Figurative Language Part 2

• Personification No. 2: "Blind Tillie Trestle called to me that day" (74).
• It's a bridge for trains to cross. It doesn't have a voice. It doesn't even have a mouth. He feels like he has to go to it, that he must go to it.

• Humor No. 1: "Giving him just long enough to get settled good, I let fly a rock and it hit that tin roof [of the outhouse] like a gunshot. Grandpa [Tweedy] burst out of there in a cloud of hornets, trying to swat and hold his pants up at the same time" (107).
• This is funny because a guy gets attacked by hornets when he is on the toilet.

• Idiom No. 1: "Not until the next morning . . . did I suspect [Grandpa] had a mean streak that put Loma's in the shade" (216).
•    There are really two idioms in this: a) a person with a temper was said to have a "mean streak," and b) something "x"  that was bigger or more excessive than something "y" was said to "put 'y' in the shade," because something in the shadows will not stand out as much.

• Extended Metaphor/ Humor: Will compares Miss Alice Ann to God. "Just then, God spoke out loud in the voice of Miss Alice Ann . . . He stood in a pink and white polky dot dress, pointing His plump forefinger at us . . . god was indignant as all get out . . ." [And when Will says], "It ain't like you see it, . . . We didn't mean to-," [God "retorted"], "I got eyes, ain't I?"

•  Will has been raised  to think that God its a powerful authority figure, who shames, judges, and punishes. Since Miss Alice Ann is an adult, a big woman, and yelling at them, it is a good comparison. It is also funny to imagine the voice of God emanating from and fat, angry, white woman.

• Idiom No. 2: Mary Willis thinks that Papa is "sweet on Miss Love."
• This is a traditional southern way of saying that one person has a romantic affection towards another person. Today, we might say that someone has a "crush on"/ "thing for" somebody else.