In her girlhood, Annie John enjoys the game of marbles likening it to the sea. Employing rich, descriptive terminology, she elucidates on her first encounter with marbles – “it was my mother who gave me my first marbles … they looked to me like miniature globes, the white representing the seas, the colours representing land masses” (Kincaid 55). In her eyes, the marbles resembled planet Earth, diagrammed with land and seas. The sea imagery here enables Annie John to see herself as one, in a sense, holding the world in her hands, toying and manipulating it to her own fancy. When scrutinising the game of marbles, the layout includes a wide circle in which are positioned several marbles, parallel to the galaxial system in which revolves several clusters of planets.
I think her leaving home has affected her by making her sad or home sick. The simile is most likely representing tears or sadness and she longs to go back home.
