Near the beginning of the novel, before Archer knows Ellen, he defends her when his family gossips about her potential divorce. The narrator uses a simile in this moment to capture the way that divorce was seen as scandalous in 1870s New York society:
“I hear she means to get a divorce,” said Janey boldly.
“I hope she will!” Archer exclaimed.
The word had fallen like a bombshell in the pure and tranquil atmosphere of the Archer dining-room. Mrs. Archer raised her delicate eye-brows in the particular curve that signified: “The butler—” and the young man, himself mindful of the bad taste of discussing such intimate matters in public, hastily branched off into an account of his visit to old Mrs. Mingott.
The simile here—"The word [divorce] had fallen like a bombshell in the pure and tranquil atmosphere of the Archer dining-room”—communicates the shocking nature of divorce in their community. According to the restrictive rules of their social circle, people must stay married no matter what happens in a relationship (abuse, affairs, and more). Wharton intentionally shows both the obsession with the sanctity of marriage in New York society and also how such an institution fails both men and women alike.
The final sentence in this passage also shows another rule of their society: act well-mannered at all times. Mrs. Archer communicates without language that they must stop discussing such "scandalous" matters in case the butler hears them. Like most characters in the novel, she is fine with gossip so long as no one knows she is gossiping. Women in their society in particular must maintain a façade of innocence at all times.
Near the beginning of the novel, Archer reflects bitterly on the “purity” of unmarried women, using a simile in the process:
Untrained human nature was not frank and innocent, it was full of the twists and turns and defenses of an instinctive guile. And he felt himself oppressed by this creation of a factitious purity, so cunningly manufactured by a conspiracy of mothers and aunts and grandmothers and long-dead ancestresses, because it was supposed to be what he wanted, what he had a right to, in order that he might exercise his lordly pleasure in smashing it like an image made of snow.
The simile here—that husbands are supposed to take “pleasure in smashing” their wives’ purity “like an image made of snow”—is evocative. This simile captures the way that the construction of female innocence has a violent edge, as that innocence must eventually be “smashed” by a man. It is also notable that the simile compares innocence to an image made of snow, as snow is white, the color most often symbolically linked to the concept of virginal purity.
Archer is offering an important social critique here, as he describes how “he felt himself oppressed” by these sexist expectations of female purity and innocence. It’s not just the women that are harmed by this set-up, he is arguing, but men as well. As becomes clear later in the novel when he prefers Ellen over May, he wants a partner who is his equal (intellectually, socially, and sexually), not an innocent wife who knows nothing about the world and to whom he therefore cannot connect.
Before Archer falls in love with Ellen, he already feels suffocated in his relationship with May. This comes across in a simile Archer uses after a day spent visiting different members of May’s family:
Packed in the family landau they rolled from one tribal doorstep to another, and Archer, when the afternoon’s round was over, parted from his betrothed with the feeling that he had been shown off like a wild animal cunningly trapped. He supposed that his readings in anthropology caused him to take such a coarse view of what was after all a simple and natural demonstration of family feeling.
The simile here—that Archer “had been shown off like a wild animal cunningly trapped”—captures his frustration with the marriage-related rules and rituals of New York society. (Because he is officially engaged to May, her family now gets to "show him off.") Though Archer expresses later in the passage that this could be seen as “a course view of what was after all a simple and natural demonstration of family feeling,” his experience of feeling trapped is still present and becomes more extreme over the course of the novel.
In many ways, Archer is more of a “wild animal” than the other characters in the novel in that he bucks against tradition—he doesn’t want to be with the “innocent” (and therefore “desirable”) May, but instead with the experienced and free-spirited Ellen who most people judge and reject.
After Archer spends time with Ellen at Skuytercliff and becomes more and more enamored of her, he feels stifled back at home in his normal life. The narrator captures Archer’s inner torment using a pair of similes:
The next two or three days dragged by heavily. The taste of the usual was like cinders in his mouth, and there were moments when he felt as if he were being buried alive under his future. He heard nothing of the Countess Olenska, or of the perfect little house.
The first simile that the narrator uses here—“The taste of the usual was like cinders in his mouth”—helps readers to understand how deeply Archer resents his normal life in which he follows the restrictive rules of society. Cinders—the leftovers of coal or wood from a fire—are not meant to be eaten and, if consumed, would taste awful.
The second simile—“he felt as if he were being buried alive under his future”—similarly helps readers to understand the extent of the hopelessness Archer is experiencing in this moment. Because he knows what it’s like to be with someone who is intelligent and free-willed (Ellen), Archer resents his everyday life and the ways in which the people around him refuse to challenge society’s norms.
During the period in which Archer is in love with Ellen but doesn’t see her for four months, he lives more in his fantasies of her than in his reality (in which he is unhappily married to May). The narrator captures Archer’s lack of connection to reality in this time using a simile:
[H]e moved with a growing sense of unreality and insufficiency, blundering against familiar prejudices and traditional points of view as an absent-minded man goes on bumping into the furniture of his own room. Absent—that was what he was: so absent from everything most densely real and near to those about him that it sometimes startled him to find they still imagined he was there.
The simile here—in which Archer is compared to “an absent-minded man […] bumping into the furniture of his own room” due to his tendency to “blunder against familiar prejudices and traditional points of view”—effectively communicates how ungrounded and out-of-sorts Archer is without Ellen in his life. He is trying to act normal but, in his absentmindedness, is not doing a good job maintaining this façade. As someone who grew up in elite New York society, he is well aware of the rules—the “familiar prejudices and traditional points of view” that he is supposed to recite—and yet, he is no longer parroting them successfully.
Though the narrator attributes Archer’s blunders solely to absentmindedness and “a growing sense of unreality,” it’s likely also due to his relationship with Ellen, someone who also makes blunders when it comes to fitting in in New York society. This is one of the reasons Archer is drawn to her—she doesn’t say or do the “right thing” because she has spent most of her life in Europe. Unintentional or not, he is following in her footsteps by failing to act in the ways that are expected of him.
When Archer and Ellen visit the Metropolitan Museum together near the end of the novel, the narrator describes Ellen’s appearance in close detail, using a simile in the process:
She stood up and wandered across the room. Archer, remaining seated, watched the light movements of her figure, so girlish even under its heavy furs, the cleverly planted heron wing in her fur cap, and the way a dark curl lay like a flattened vine spiral on each cheek above the ear. His mind, as always when they first met, was wholly absorbed in the delicious details that made her herself and no other.
The simile here—”a dark curl lay like a flattened vine spiral on each cheek above the ear”—is an evocative way of describing Ellen’s hairstyle, which was popular at the time. The narrator is describing Ellen through Archer’s eyes, and this kind of close attention shows how deeply Archer loves Ellen and longs for her. When he looks at May he sees a boring and traditional woman, but when he looks at Ellen he sees “the light movements of her figure” and “vine spirals” in her hair. He takes in the details of her appearance, finding them alluring because they so uniquely convey who Ellen is.
The intensity of Archer’s desire for Ellen demonstrates the failures of marriage in his society—he married a financially well-off and innocent young woman (as the rules of New York society told him he should), when really the type of woman he wants is free-willed and transgressive, like Ellen.
When Archer is at Ellen’s farewell dinner, he becomes aware that everyone at the party (including May) believes that he and Ellen are lovers but are acting as if they do not. The narrator uses a metaphor and a simile to capture Archer’s experience in this scene:
Archer once more disengaged the fact that New York believed him to be Madame Olenska’s lover […] [F]or the first time understood that [May] shared the belief. The discovery roused a laughter of inner devils that reverberated through all his efforts to discuss the Martha Washington ball with Mrs. Reggie Chivers and little Mrs. Newland; and so the evening swept on, running and running like a senseless river that did not know how to stop.
The metaphor here—in which Archer’s inner turmoil is described as “a laughter of inner devils”—captures how crazed he feels knowing that everyone (including his wife) is fiercely judging him for his relationship with Ellen while acting innocent and like nothing unusual is happening.
The simile in this passage—"the evening swept on, running and running like a senseless river that did not know how to stop”—deepens readers’ sense of how out-of-control this evening feels to Archer. Even though he hates it, he takes part in this “senseless” charade, becoming a passive victim of a river that keeps “running and running.” He plays the role of a doting husband bidding farewell to his wife’s cousin despite the fact that everyone knows the situation is far more complicated than that.
