Tortula Curtain Figurative Language

Figurative Language in the Tortilla Curtain In T.C. Boyle’s the Tortilla Curtain, Delaney Mossebacher is at a property owners association meeting and notes how a wife “leaned into her husband like a sapling leaning into a rock ledge” (42). In this simile, Boyle compares the wife to a sapling and the husband to the rock that she is leaning on. During the meeting, Delaney describes the husband as a man “in his forties, with the hips and shoulders of a college athlete” (42). With the build of a college athlete, this man, despite his age, is solid, much like a rock. This allows him to easily support the weight of his wife leaning on him, like a rock ledge could easily support a sapling. Boyle makes another comparison in this simile. Delaney describes