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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
Act 1
Explanation and Analysis—A Couple of Cardsharps:
In Act 1, Maggie uses a simile to describe Gooper and Mae's behavior at Big Daddy's birthday party:
I want you to know that Brother Man an' his partner never once, for one moment, stopped exchanging pokes an' pinches an' kicks an' signals!—Why, they were like a couple of cardsharps fleecing a sucker.
Here, Maggie is trying to capture the way she feels Gooper and Mae act around the rest of the family. A cardsharp is someone who cheats at card games in order to win money, and to fleece a sucker is to extort or take money from a particularly gullible person.
Thus, Maggie feels that the way Gooper and Mae interact with each other has the air of malicious activity; she believes this is due to Gooper's false illusion that by marrying Mae he has ascended in social class. In reality, the Flynns have no money and only pretend to be part of the Southern elite. Here, then, Maggie seems to be saying she will not be the sucker fleeced by these cardsharps. Furthermore, by comparing her brother-in-law and his wife to cardsharps, she creates a sense of antagonism between them that will persist throughout the play, especially when it comes to the question of inheritance.
Related Themes:
