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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
Part 2, Chapter 6
Explanation and Analysis—Fiery Eyes:
In Part 2, Chapter 6, Carl notices that Marie has the same distinctive eyes she had when she was a little girl. The narrator uses a pair of similes to describe their effect:
[T]he effect was that of two dancing points of light, two little yellow bubbles, such as rise in a glass of champagne. Sometimes they seemed like the sparks from a forge. She seemed so easily excited, to kindle with a fierce little flame if one but breathed upon her.
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Part 2, Chapter 9
Explanation and Analysis—Emil and Amédée:
Emil and Amédée are foils. In Part 2, Chapter 9, Emil considers the similarities and differences in their love lives via a simile:
Unlock with LitCharts A+It seemed strange that now he should have to hide the thing that Amédée was so proud of, that the feeling which gave one of them such happiness should bring the other such despair. It was like that when Alexandra tested her seed-corn in the spring, he mused. From two ears that had grown side by side, the grains of one shot up joyfully into the light, projecting themselves into the future, and the grains from the other lay still in the earth and rotted; and nobody knew why.
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Part 2, Chapter 10
Explanation and Analysis—Hardened Vine:
In Part 2, Chapter 10, Lou and Oscar express concern that Carl is trying to marry Alexandra to take the family land; as far as they are concerned, the land should belong to them because they are the men of the family. When they accuse Alexandra of being hard on them, she retorts with a metaphor and a simile:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Hard on you? I never meant to be hard. Conditions were hard. Maybe I would never have been very soft, anyhow; but I certainly didn’t choose to be the kind of girl I was. If you take even a vine and cut it back again and again, it grows hard, like a tree.
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Part 4, Chapter 7
Explanation and Analysis—Quiet Water:
In Part 4, Chapter 7, Frank finds Emil and Marie sleeping together where their families' properties meet. The narrator uses an imagery-packed simile to describe Frank's slow realization that his wife is cheating on him:
Unlock with LitCharts A+In the warm, breathless night air he heard a murmuring sound, perfectly inarticulate, as low as the sound of water coming from a spring, where there is no fall, and where there are no stones to fret it.
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