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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 6
Explanation and Analysis—Like an Empress:
When Chiyo is sold to the Nitta okiya (or geisha house,) she quickly comes to fear Hatsumomo, the the only active geisha in the okiya. Describing Hatsumomo's commanding presence, Chiyo uses a simile that compares her to an empress:
Whatever any of us may have thought about Hatsumomo, she was like an empress in our okiya since she earned the income by which we all lived. And being an empress she would have been very displeased, upon returning late at night, to find her palace dark and all the servants asleep. That is to say, when she came home too drunk to unbutton her socks, someone had to unbutton them for her; and if she felt hungry, she certainly wasn’t going to stroll into the kitchen to prepare something by herself [...]
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Chapter 12
Explanation and Analysis—Like a Stray Cat :
In explaining the system of sexual patronage that is essential to a geisha who seeks financial independence, Mameha uses a simile that compares Hatsumomo to a stray cat:
Unlock with LitCharts A+"So you see, a geisha of the first or second tier in Gion can’t be bought for a single night, not by anyone. But if the right sort of man is interested in something else—not a night together, but a much longer time—and if he’s willing to offer suitable terms, well, in that case a geisha will be happy to accept such an arrangement. Parties and so on are all very nice; but the real money in Gion comes from having a danna, and a geisha without one—such as Hatsumomo—is like a stray cat on the street without a master to feed it."
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Chapter 14
Explanation and Analysis—Like a Shadow:
While Mameha introduces Sayuri to her circle of clients, patrons, and teahouse owners, Sayuri is expected to remain quiet and obedient. Emphasizing this subservient aspect of her apprenticeship, she describes herself, in a simile, as behaving "like a shadow":
Unlock with LitCharts A+The geisha, who are there to entertain, move around the center of the room—inside the U-shape made by all the trays, I mean—and spend only a few minutes kneeling before each guest to pour sake and chat. It isn’t what you’d call an exciting affair; and as a novice, my role was less exciting even than Mameha’s. I stayed to one side of her like a shadow. Whenever she introduced herself, I did the same, bowing very low and saying, “My name is Sayuri. I’m a novice and beg your indulgence.” After that I said nothing more [...]
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Chapter 22
Explanation and Analysis:
The mood of the novel is frequently melancholy. Narrated by an elderly Sayuri living in New York City decades after the primary events of the novel, her story is tinged with nostalgia and sadness as she reflects upon the various hardships that led her to become a geisha in Gion, including a failed attempt to escape from Kyoto with her sister, sexual and economic exploitation in the geisha industry, and the occasional cruelty of rival geisha such as Hatsumomo.
Unlock with LitCharts A+
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Chapter 24
Explanation and Analysis—Business Meeting:
Dr. Crab, who is obsessed with the virginity of young girls, beats both Nobu and the Baron in the bidding war for Sayuri's mizuage. Uninterested in anything but taking Sayuri's virginity, he is "like a man at a business meeting" at dinner, a simile that underscores his narrow obsession:
Unlock with LitCharts A+After the ceremony we all went to a restaurant known as Kitcho for dinner. This was a solemn event too, and I spoke little and ate even less. Sitting there at dinner, Dr. Crab had probably already begun thinking about the moment that would come later, and yet I’ve never seen a man who looked more bored. I kept my eyes lowered throughout the meal in the interests of acting innocent, but every time I stole a glance in his direction, I found him peering down through his glasses like a man at a business meeting.
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Explanation and Analysis—Like an Abacus:
In a passage that satirizes the greed of the okiya owners, who often exploit geisha, Sayuri uses a simile that compares the mind of Mother, owner of the Nitta okiya, to an abacus, a calculating tool:
Unlock with LitCharts A+She was the sort of person, I’m sure you realize, who noticed things only if they had price tags on them. When she walked down the street, her mind was probably working like an abacus [...] If Mother were to walk alongside the Shirakawa Stream on a lovely spring day, when you could almost see beauty itself dripping into the water from the tendrils of the cherry trees, she probably wouldn’t even notice any of it—unless . . . I don’t know . . . she had a plan to make money from selling the trees, or some such thing.
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Chapter 34
Explanation and Analysis—A Great Wave:
At Nobu's party, Sayuri commits to her plan to have sex with Sato, knowing that Nobu will be disgusted and refuse to be her danna. Her goal, ultimately, is to enter into a relationship with the Chairman instead, as she knows that the Chairman cannot request to be her danna while Nobu, his business partner, is still interested in her. When she leads Sato into a theater on the island, she uses both simile and metaphor to describe her mixed feelings of agency and powerlessness:
Unlock with LitCharts A+I’m sure you’ll understand that amid the worry, and fear, and disgust that almost overwhelmed me, I’d also been feeling a certain excitement. In the instant before that door opened, I could almost sense my life expanding just like a river whose waters have begun to swell; for I had never before taken such a drastic step to change the course of my own future. I was like a child tiptoeing along a precipice overlooking the sea. And yet somehow I hadn’t imagined a great wave might come and strike me there, and wash everything away.
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Chapter 35
Explanation and Analysis—Like Watery Ink:
In the closing lines of the novel, Sayuri, now living in New York City, looks back upon the unpredictable direction of her life and, using a simile, argues that the events of an individual's life are "like watery ink on paper":
Unlock with LitCharts A+It’s true that sometimes when I cross Park Avenue, I’m struck with the peculiar sense of how exotic my surroundings are [...] But really, would Yoroido seem any less exotic if I went back there again? As a young girl I believed my life would never have been a struggle if Mr. Tanaka hadn’t torn me away from my tipsy house. But now I know that our world is no more permanent than a wave rising on the ocean. Whatever our struggles and triumphs, however we may suffer them, all too soon they bleed into a wash, just like watery ink on paper.
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Explanation and Analysis—Like a Stream:
In the final chapter of the novel, Sayuri, recounting the events of her life to an interviewer in New York City, uses two similes that highlight her own lack of control over the path her life has taken:
Unlock with LitCharts A+I cannot tell you what it is that guides us in this life; but for me, I fell toward the Chairman just as a stone must fall toward the earth. When I cut my lip and met Mr. Tanaka, when my mother died and I was cruelly sold, it was all like a stream that falls over rocky cliffs before it can reach the ocean. Even now that he is gone I have him still, in the richness of my memories. I’ve lived my life again just telling it to you.
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Explanation and Analysis—Draining Water:
When Nobu rejects Sayuri for having sex with Sato, the Chairman is free to become Sayuri's danna. Reluctant to offend Nobu, he pays additional money to the Nitta okiya so that Sayuri will no longer work as an active geisha and risk running into Nobu at a party or teahouse. For a while, Sayuri lives in a luxurious home in Kyoto, owned by the Chairman. Describing their daily life together, she uses a simile that compares his occasionally mundane chatter to the emptying of a bucket:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Usually when he first came, the Chairman talked for a time about his workday [...] Of course I was happy to sit and listen, but I understood perfectly well that the Chairman wasn’t telling these things to me because he wanted me to know them. He was clearing them from his mind, just like draining water from a bucket. So I listened closely not to his words, but to the tone of his voice; because in the same way that sound rises as a bucket is emptied, I could hear the Chairman’s voice softening as he spoke.
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Explanation and Analysis—Like a Baby:
When the Chairman becomes Sayuri's danna, she is forced to retire from actively serving as a geisha, as the Chairman is afraid of offending his business partner, Nobu, who had originally hoped to be Sayuri's danna before she deliberately offended him by having sex with Sato. Rather than attending tea-houses and parties, she instead attends to the Chairman, both in Kyoto and on his trips to the United States. Sayuri uses a simile when recounting her first visit to New York City, which was also her first time leaving Japan:
Unlock with LitCharts A+When I settled at last into my room at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, and looked out the window at the mountainous buildings around me and the smooth, clean streets below, I had the feeling I was seeing a world in which anything was possible. I confess I’d expected to feel like a baby who has been taken away from its mother; for I had never before left Japan, and couldn’t imagine that a setting as alien as New York City would make me anything but fearful. Perhaps it was the Chairman’s enthusiasm that helped me to approach my visit there with such goodwill.
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