“I'd been in and out of schools before, but I'd always been in the protective shade of my daddy. Here I was alone and exposed to the heat and clamor of the day."
Abilene Tucker is here describing herself in one of the first-person sections of the book that occurs rather early on. The metaphor of her father being a shade protecting her efficiently serves the purpose of character delineation which can be awkward in a first-person narrative. The use of figurative language situates Abilene as intelligent, sensitive and creative while at the same effectively providing useful background information about herself in a way that avoids feeling awkward.
"The memory was seared into his chest."
In contrast to the above example, this metaphor is taken from one of the sections written in the third-person perspective. The importance distinction here is that use of figurative language only serves the purpose of bringing to life the subject of the text. While the above example provides insight into the person who wrote it, no such insight is implied here.
"My pride welled up like a blister ready to pop."
Another example from the first-person account of Abilene. Again, this example is useful for the insight it provides into the writer. The insight is subtle, yet significant. Even taken out of context, the use of this particular point of comparison for a simile would naturally lead one to expect that the writer is young. The image of popping a blister carries all the connotations of something that would spring to the mind of a young person more readily than an older person and an active individual rather than a sedentary one.
“They exchanged a look that made me feel a little wobbly and off-balance, like I was standing in a train that took an unexpected curve.”
Abilene uses a simile here that is familiar enough that most people can instantly make a personal association immediately and in so doing climb right into her shoes. Even those who have never been ridden on a train can still make the association because nearly everybody has been in a situation similar to the particulars. What is interesting is the way she takes this physical feeling that is capable of combining excitement and anxiety and applies it not to a physical cause, but an emotional one.
“One by one, the men took their pay and drifted away like shadows.”
This is an example of how a simile reveals that some metaphors are more “literal” than others. The men taking their pay and drifting away work in the mining town in which the owners of the mines essentially owned the town, too. The men who did the dirty work deep inside the mines had just one value to the owners: being able to work. Nothing else about the men mattered and so in a sense they were really only flat, barely two-dimensional representations of a human being. While the men are not literally shadows, this metaphorical description is much closer to literal fact than a comparison to something like “devils” or “dogs.” In a very literal sense, miners really were little more than indistinguishable shadows to the mining companies well aware than if any one of them drifted away for good, two more would show up the next day looking to fill that opening.
