you can’t keep turning round in one place like a horse grinding sugar cane.
This simile takes up the theme suggested by the previous figurative device; here, though, the horse serves as the power source and walks in a tight radius around a central grinding apparatus in which raw cane is pushed in from the top lengthwise and the pressed out juice is collected in a tub. Likening Janie now to a beast of burden accentuates the suggestion that she has been taken advantage of ("worked") by Tea Cake.
The train beat on itself and danced on the shiny steel rails mile after mile. Every now and then the engineer would play on his whistle for the people in the towns he passed by. And the train shuffled on to Jacksonville, and to a whole lot of things she wanted to see and to know.
The personification of the train serves to suggest that Janie, in following her heart--leaving Eatonville and marrying Tea Cake--is in touch with her self, her humanity, for the first time in her life.
He leaned on the counter with one elbow and cold-cocked her a look.
The implied metaphor relates to pugilism. tenor: permitted Janie to see an expression that revealed his interest in her vehicle: a punch ground: a blow delivered with enough force to knock a fighter unconscious
Lemme know when dat ole pee-de-bed is gone and Ah’ll be right back.”
Hilarious country euphemism/implied metaphor: tenor: Ike Green vehicle: an old, incontinent person ground: one who lacks fundamental control of bodily functions and is therefore rendered helplessly childlike.
She wasn’t petal-open anymore with him.
An interesting and evocative image and implied metaphor. The tenor is Janie's willingness to be vulnerable, emotionally and physically, with Joe; the vehicle is a flower; the ground, is a living thing's natural inclination (you could say the biological imperative) for making available its innermost self, its essence, in order to foster growth and/or reproduction. The implied image of the woman's labia as the petals of a flower is relatively obvious.
Ah knowed you would going tuh crawl up in dat holler! But Ah aims tuh smoke yuh right out.
Two implied metaphors in quick succession: tenor: choose a position (here, in a debate) vehicle: crawl up in a hollow (as in the mountains) ground: a narrow and protected position that is well-guarded but is nonetheless difficult to retreat from tenor: effectively refute Sam's argumentative position vehicle: smoke you right out ground: to force an animal (or person) from a protected position by denying access to oxygen and thereby threatening their life
It was just a handle to wind up the tongue with.
The implied metaphor relates to bringing up water from a well; here, the suggestion is that the verbal irony exhibited in the tone of whomever opens a remark with "Our beloved mayor," invited anyone in the vicinity to gather (as around a well, water being the primary source of life sustenance in any community) and speak ill of Jody.