Figures of Speech

Identify examples of the use of figures of speech in some text of your choice.


Excerpt from “Eva Luna” by Isabel Allende


Missionaries took Consuelo in before she learned to walk; she appeared one day, a naked cub caked with mud and excrement, crawling across the footbridge from the dock like a tiny Jonah vomited up by some freshwater whale. When they bathed her, it was clear beyond a shadow of doubt that she was a girl, which must have caused no little consternation among them; but she was already there and it would not do to throw her into the river, so they draped her in a diaper to cover her shame, squeezed a few drops of lemon into her eyes to heal the infection that had prevented her from opening them, and baptized her with the first female name that came to mind. They then proceeded to bring her up, without fuss or effort to find out where she came from; they were sure that if Divine Providence had kept her alive until they found her, it would also watch over her physical and spiritual well-being, or, in the worst of cases, would bear her off to heaven along with the other innocents. Consuelo grew up without any fixed niche in the strict hierarchy of the Mission. She was not exactly a servant, but neither did she have the status of the Indian boys in the school, and when she asked which of the priests was her father, she was cuffed for her insolence. She told me that a Dutch sailor had set her adrift in a rowboat, but that was likely a story that she had invented to protect herself from the onslaught of my questions. I think the truth is that she knew nothing about her origins or how she had come to be where the missionaries found her.

The Mission was a small oasis in the heart of an expanse of voluptuous vegetation writhing and twisting from the banks of the river to the feet of the monumental geologic towers that rose toward the firmament like one of God's mistakes. There time is bent and distances deceive the human eye, persuading the traveler to wander in circles. The humid, heavy air smells of flowers, herbs, man's sweat and animal breath. The heat is oppressive, unalleviated by any breeze; the stones steam and blood boils in the veins. At dusk the sky is filled with phosphorescent mosquitoes whose bites produce endless nightmares, and the still night air carries the distinct cries of birds, the chattering of monkeys, and the distant roar of the waterfalls born high in the mountains to crash far below like the thunder of warfare. The modest mud-and-wattle Mission building, with its tower of woven stakes and a bell to toll for Mass, balanced, like all the huts, on piles driven into the mud of a river of opalescent waters whose banks evaporated in the reverberating light. The dwellings seemed to drift amid silent canoes, garbage, carcasses of dogs and rats, and inexplicable white blossoms.

Consuelo was easy to distinguish even from a distance, her long red hair like a whip of fire against the eternal green of that landscape. Her playmates were young Indians with swollen bellies, an impudent parrot that recited an "Our Father" salted with curses, and a monkey chained to a table leg; from time to time she would let the monkey loose to look for a sweetheart in the jungle, but he always returned to the same spot to scratch his fleas. Even in those days Protestants were everywhere, distributing their Bibles, preaching against the Vatican, and hauling their pianos through heat and rain so their converts could celebrate salvation in public song. Such competition demanded the total dedication of the Catholic priests, and they paid little attention to Consuelo, who was growing up scorched by the sun, poorly nourished on yucca and fish, infested with parasites, bitten by mosquitoes, free as a bird. Aside from helping with domestic chores, attending religious services and a few classes in reading, arithmetic, and catechism, she had no obligations; she roamed outdoors, sniffing the flora and chasing the fauna, her mind filled with images, smells, colors, and myths borne on the river current.

She was twelve when she met the man with the prospecting chickens, a weathered Portuguese who was dry and hard outside and bubbling with laughter inside. His birds pillaged the countryside, devouring anything that glittered, and after a certain amount of time their owner would slit open their craw and harvest his grains of gold--not enough to make him rich, but enough to nourish his dreams. One morning, El Portugués glimpsed a white-skinned girl with a blaze of hair, knee-deep in the swamp with her skirt tucked up around her legs, and thought he had suffered another of his periodic attacks of fever. His whistle of surprise would have set off a mule train. The sound reached the girl's ears; she looked up, their eyes met, and both smiled the same smile. After that day they met frequently: he, bedazzled, to gaze at her and she to learn to sing Portuguese songs.

"Let's go harvest gold," El Portugués said one day.

They set off into the jungle and soon were out of earshot of the Mission bell, deeper and deeper into the tangled growth along paths visible only to him. All day, crowing like roosters, they looked for the hens, catching them on the wing once they spied them through the dense foliage. She clamped them between her knees, and with one surgical slash he slit open the craw and stuck in his fingers to pull out the seeds of gold. If the hen survived, they stitched it up with needle and thread to continue to serve its owner; the others they put in a sack to sell in the village or use as bait. They burned the feathers because chicken feathers bring bad luck and spread the pip. Tangle-haired, Consuelo returned at dusk, content and spattered with blood. As she climbed the ladder from the rowboat to the terraced riverbank, her nose bumped into four filthy sandals belonging to two friars from Extremadura who were waiting for her with crossed arms and fearsome expressions of repudiation.

"It is time for you to go to the city," they said.

Nothing was gained by begging. Nor was she allowed to take the monkey or the parrot, two companions judged inappropriate for the new life awaiting her. She made the trip along with five native girls, all tied by the ankle to prevent their jumping from the pirogue and disappearing into the river. As he bid her farewell, El Portugués took one long last look at Consuelo; he did not touch her, but as a remembrance he gave her a tooth-shaped gold nugget strung on a cord. She would wear it around her neck most of her life, until she met someone she would give it to as a gift of love. El Portugués saw her for the last time dressed in a stained cotton jumper, a straw hat pulled down to her ears, barefoot and dejected, waving goodbye with one hand.

The journey began by canoe, down tributaries that wound through a landscape to derange the senses, then on muleback over rugged mesas where the cold freezes night thoughts, and finally in a truck, across humid plains through groves of wild bananas and dwarf pineapple and down roads of sand and salt; but none of it surprised the girl, for any person who first opens her eyes in the most hallucinatory land on earth loses the ability to be amazed. On that long journey she wept all the tears stored in her soul, leaving none in reserve for later sorrows. Once her tears were exhausted, she closed her lips, resolving from that moment forward to open them only when it could not be avoided. Several days later, when they reached the capital, the priests took the terrified girls to the Convent of the Little Sisters of Charity, where a nun with a jailer's key opened an iron door and led them to a large shady patio with cloistered corridors on four sides; in the center, doves, thrushes, and hummingbirds were drinking from a fountain of colored tiles. Several young girls in gray uniforms sat in a circle; some were stitching mattresses with curved needles while others wove wicker baskets.

The nun, hands hidden beneath the folds of her habit, recited something that sounded like "Through prayer and toil shall you atone for your sins. I have come not to heal those of you who are whole, but to minister unto those who are suffering and afflicted. The shepherd rejoices more when he finds the lost sheep than in all the ninety and nine. Word of God, praise be His Holy Name, amen."
Consuelo did not understand the meaning of that peroration; she did not even listen to it, she was too exhausted and too assailed by claustrophobia. She had never before been inside a walled enclosure, and when she looked up and saw the sky reduced to a rectangle, she felt that she was suffocating. When they separated her from her traveling companions and took her to the office of the Mother Superior, she had no inkling that it was because of her light skin and eyes. The Little Sisters had not received anyone like her in many years, only girls of mixed blood from the barrios, or Indian girls dragged there bodily by the missionaries.




“a naked cub” – metaphor. The author is implicitly comparing Consuelo to a puppy.

“like a tiny Jonah vomited up by some freshwater whale” – simile + allusion + personification + metaphor. The author is making an allusion to Jonah, the biblical character who is saved from being drowned by a whale by explicitly comparing Consuelo to this character. She also personifies water by saying that it “vomited” Consuelo and at the same time she’s implicitly comparing the river to a whale.

“which must have caused no little consternation among them;” – litotes. The author uses a restraint variety of understatement to express an affirmative idea by the negative of its contrary: she meant “which must have caused big consternation among them.”

!so they draped her in a diaper to cover her shame” – metaphor + sarcasm. The author is implicitly mocking religious beliefs which consider private parts and sexuality to be a shame.

“She told me that a Dutch sailor had set her adrift in a rowboat,” – allusion. Here, Isabel Allende is making indirect reference to Dutch expeditions in Chile and to the contact between the Dutch and the Chilean people.

“The Mission was a small oasis in the heart of an expanse of voluptuous vegetation” – metaphor. The mission is implicitly attributed characteristics of oasis.

“the feet of the monumental geologic towers that rose toward the firmament like one of God's mistakes.” – metaphor + hyperbole + simile. The author tries to describe the size of the geologic towers by saying that they were taller or as tall as the firmament. She’s also paraphrasing by using a metaphor and a simile the idea that those towers were geologic accidents.

“There time is bent and distances deceive the human eye,” – metaphor. The author is expressing that at that place time and space seem to fade or be different from known standards.

“The heat is oppressive, unalleviated by any breeze;(...) blood boils in the veins ” – hyperbole + metaphor + metonomy. This unrestraint variety of irony is used to express how oppressive the heat was by means of exaggeration, saying that there was no trace of wind and. By saying that “blood boils in the veins” the author means that people’s bodies suffered from heat very badly.

“and the still night air carries the distinct cries of birds, the chattering of monkeys, and the distant roar of the waterfalls born high in the mountains to crash far below like the thunder of warfare.” – personification + pathetic fallacy + onomatopoeia + personification + simile + metaphor. The author is attributing human characteristics to the night, to birds, monkeys and waterfalls. She means that the sounds produced by these animals could be heard at night. Also, by writing about the “cries of birds” and “chattering of monkeys,” the author is attributing human feelings to non-human beings. “Roar” is an onomatopoeic word, it phonologically resembles the sound produced by waterfalls. Here, waterfalls are personalized to mean where the water started to fall (high in the mountains). The way the water crashes is explicitly compared to a thunder of warfare. At the same time, the metaphor of a “thunder of warfare” is used to compare warefare screams to the sound of thunders.

“her long red hair like a whip of fire” – simile. The texture, thickness and colour of Consuelo’s hair are being explicitly compared to a whip and to fire.

“from time to time she would let the monkey loose to look for a sweetheart in the jungle,” - pathetic fallacy. The author is attributing human feelings to Consuelo’s monkey to convey the idea that she would set the monkey free for him to copulate with some female monkey.

“free as a bird.” - simile. The author is explicitly comparing Consuelo’s freedom to that of a bird’s.
“her mind filled with images, smells, colors,” – visual and olfatory imges.

“not enough to make him rich, but enough to nourish his dreams.” – personification. Here, gold is attributed human characteristics to express that it was enough to motivate the man.

“His whistle of surprise would have set off a mule train.” – metaphor. The sound of the man’s whistled is compared to the one made when setting off a mule train.

“and both smiled the same smile.” – metaphor. The author means that Consuelo and El Portugués similed at each other at the same time. This metaphor is used to reinforce the idea of simultaneity and reciprocity.

“They set off into the jungle and soon were out of earshot of the Mission bell,” metaphor + synechdoche. The metaphor of being “out of earshot” is used to signify that Consuelo and El Portugués were very far from the Mission, and the noun phrase “Mission bell” is used to stand for the Mission as a whole.

“All day, crowing like roosters, they looked for the hens,” – simile. Here, Isabel Allende is explicitly comparing El Portugués and Consuelo’s behaviour when trying to catch hens to rooster’s behaviour.

“her nose bumped into four filthy sandals belonging to two friars from Extremadura ” – metonomy + metaphor. The author uses the noun phrases “nose” and “four filthy sandals belonging...” to refer to Consuelo and the two friars. By saying that Consuelo’s “nose bumped into four filthy sandals..”, the authors means that Consuelo met the friars at that moment.

“wild bananas and dwarf pineapple “ – pathetic fallacy. By using this variety of personification, the author means that the bananas were characteristic of that rare geographical place and that pinapples were small.

“On that long journey she wept all the tears stored in her soul, leaving none in reserve for later sorrows.” – hyperbole. This exaggeration is made to make clear how upset Consuelo was.

“where a nun with a jailer's key opened an iron door” – metaphor. By talking about a “jailer’s key,” the writer is comparing the Convent to a jail.

"Through prayer and toil shall you atone for your sins. I have come not to heal those of you who are whole, but to minister unto those who are suffering and afflicted. The shepherd rejoices more when he finds the lost sheep than in all the ninety and nine. Word of God, praise be His Holy Name, amen."
- allusion. This passage is an allusion to Christian prayers.

“she felt that she was suffocating.” – hyperbole. By using this overstatement, the author reinforces the idea that Consuelo felt that she couldn’t breath.

“she had no inkling that it was because of her light skin and eyes.” – metaphor + metonomy. By “she had no inkling” the author means that Consuelo didn’t supect that she was treated differently because of her being white. The author uses “light skin and eyes” to refer to her ethnicity and general physical traits.