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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 One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Part One
Explanation and Analysis—Punch and Judy:
In Part One, Bromden recalls how Nurse Ratched has always run the hospital ward. He uses a simile and an allusion to convey the way she exerts power through a vicious hierarchy:
The technicians go trotting off, pushing the man on the Gurney, like cartoon men—or like puppets, mechanical puppets in one of those Punch and Judy acts where it’s supposed to be funny to see the puppet beat up by the Devil and swallowed headfirst by a smiling alligator....
Related Themes:
Explanation and Analysis—Japanese Statue:
In Part One, McMurphy delights the rest of the patients by getting Doctor Spivey to announce some changes he has suggested during his admission interview—changes Nurse Ratched has not previously approved. Bromden uses a hyperbolic simile (and a racial slur) to describe the power struggle that is beginning to simmer:
Unlock with LitCharts A+One by one the patients are sneaking looks at her to see how she’s taking the way McMurphy is dominating the meeting, and they see the same thing. She’s too big to be beaten. She covers one whole side of the room like a Jap statue.
Related Themes:
Part Three
Explanation and Analysis—Catheters Like Vines:
In Part Three, McMurphy signs Bromden up to go on the fishing trip. Bromden notices the jealousy of the other "Chronics" and uses a simile to describe what differentiates him from the rest of them:
Unlock with LitCharts A+They could sense I had been singled out as the only Chronic making the trip. They watched me—old guys welded in wheelchairs for years, with catheters down their legs like vines rooting them for the rest of their lives right where they are, they watched me and knew instinctively that I was going. And they could still be a little jealous it wasn’t them.
Related Themes:
