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Setting
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
Chapter 1
Explanation and Analysis—Stopping Glaciers:
The narrator, a stand-in for Vonnegut, describes a movie producer's advice about writing an anti-war book using a simile:
“You know what I say to people when I hear they’re writing anti-war books?” [...]
“I say, ‘Why don’t you write an anti-glacier book instead?’ ”
What he meant, of course, was that there would always be wars, that they were as easy to stop as glaciers. I believe that, too. And even if wars didn’t keep coming like glaciers, there would still be plain old death.
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Chapter 2
Explanation and Analysis—Barking Dog:
Vonnegut makes use of imagery and simile to describe Billy Pilgrim's experience behind enemy lines:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Billy had never seen Weary’s face. He had tried to imagine it one time, had imagined a toad in a fishbowl. [...] They had heard the dog. They had heard men calling back and forth, too—calling like hunters who had a pretty good idea of where their quarry was.
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Explanation and Analysis—Parthenon Poet Pilgrim:
Right before Billy Pilgrim becomes unstuck in time for the first time, Vonnegut compares him to a poet with a simile:
Unlock with LitCharts A+He was like a poet in the Parthenon.
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Chapter 6
Explanation and Analysis—Dresden as Oz and Heaven:
The narrator makes use of both a simile and an allusion to the fictional city of Oz when describing what Dresden looked like when seeing it for the first time:
Unlock with LitCharts A+The boxcar doors were opened, and the doorways framed the loveliest city that most of the Americans had ever seen. The skyline was intricate and voluptuous and enchanted and absurd. It looked like a Sunday school picture of Heaven to Billy Pilgrim. Somebody behind him in the boxcar said, “Oz.” That was I. That was me. The only other city I’d ever seen was Indianapolis, Indiana.
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Chapter 8
Explanation and Analysis—Guards as Silent Quartet:
The guards standing watch over the Americans sheltering in the slaughterhouse during the bombing of Dresden are compared to a barbershop quartet with a simile:
Unlock with LitCharts A+The guards drew together instinctively, rolled their eyes. They experimented with one expression and then another, said nothing, though their mouths were often open. They looked like a silent film of a barbershop quartet.
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