Witness

“vermont is a nice place. / they have wiggle fish.”

“Wiggle fish” is an epithet, a word or phrase that describes a characteristic of the person or object it accompanies. Esther uses epithets throughout the novel because she connects people and objects to their actions, a speech pattern that makes her appear childlike but also unusually insightful.

“felt like skidding on ice as i read, / felt like twisting steel.”

After a classmate shows Leonora a newspaper advertisement for a racist minstrel show, Leonora uses this simile to compare her feelings to a car accident. The skidding ice indicates a feeling of losing control, and the twisting steel is the destruction of the car as it wrecks.

“and what i see, / the opening of roses kept bud-tight for so many years, / it warms this aging soul.”

Dr. Flitt’s metaphor compares the growing independence of American women to blossoming rose buds. Rose buds traditionally have symbolized love and beauty, but if they are kept bud-tight, they will never fully mature. Dr. Flitt’s sympathy for the plight of American women shows in his joy at their growing independence.