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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
Chapter 4
Explanation and Analysis—Coffee and Earth:
In Chapter 4, Kimmerer describes how every morning while camping in the Adirondacks, her father used to make a pot of coffee and pray while he poured some out on the ground. Kimmerer turns this ritual into a simile for ceremony more broadly:
[Ceremony] marries the mundane to the sacred. The water turns to wine, the coffee to a prayer. The material and the spiritual mingle like grounds mingled with humus, transformed like steam rising from a mug into the morning mist.
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Chapter 24
Explanation and Analysis—Pioneers:
In Chapter 24, Kimmerer tells the story of Franz Dolp, who built a home in deforested land and set to restoring the forest. First Franz had to clear blackberries and salmonberries that had taken over in the absence of tree cover, and Kimmerer uses a simile comparing colonists to these berries:
Unlock with LitCharts A+In five hundred years we exterminated old-growth cultures and old-growth ecosystems, replacing them with opportunistic culture. Pioneer human communities, just like pioneer plant communities, have an important role in regeneration, but they are not sustainable in the long run. When they reach the edge of easy energy, balance and renewal are the only way forward, wherein there is a reciprocal cycle between early and late successional systems, each opening the door for the other.
Related Themes:
Explanation and Analysis—Old-Growth Cultures:
In Chapter 24, Kimmerer uses a simile and logos to argue for sustainable living:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Just as old-growth forests are richly complex, so too were the old-growth cultures that arose at their feet. Some people equate sustainability with a diminished standard of living, but the aboriginal people of the coastal old-growth forests were among the wealthiest in the world.
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Chapter 30
Explanation and Analysis—Painting with Fire:
In Chapter 30, Kimmerer describes the lessons her father taught her about fire. She recalls how he used a simile and imagery to instill in her the idea of fire as her people's art and science all in one:
Unlock with LitCharts A+The fire stick was like a paintbrush on the landscape. Touch it here in a small dab and you’ve made a green meadow for elk; a light scatter there burns off the brush so the oaks make more acorns. Stipple it under the canopy and it thins the stand to prevent catastrophic fire. Draw the firebrush along the creek and the next spring it’s a thick stand of yellow willows. A wash over a grassy meadow turns it blue with camas. To make blueberries, let the paint dry for a few years and repeat.
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