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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
Part 1
Explanation and Analysis—Blevins the Serf:
In Part 1, the narrator uses imagery and a simile to describe Blevins’s sorry condition after he’s lost his clothes and some Mexican men try to buy him as a slave:
The boy’s bony legs were pale in the firelight and coated with road dust and bits of chaff that had stuck to the lard. The drawers he wore were baggy and dirty and he did indeed look like some sad and ill used serf or worse.
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Part 2
Explanation and Analysis—Patient as a Dog:
When John Grady sees Alejandra on the hacienda in Part 2, the novel uses a simile to express Alejandra's emotional effect on John Grady:
Unlock with LitCharts A+[H]e had seen her riding in the parkland above the marshes and once he came upon her leading the horse through the shallows of the lakeshore among the tules with her skirts caught up above her knees while redwing blackbirds circled and cried, pausing and bending and gathering white waterlilies with the black horse standing in the lake behind her patient as a dog.
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Part 4
Explanation and Analysis—The Solitary Bull:
The very end of All the Pretty Horses contains visual imagery and simile. The vivid description of a lone bull parallels John Grady's prior suffering in the novel:
Unlock with LitCharts A+There were few cattle in that country because it was barren country indeed yet he came at evening upon a solitary bull rolling in the dust against the bloodred sunset like an animal in sacrificial torment. The bloodred dust blew down out of the sun. He touched the horse with his heels and rode on.
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Explanation and Analysis—Alejandra's Departure:
Alejandra's final departure is one of the most somber, tense, and emotional scenes in the entire novel. As she boards the train in Part 4, narrator uses a simile to highlight the difference between John Grady’s mental state and reality:
Unlock with LitCharts A+He watched her go as if he himself were in some dream.
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