A world of hard truth (Metaphor)
Allison, as a storyteller, “worked” to make others believe in her words. To sound more persuasive, she tried to combine both truth and imagination, adding one details and throwing another. She knew that her stories can change the world where the truth is pain, soften it with some unreal details and in this way make it a little better. The metaphor here shows Allison’s passion to create stories, which was like a craft for her.
A story is a tool (Metaphor)
“The story of what happened, or what did not happen but should have—that story can become a curtain drawn shut, a piece of insulation, a disguise, and even a razor," believes Allison. It is a tool for her, a tool that "changes every time it is used and sometimes becomes something other than she intended.” The stories she created were real for her, not a lie, she lived them through every time she was telling them aloud and it was her reality. Words she pronounced became an instrument of power, her influence on her listeners and she could make them think the way she wanted them to. The metaphor shows the importance of the stories for the girl.
One of the women who run away (Metaphor)
Allison calls herself the woman who ran away; she ran away because she had to, otherwise she would have died. She couldn’t stand her real life, the poverty and humiliation and mocking and rape – it was too hard for her to bear it so she didn’t want to stay there anymore like did her mother and her aunt and her uncle, because she was not afraid of something new, she wanted to experience it. The metaphor here represents the young woman who couldn’t stand her problems and tried to run away from them.
Beauty – hard thing (Metaphor)
Women in Allison’s family were not beautiful; they were believed to be rather ugly and they didn’t dispute it. Moreover, they accepted it as a gift and considered beauty was a kind of curse, “mean story”. Beautiful ladies serve the art, poets write them poems and songs and worship them. As Allison’s girlfriend said that beauty “is that inner quality often associated with great amounts of leisure time,” poor people by this construction don’t have spare time so they cannot be beautiful. The metaphor depicts beauty as a privilege of rich people.
Falling in love with karate (Metaphor)
As Allison says, she fell in love with this sport because it was the echo of her own desires, it gave her power she needed to protect herself, to strengthen her body and mind. It was hard and painful, but she didn’t care, she was shameless and didn’t paid attention when people were laughing at her, she knew that she is awful but she tried again and again and again till she did really good. The karate was her love, it was part of her life, part of her body “the liquid song of my own gasps, the liquor stink of stubborn sweat, the sweet burn of sinew, muscle, and lust.”. the metaphor shows the importance of karate in her life as a tool of self-improvement.
