: Dark Cloud
Solomon moves from discussing his warm and happy household to writing: "Now had I approached within the shadow of the cloud, into that thick darkness whereof I was soon to disappear, thenceforward to be hidden from the eyes of all my kindred and shut out from the sweet light of liberty, for many a year" (11). He uses dark and light to convey the fact that he is taken from his family and home and secreted deep in the South. His name changes, his former life is kept secret, and his whereabouts are unknown. The metaphor of being ensconced in a dark cloud where light cannot penetrate is an effective one in contrasting Solomon's free life and slave life.
Metaphor: Birds
Solomon writes while sailing down the river to the South, "The happy birds—I envied them. I wished for wings like them, that I might cleave the air to where my birdlings waited vainly for their father's coming" (32). He uses a metaphor of a bird and his offspring to indicate how he wishes for freedom—birds can fly—and return to his children. It is a melancholy image because it is completely impossible for Solomon to do anything of the sort.
Metaphor: Flame
After a sympathetic captain of a steamer tells Solomon that he cannot help him, Solomon writes, "I was compelled to smother the flame that lighted up my bosom with sweet hopes of liberation, and turn my steps towards the increasing darkness of despair" (129). Again Solomon uses a metaphor of light and dark to reveal his mindset and situation. He is in the dark and has a spark of hope, but when the captain refuses him, that spark is blown out and he is shut in the darkness once more.
Metaphor: Light
Solomon returns to light and dark to discuss his feelings and his circumstances. After Armsby tells Epps about the letter Solomon wanted him to take, Solomon has to lie to Epps and then privately burn the letter that had been so difficult to write. He says, "The hope of rescue was the only light that cast a ray of comfort on my heart. That was now flickering, faint and low; another breath of disappointment would extinguish it altogether, leaving me to grope in midnight darkness to the end of life" (135). If anything, this passage is even bleaker. We envision a flame, meekly casting light but wavering and threatening to go out. We then see that light being extinguished and a deep darkness falling. This image shows just how tenuous Solomon's clinging to hope is at this point.
