Cloth
Strout writes, “What then? Troubled but feeling better-he was in the presence of someone, the bartender- Jack laid these thoughts out before him like a large piece of cloth. He understood that he was a seventy-four-year-old man who looks back at life and marvels that it unfolded as it did, who feels unbearable regret for all mistakes made.” Jack reflects about his marriage to Betsy and how his life would be if he had a son. Comparing his ruminations to a cloth depicts the expansiveness of his thoughts, especially those which concern the past life and are thorough and open.
“Blew our Chance”
Jack reckons, “Oh, Betsy, Betsy, Betsy, Betsy, we blew it - we blew our chance. He could not really pinpoint when, maybe because there had never been a chance. After all, she was she, and he was he. On their wedding night she had given herself, but not freely, as she had in the months before.” Jack reasons that he and Betsy contributed equally to the collapse of their love and matrimony; they all ruined their chances of a blissful ending. The 'blown chance' is a sign that it got to the point that they would not redeem their matrimony.
“Barnacle-covered whale”
Strout expounds, “Now Jack allowed his mind to go to Olive Kitteridge…They’d gone to dinner a few times, a concert; he had kissed her on the mouth…Like kissing a barnacle-covered whale.” A barnacle exemplifies the intimacy of the kiss. It was so powerful that Jack would not let go her lips immediately after the kissing. Consequently, the kiss was overwhelmingly powerful and memorable.
