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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
Ligeia
Explanation and Analysis—As a Shadow:
While describing his beloved Ligeia near the beginning of the short story of the same name, the narrator waxes poetic about his time spent interacting with her prior to her death. In doing so, he uses a simile comparing her to a shadow and metaphorically suggests that she is made of "marble":
I would in vain attempt to portray the majesty, the quiet ease, of her demeanor, or the incomprehensible lightness and elasticity of her footfall. She came and departed as a shadow. I was never made aware of her entrance into my closed study save by the dear music of her low sweet voice, as she placed her marble hand upon my shoulder. [...] It was the radiance of an opium dream—an airy and spirit-lifting vision more wildly divine than the phantasies which hovered about the slumbering souls of the daughters of Delos.
Related Themes:
The Tell-Tale Heart
Explanation and Analysis—The Vulture-Like Evil Eye:
The simile the narrator draws in “The Tell-Tale Heart” between the old man’s eye and that of a vulture’s serves to emphasize the narrator’s own madness:
Unlock with LitCharts A+I think it was his eye! yes, it was this! One of his eyes resembled that of a vulture—a pale blue eye, with a film over it. Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold; and so by degrees—very gradually—I made up my mind to take the life of the old man, and thus rid myself of the eye forever.
Related Themes:
Explanation and Analysis—The Beating of a Drum:
“The Tell-Tale Heart” is full of auditory imagery. Sound—imagined and real—plays a large role in translating the paranoia of the narrator to the reader. Take the passage below, for example:
Unlock with LitCharts A+And now have I not told you that what you mistake for madness is but over acuteness of the senses?—now, I say, there came to my ears a low, dull, quick sound, such as a watch makes when enveloped in cotton. I knew that sound well, too. It was the beating of the old man’s heart. It increased my fury, as the beating of a drum stimulates the soldier into courage.
Related Themes:
