Fleeting sand (Metaphor)
Sand or grain of sand is a metaphor of the daily routine, which swallows up people. The novel is devoted to the struggle with sand, which is everyday life of the grey universe. It threatens to engross the person and create him into a slave. Sand is fleeting like time. Every grain of sand is a day, hour, second. The dullness is absorbing and we are killing time. People stop being people and become to be “insects”, the existence of the person finds a sense of the useless toil - the digging of sand. The main character accepts such life and becomes to be a slave of sand.
Beautiful natural phenomenon (Simile)
When Nikki is clearing the hole away from sand, suddenly “it comes thundering down like a waterfall”. It means that sand is falling gracefully and very quickly like water of the waterfall. The author uses this comparison to show that sand could destroy the house of the woman utterly with its high pressure.
Dry skin (Simile)
The main heroine is a very beautiful and attractive person, but actually “her cheeks have become like the skin of dried fish”. Because of the dry climate, the woman has a rough skin, but as usual she is able to look pretty.
