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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
Similes
Explanation and Analysis—Transformations on Mars:
One of the ways that life on Mars impacts the Bittering family (and the other humans from Earth who helped start their settlement) is that it changes the shape and color of their bodies. In the following passage, Bradbury uses a simile and imagery to help readers understand the kind of transformations humans go through on Mars:
Lying abed, Mr. Bittering felt his bones shifted, shaped, melted like gold. His wife, lying beside him, was dark from many sunny afternoons. Dark she was, and golden-eyed, burnt almost black by the sun, sleeping, and the children metallic in their beds, and the wind roaring forlorn and changing through the old peach trees, the violet grass, shaking out green rose petals.
Related Themes:
Explanation and Analysis—Unsettling New Home :
Near the beginning of the story, just after Harry and his family arrive on Mars, Bradbury uses a pair of similes and a metaphor to capture the unsettling nature of this new planetary environment:
Unlock with LitCharts A+At any moment the Martian air might draw his soul from him, as marrow comes from a white bone. He felt submerged in a chemical that could dissolve his intellect and burn away his past.
They looked at Martian hills that time had worn with a crushing pressure of years. They saw the old cities, lost in their meadows, lying like children’s delicate bones among the blowing lakes of grass.
Related Themes:
Explanation and Analysis—Summer on Mars:
When describing summertime on Mars, Bradbury uses a pair of similes, as seen in the following passage:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Summer burned the canals dry. Summer moved like flame upon the meadows. In the empty Earth settlement, the painted houses flaked and peeled. Rubber tires upon which children had swung in back yards hung suspended like stopped clock pendulums in the blazing air.
Related Themes:
