| A | B |
|---|
| simile | I tugged again at my collar and dragged my feet in the dust, allowing it to sift back onto my socks and shoes like gritty red snow. |
| imagery and simile | Before us the narrow, sun-splotched road wound like a lazy red serpent dividing the high forest bank of quiet, old trees on the left from the cotton field, forested by giant green-and-purple stalks, on the right. |
| metaphor and simile | Little Man turned around and watched saucer-eyed as a bus bore down on him spewing clouds of red dust like a huge yellow dragon breathing fire. |
| simile | She stood up, gazing down upon Little Man like a bony giant, but Little Man raised his head and continued to look into her eyes. |
| metaphor | “Biting the hand that feeds you. That’s what you’re doing, Mary Logan, biting the hand that feeds you.” |
| imagery | Big Ma was Papa’s mother, and like him she was tall and strongly built. Her clear, smooth skin was the color of a pecan shell. |
| imagery | into her bag and straightened. She was tawny-colored, thin and sinewy, with delicate features in a strong-jawed face, and though almost as tall as Big Ma, she seemed somewhat dwarfed beside her. |
| simile | I squinted, shadowing my eyes from the sun, then slipped like lightning down the pole. |
| simile | When Papa saw us, he began running swiftly, easily, like the wind. |
| simile | “Miz Logan,” said Mr. Morrison in a deep, quiet voice like the roll of low thunder... |
| personification, onomatopoeia and imagery | At first the rain had merely splotched the dust, which seemed to be rejoicing in its own resiliency and laughing at the heavy drops thudding against it; but eventually the dust was forced to surrender to the mastery of the rain and it churned into a fine red mud that oozed between our toes and slopped against our ankles as we marched miserably to and from school. |
| metaphor | As soon as we were beyond Big Ma’s eagle eyes, we threw off the cloaks and depended upon the overhanging limbs of the forest trees to keep us dry. |
| imagery, onomatopoeia, simile, hyperbole | That night when I was snug in the deep feathery bed beside Big Ma, the tat-tat of the rain against the tin roof changed to a deafening roar that sounded as if thousands of giant rocks were being hurled against the earth. |
| imagery and personification | As we set out for school the whiteness of the sun attempted to penetrate the storm clouds, but by the time we had turned north toward the second crossing it had given up, slinking meekly behind the blackening clouds. |
| simile | Five minutes later we were skidding like frightened puppies toward the bank again as the bus accelerated and barreled down the narrow rain-soaked road; but there was no place to which we could run, for Stacey had been right. |
| metaphor | “Hey, man, I ain’t said nothin’! I’m jus’ as burnt as you are.” |
| onomatopoeia | The bus rattled up the road, though not as quickly as we had hoped. |
| personification and simile | Then it sputtered a last murmuring protest and died, its left front wheel in our ditch, its right wheel in the gully, like a lopsided billy goat on its knees. |
| onomatopoeia | stove, it was cold in there. The room grew quiet again, except for the earthy humming of Big Ma’s rich alto voice, the crackle of the hickory fire, and the patter of rain on the roof. |
| onomatopoeia | Outside, an owl hooted into the night, quiet now except for the drip-drap of water falling from the roof. |
| simile and personification | Each of the cars used the driveway to turn around, then the caravan sped away as swiftly as it had come, its seven pairs of rear lights glowing like distant red embers until they were swallowed from view by the Granger forest. |
| imagery and simile | The moon slid from its dark covers, cloaking the earth in a shadowy white light, and I could see Mr. Morrison clearly, moving silently, like a jungle cat, from the side of the house to the road, a shotgun in his hand. |
| alliteration | ...lifted a still-swinging Stacey off T.J. |
| symbolism | “Hammer, you— you went and got a car like Harlan Granger’s?” |
| symbolism | “Look out there, Cassie girl. All that belongs to you. You ain’t never had to live on nobody’s place but your own and long as I live and the family survives, you’ll never have to. That’s important. You may not understand that now, but one day you will. Then you’ll see.” |
| alliteration | Stacey stood swaying on the Strawberry road. |
| alliteration and simile | Cassie kept consoling Claude, who moaned like a malignant ghost. |
| imagery | In the kitchen sweet-potato pies, egg-custard pies, and rich butter pound cakes cooled; a gigantic coon which Mr. Morrison, Uncle Hammer, and Stacey had secured in a night’s hunt baked in a sea of onions, garlic, and fat orange-yellow yams; and a choice sugar-cured ham brought from the smokehouse awaited its turn in the oven. |
| metaphor and simile | “But my mama and daddy they loved each other and they loved us children, and that Christmas they fought them demons out of hell like avenging angels of the Lord.” |
| metaphor | Visions of night men and fire mixed in a caldron of fear awakened me long before dawn. |
