Opening Line
A veritable parade of metaphors and similes passes through the entirety of the narrative, and it all kicks off with the very opening line. The one-sentence paragraph that kicks off Chapter One is just the first of what will come to seem like a barrage of figurative language speeding past like Bug’s beloved Duster:
“Beauregard thought the night sky looked like a painting.”
The Duster and the Seville
Bug’s Plymouth is not the only vehicle which is endowed with personality and elevated to the status of character. There is also a certain black Cadillac that proves worthy of keen description and figurative imagery. The two vehicles are destined to meet like prizefighters in a heavyweight fight to the finish. Only when it finally arrives, the metaphor has moved beyond humanity:
“Beauregard closed in on the Caddy, a shark zeroing in on a seal. He shifted into fourth. The front bumper of the Duster kissed the empty space where the bumper used to reside. The Caddy lurched out of his reach. The Caddy’s one remaining tail light glowed like the eye of a demon as it braked for an upcoming hairpin curve.”
Ghosts of the Recession
The story unfurls in the shadow of the devastating 2008 recession that seemed to literally harm almost everyone in the country except for those who caused it. The recession hit constructed property especially hard and the metaphorical description here is certainly not limited to just the area so described:
“The empty buildings stood like forgotten monoliths to a lost civilization. The ice plant, the insulation plant, the flag factory and the elastic plant were hardly discernible anymore. Mother Nature was reclaiming her land with steady, implacable persistence.”
A Fundamental Truth
One of the most subtle uses of metaphor is a simple declarative assertion that belies the profound nature of its foundational truth. In fact, it such a truthful statement that one might at first not even recognize that it takes the form of metaphor:
“The truth had a strange way of ending an argument.”
Setting
The story takes place in the summer in Virginia. While Virginia is definitely neither the deep south nor the heart of dixie, it can still get hot and humid in places. The specifics of this attribute of the setting is made most abundantly clear in one particularly aggressive metaphorical account:
“It was only ten and it was already as hot as hell. When he stepped off the porch, he could feel the sun beating down on him like he owed it money.”
