In the first section of the Testing, the figurative language is pretty light hearted. For example, "My insides do a flip. Then another." (Pg. 10) This is personification, because her insides really don't do a flip. However, it does show she is nervous about graduating from High-School, which is pretty common.
In the second and third sections the figurative language becomes a little more dark. The text reads "A moment later a nail embeds itself in Malchi's eye, and he drops to the floor like a stone." (Pg. 111)
Her friend has just been killed and the author uses the simile to show how the dead boy falls, lifelessly to the ground. Later on in that section and into the third section there is more figurative language to show the damage on the canidates, physically, and mentally. The figurative language really takes a bad turn in the fourth section.
For example "I free my fingers from my viselike grip and let Tomas clean the stinging open cuts with hot water." (Pg. 268) Cia has been bitten by a mutated human in the midst of the fourth examination, she has been infected and is now treating the infection. This just gives the reader a better understanding on how the Testing has affected Cia not only mentally, but physically too.
The last example of figurative language that helps the reader understand the text is also found in the fourth section, it reads "I blink as the small room fills with a voice that sounds like my own and listen as the voice speaks words I don't want to believe." (Pg. 325) Cia has recorded the happenings of the Testing into her brothers transit communicator. The Testing commitee has wiped her memory clean and now she, unlike any other canidates, knows everything about what happened during the Testing.
The figurative language in this book while only found mostly in sections 2 and 4, still definitely helps the reader see the gravity of the situations the main characters face. The Testing is a great book and the figurative language found in it, is only icing on the cake.
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