Select a short section from the winter chapter that identifies a particular incident of diction or style that is particularly revealing. Identify and analyze the author’s use of literacy devices. List three questions about the short passage.

The passage that most stands out for me in this chapter is this one, in which the author describes her father's face as "a study" and then proceeds to describe that study in a piece of writing dense with figurative language and allusion:

My daddy’s face is a study. Winter moves into it and presides there. His eyes become a cliff of snow threatening to avalanche; his eyebrows bend like black limbs of leafless trees. His skin takes on the pale, cheerless yellow of winter sun; for a jaw he has the edges of a snowbound field dotted with stubble; his high forehead is the frozen sweep of the Erie, hiding currents of gelid thoughts that eddy in darkness. Wolf killer turned hawk fighter, he worked night and day to keep one from the door and the other from under the windowsills. A Vulcan guarding the flames, he gives us instructions about which doors to keep closed or opened for proper distribution of heat, lays kindling by, discusses qualities of coal, and teaches us how to rake, feed, and bank the fire. And he will not unrazor his lips until spring.

The literary devices in this passage are many. Winter, which is personified, "presides" over the father's face, suggesting that it has taken up residence there. Accordingly, the various features of his face metaphorically "become," various elements connected to winter; his eyes become "a cliff of snow threatening to avalanche," and his eyebrows become "like black limbs of leafless trees" (a simile). The author uses enumeratio, the listing of multiple elements, to emphasize how fully winter has come to "preside" over her father's face, with language like "pale," "cheerless," "frozen" and "darkness" creating a semantic field of barren wintriness and giving the impression of the father as a stoic and rather cold man; even his thoughts are "gelid." We also see an extended metaphor in the fact that these thoughts are "currents" that "eddy" through his head, as if they were the frozen Erie.
It is interesting that the use of allusion in this passage juxtaposes the wintry language with the image of "Vulcan guarding the flames." While imbued with the qualities of winter, the father is also attributed the characteristics of the Greek god of fire, volcanoes, and blacksmithing. He is stoic in his own way, but he is also presented here as a guardian. This suggests a certain duality in the father—or at least that he is not entirely cold as his face might imply. He "gives . . . instructions," but he "will not unrazor his lips until spring," a final metaphor which leaves us to ponder on how winter affects this man and why it "presides" in his face for the duration of the season.
Here are some questions one could have about the passage:

Why do you think the father will not "unrazor his lips until spring"? What does this suggest about his preoccupations?


How do you think the author feels about her father—is this a fond portrait?


Why do you think the author chooses to describe her father's face in such detail?