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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 Sing, Unburied, Sing
Chapter 1: Jojo
Explanation and Analysis—Little Mean Things:
Jojo reflects on how the cruel, sniping things his mother says build up inside his mind over time. Ward uses a simile to show how Jojo experiences the impact of years of Leonie’s harsh words:
Before all the little mean things she told me gathered and gathered and lodged like grit in a skinned knee.
Related Themes:
Explanation and Analysis—Hear the Animals:
At sunset, Jojo listens to the sounds of the farm animals around him and feels a weirdly intimate and sudden connection to what they’re saying. To illustrate how unsettling this moment is for him, Ward uses a simile to describe Jojo’s sense of dawning understanding:
Unlock with LitCharts A+But it was impossible to not hear the animals, because I looked at them and understood, instantly, and it was like looking at a sentence and understanding the words, all of it coming to me at once.
Related Themes:
Chapter 9: Richie
Explanation and Analysis—When I Was Thirteen:
Richie compares his own suffering at 13 to what he knows about Jojo, chewing over how sharp the divide is between their experiences of childhood. Ward uses simile, metaphor, and hyperbole in Richie’s musings about the past to express the lasting pain of everything he endured at a young age:
Unlock with LitCharts A+When I was thirteen, I knew much more than him. I knew that metal shackles could grow into the skin. I knew that leather could split flesh like butter. I knew that hunger could hurt, could scoop me hollow as a gourd, and that seeing my siblings starving could hollow out a different part of me, too. Could make my heart ricochet through my chest desperately.
Related Themes:
Explanation and Analysis—A Screaming Note:
After the Sunshine Woman describes the brutal details of a lynching, Richie has a physical response to her words that move through him like a wave he can’t stop. The author uses tactile imagery, sound imagery, and a simile to show how intensely frightening and distressing Richie finds the Sunshine Woman’s tale:
Unlock with LitCharts A+I felt a stinging in my toes, in my soles, in my legs, up my butt, and through my back, where it burst to fire in my bones, licking all through my ribs, a loose powerful feeling, like a voice freed from a throat, a screaming note all through me, and it was then I knew I was going to run.
Related Themes:
Chapter 11: Jojo
Explanation and Analysis—Like a Camel:
Mam speaks softly as she prepares to leave Jojo behind for her journey into the spirit world. She uses two similes to explain that she hopes the love and advice she gave Jojo in life will last after she dies:
Unlock with LitCharts A+"I hope I fed you enough. While I'm here. So you carry it with you. Like a camel." I can hear the smile in her voice, faint. A baring of teeth. "Maybe that ain't a good way of putting it. Like a well, Jojo. Pull that water up when you need it."
Related Themes:
