Previous
Setting
Definition of Simile
A simile is a figure of speech that directly compares two unlike things. To make the comparison, similes most often use the connecting words "like" or "as," but can also... read full definition
A simile is a figure of speech that directly compares two unlike things. To make the comparison, similes most often use the connecting words "like... read full definition
A simile is a figure of speech that directly compares two unlike things. To make the comparison, similes most often... read full definition
Key Examples in A Farewell to Arms
Chapter 1
Explanation and Analysis—Summer Lightning:
The novel begins with a description of the war at night, illustrating the explosions with a simile:
There was fighting in the mountains and at night we could see the flashes from the artillery. In the dark it was like summer lightning, but the nights were cool and there was not the feeling of a storm coming.
Related Themes:
Chapter 9
Explanation and Analysis—Macaroni and Cheese:
At the battle site of Pavla, Henry and the other ambulance drivers get hit by a mortar shell while eating macaroni and cheese, an instance of situational irony. The passage also contains simile and imagery to make the scene all the more vivid:
Unlock with LitCharts A+I ate the end of my piece of cheese and took a swallow of wine. […] Then there was a flash, as when a blast-furnace door is swung open, and a roar that started white and went red and on and on in a rushing wind. […] The ground was torn up and in front of my head there was a splintered beam of wood. In the jolt of my head I heard somebody crying. I thought somebody was screaming. I tried to move but I could not move.
Related Themes:
Chapter 18
Explanation and Analysis—Piano Keys:
Music is something that is rarely mentioned in the novel, only in relation to opera—the Teatro alla Scala, Caruso, and the two American opera singers. Nevertheless, at one point Henry compares Catherine's skin to white piano keys:
Unlock with LitCharts A+She had a lovely face and body and lovely smooth skin too. We would be lying together and I would touch her cheeks and her forehead and under her eyes and her chin and throat with the tips of my fingers and say, “Smooth as piano keys,” and she would stroke my chin with her finger and say, “Smooth as emery paper and very hard on piano keys.”
Related Themes:
Chapter 34
Explanation and Analysis—An Italian Snake:
When Henry finds Catherine in Stresa, Helen Ferguson compares him to a snake through a simile:
Unlock with LitCharts A+You’re worse than sneaky. You’re like a snake. A snake with an Italian uniform: with a cape around your neck.
Related Themes:
