Similes
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I was called Old Lady and chided for moving and talking like winter's molasses.
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[Bailey] smelled like a vinegar barrel or a sour angel.
Motifs
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During these years in Stamps, I met and fell in love with William Shakespeare. He was my first white love.
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tamps, Arkansas was Chitlin' Switch, Georgia; Hang 'Em High, Alabama; Don't Let the Sun Set on You Here, Nigger, Mississippi; or any other name just as descriptive.
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I could cry anytime I wanted by picturing my mother (I didn't quite know what she looked like) lying in her coffin.
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[Bailey] was away in a mystery, locked in the enigma that young Southern Black boys start to unravel, start to try to unravel, from seven years old to death.
Alliteration
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I mastered the art of crocheting and tatting, and there was a lifetime's supply of dainty doilies that would never be used in sacheted dresser drawers.
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The time crowded together and at an End of Days I was swinging on the back of the rackety trolley, smiling sweetly and persuading my charges to "step forward in the car, please."
Sense Impressions
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The odors of onions and oranges and kerosene had been mixing all night and wouldn't be disturbed until the wooded slat was removed from the door and the early morning air forced its way in with the bodies of people who had walked miles to reach the pickup place.
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I sliced onions, and Bailey opened two or even three cans of sardines and allowed their juice of oil and fishing boats to ooze down and around the sides.
