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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
Key Examples in Night
Chapter 1
Explanation and Analysis—Tears of Wax:
When Moché the Beadle, an immigrant Jewish man in Sighet, mysteriously returns to town a few months after an expulsion of foreign Jewish people by the Hungarian police, he describes a harrowing story. No one in Sighet believes Moché’s tale, and the story uses a simile to express his subsequent despair:
“Jews, listen to me! That’s all I ask of you. No money. No pity. Just listen to me!” he kept shouting in synagogue, between the prayer at dusk and the evening prayer. Even I did not believe him. I often sat with him, after services, and listened to his tales, trying to understand his grief. But all I felt was pity. “They think I’m mad,” he whispered, and tears, like drops of wax, flowed from his eyes.
Related Themes:
Chapter 6
Explanation and Analysis—The Suffocation of Death:
When the Red Army is rumored to be nearby, Buna is evacuated, and the prisoners are forced to run endlessly in the snow. Amidst this torturous night, Eliezer considers the idea of death, using a simile to describe his fascination and personal relationship with it:
Unlock with LitCharts A+I soon forgot him. I began to think of myself again. My foot was aching, I shivered with every step. Just a few more meters and it will be over. I’ll fall. A small red flame … A shot … Death enveloped me, it suffocated me. It stuck to me like glue. I felt I could touch it. The idea of dying, of ceasing to be, began to fascinate me. To no longer exist. To no longer feel the excruciating pain of my foot. To no longer feel anything, neither fatigue nor cold, nothing. To break rank, to let myself slide to the side of the road …
Related Themes:
