Symbolism and Metaphors

Key passages exist everywhere in Chapters 4 and 5 of Hogan's novel, Power. I know we only had to read chapter 4 for class, but since we were encouraged to read ahead, I want to blog on Chapter 5. The symbolism and metaphors in this chapter really stuck out to me and pages 102 to page 105 seem to carry some of the most prominent and crucial points of this novel. This is probably not an accident, since it seems common for many writers to place the most important passages in the very middle, the dead center of their works of literature--making it the heart of the piece. Chapter 5 seems to be the core of this novel and by looking deep into the symbolism and metaphors of Hogan, I hope I can convince you why....

The first important metaphor I detected was on page 102 when Omishto compares the lie she tells her mother to the feeling of a child growing inside of a woman. Referring to lies, Omishto reflects that "they grow by their own design and sooner or later they have a mind of their own . . . but this one hasn't yet formed a spine." I took this to be extremely symbolic of Omishto's situation. It is here where we see her new view on life and her now, ever-constant struggle of living "between two worlds"--the modern world of her mother and the traditional world of Ama and the Taiga tribe. I feel that Omishto, because of her experience of hunting the panther with Ama, knows what she wants in and for HER life, but lacks the courage (aka the "spine") to act upon this. Although she is very mature and only getting more so as the novel unfolds, she is also still young and scared.

The second passage carrying significant symbolism follows almost immediately after the previous one and is located on page 103. Omishto resorts to Ama's house and although Ama has been taken away, this is still where she feels the most "at home." There is a smaller paragraph at the top of the page where Omishto describes the struggle of replacing "the heavy door" back on its hinges. In the text, Omishto is putting up a door physically but in my interpretation, she is putting up a door symbolically--Omishto is beginning to lift up, replace and close the "door" between herself and the world. She is struggling to let go of the life with those who judge and do not understand (the whites/Americans, the court, even her own family) and find her place instead among the Taiga tribe. I cannot help but to get the very strong feeling that Omishto will end up finding her place among the old people above Kili Swamp, but for now, she must deal with the difficulties of displacing herself from her mother's world (closing the door of the past) in order to find her place (opening a door to the future) with the elder people and Ama.