Father and Women (Metaphor & Simile)
Most autobiographies or bildungsromans center the father in the formation of the child, but Lorde uses a powerful simile/metaphor to assert that the main male figure in her life was rather peripheral to the strong women who shaped her: "My father leaves his psychic print on me, silent, intense, and unforgiving. But his is a distant lightning. Images of women flaming like torches adorn and define the borders of my journey, stand like dykes between me and the chaos" (3). The metaphor has the father in the distance, flickering, but the simile has the women as blazing torches; there is a clear difference between their respective brightnesses and strengths.
Linda (Simile)
Lorde is in awe of her mother as a child, often noting her presence and power. Here she uses a simile to evoke her mother: "Full-bosomed, proud, and of no mean size, she would launch herself down the street like a ship under full sail, usually pulling me stumbling behind her. Not too many hardy souls dared cross her prow too closely" (17). Her mother is a ship, proud and bold, sailing down the street, and no one wants to get in its way.
The Catheter (Simile)
Lorde writes frankly of her abortion, explaining how the catheter felt once it was inside her: "It lay coiled inside of me like a cruel benefactor, soon to rupture the delicate lining and wash away my worries in blood" (110). It is possible, through the simile, to imagine the catheter in her uterus, doing its work to rid it of the child—or, her "worries"—and thus "benefiting" her.
The Keystone Plant (Simile)
Lorde describes Keystone Electronics in the most hellish of terms, literally invoking Dante's Inferno: "Entering the plant after 8:00 A.M. was like entering Dante's Inferno" (126). This brief and effective allusion & simile allows the reader to immediately think of hell and the poor souls writhing in torture in its bowels.
Mexico (Metaphor)
Lorde is in awe of Mexico and everything it has to offer, writing, "It was a sea of strange sounds and smells and experiences I swam into with delight daily" (154). One can imagine her actually swimming, idly, gracefully, happily, through all of the sounds and smells and sights. It is a pleasurable image, and one that suggests she is free and at peace.
