When introducing readers to Miss Rousset, Maupassant spends some time describing her appearance, using several similes and metaphors in the process:
Small, round, and fat as lard, with puffy fingers choked at the phalanges, like chaplets of short sausages; with a stretched and shining skin, an enormous bosom which shook under her dress […]. Her face was a round apple, a peony bud ready to pop into bloom, and inside that opened two great black eyes, shaded with thick brows that cast a shadow within.
The first simile here—in which Miss Rousset is described as “fat as lard”—explains the title of the story, “Boule de Suif,” or “ball of fat.” This simile, when combined with the following one—her fingers were “like chaplets of short sausages”—serve to help readers visualize Miss Rousset’s robust figure. How Miss Rousset takes up space physically also points to the ways in which she is comfortable taking up space figuratively: while the other women in the carriage are wives controlled by the wills of their husbands or nuns devoted to the will of God, Miss Rousset is independent, autonomous, and refuses to act smaller than she is just because of her profession as a sex worker.
The metaphors here—in which her face is referred to as “a round apple” and also “a peony bud ready to pop into bloom”—again communicate Miss Rousset’s vitality and liveliness. These descriptions are important to helping readers understand the tragedy of Miss Rousset losing her exuberance at the end of the story after she is betrayed by all of her compatriots traveling with her.
