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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
Book 1, Chapter 3: The Three Heartbreaks of Belicia Cabral (1955-1962)
Explanation and Analysis—Beli's Beauty:
In Chapter 3, Yunior uses similes and metaphors to describe Beli’s beauty:
She is sixteen and her skin is the darkness before the black, the plum of the day’s last light, her breasts like sunsets trapped beneath her skin, but for all her youth and beauty she has a sour distrusting expression that only dissolves under the weight of immense pleasure.
With this simile, Yunior compares Beli’s body to the sunset or dusk. The darkness before black, the day’s last light, and trapped sunsets all describe the barrier between day and night. This is a moment typically associated with beauty, but it’s also the last moment of light. These images capture the sense that something is turning—a sense of impending darkness or doom. This foreboding feeling is confirmed later in the passage, as Yunior explains the hardships that Beli will go through:
What she doesn’t yet know: the cold, the backbreaking drudgery of the factorías, the loneliness of Diaspora, that she will never again live in Santo Domingo [...] that the man next to her would end up being her husband and the father of her two children, that after two years together he would leave her, her third and final heartbreak, and she would never love again.
Rather than being purely positive, Beli’s youthful beauty is sinister—it has the capacity to harm her life. Additionally, this simile uses images of blackness to describe Beli’s beauty. Beli’s dark skin is both the source of her beauty and the reason she is treated poorly by the world.
Related Themes:
Book 3, Chapter 7: The Final Voyage
Explanation and Analysis—Like a Bad Leg:
In Chapter 7, Diaz uses a simile to describe Oscar’s reaction upon seeing Ybón again:
Clives tried to talk him out of it but he wouldn’t listen. Then she pulled up in the Pathfinder. She looked thinner. His heart seized like a bad leg and for a moment he thought about letting the whole thing go, about returning to Bosco and getting on with his miserable life, but then she stooped over, as if the whole world was watching, and that settled it.
Ordinarily, the lovestruck seizing of a heart might be compared to something more romantic—like butterflies or another positive feeling. Oscar genuinely is lovestruck: Oscar with Ybón is the happiest that readers see him, and he is so taken by her that he has fled his home to see her again.
But in this crucial moment of reunion, Oscar doesn’t feel butterflies or feel like his heart stopped. Instead, his heart seizes “like a bad leg.” Rather than being a physical sign of his passion and excitement, his reaction to seeing Ybón serves as a warning, setting an ominous tone. And Oscar takes it as a warning, too—it almost causes him to abandon the mission and return home, in the same way that a bad leg could slow someone down or stop them from adventure. Though returning home would be “getting on with his miserable life,” it would also have saved his life—soon after this scene, Oscar is shot and killed. The bad leg simile directly references and foreshadows this physical harm, which Oscar experiences as a result of his love for Ybón and his repeated decisions to pursue her.
By interpreting signs of love or attraction as a crippling sign, Oscar casts a negative, warning light on his love for and relationship with Ybón—and on love and relationships more broadly.
Related Themes:
