The Use Of Metaphor In The Emperor Of The Air

In the story “The Emperor of the Air” Ethan Canin uses different images as metaphors for what is going on in his life. I think Canin uses the image of the insects eating and slowly killing the tree as a metaphor for the different issues eating at him in his life. The relationship with the tree mirrors or affects every other relationship he has in the story. Throughout the story, the narrator provides many issues that are eating at him, just like the insects that are eating and destroying the tree, including: his health, his wife, his neighbor Mr. Pike, the lies, and the order of the stars. One issue in the story that seems to eat away at the narrator’s life is his health problem. In the story, the narrator states, “A heart attack. Myocardial infarction, minor. I will no longer run for a train, and in my shirt pocket I keep a small vial of nitroglycerine pills” (pg 4). I think Canin is using a metaphor between the insects and his heart attack by showing examples in the story of how his heart attack has slowed his life down and enabled him to
In the story, he states, “sometimes I try to see the stars as milky dots or pearls, they are forever arranged in my eye according to the astronomic charts” (pg 5). It really seems to bother the narrator that he sees the stars for what they are and not anything beyond that. The narrator states, “I tried to see them for their beauty and mystery. I thought of billions of tons of exploding gases hydrogen and helium, red giants, supernovas. In places they were as dense as clouds. I thought of magnesium and silicon and iron. I tried to see them out of their constellatory order, but it was like trying to look at a word without reading it, and I stood there in the night unable to scramble the patterns” (pg 18). Like the insects on the tree, it eats away at the narrator that he cannot look up at the stars without seeing the different