In CHOOSING UP SIDES, John H. Ritter uses several metaphors throughout. In fact, the author employs a metaphor to describe his novels when he says, "My books are pyramids." By that, he means, "You can take my stories at face value or you can dig under the surface and find other levels of meaning, like secret chambers and passageways that lead to other thoughts and ideas buried within."
John goes on to say that, "Metaphors are nothing but literary puns. That's the way I use them, anyhow--as words and ideas with more than one meaning. The river, for example, was an easy one, and I consciously chose it to represent a highway, a flow of ideas between Luke and Uncle Micah, among other things. But the apple metaphor, on the other hand (no pun intended), caught me completely off guard. I didn't realize the full extent of its role in the story until after the book was published and a few reviewers pointed it out."
So please take a moment to look under the surface of CHOOSING UP SIDES and explore as many meanings and uses you can find for the following metaphorical words and phrases:
River
Apple
Cat/Lynx/Panther
Rabbit/Bunny
Poetry
Fishing
Riverboats
Broken Bones/"The rottenness of the bones."
Rope
Snare/Trap
"Oh, Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done."
"Put off the old man, put on the new."
