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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 The Daughters of the Late Colonel
Similes
Explanation and Analysis—Meringue Shell:
The flashback to the strained interactions Josephine and Constantia have with their nephew Cyril is an important moment in the Colonel’s characterization. Mansfield uses a simile referring to a meringue-shell during a flashback to illustrate the old man’s mean, crotchety personality, as Cyril and the Colonel’s two daughters pay him a visit in his bedroom:
They knocked at the door, and Cyril followed his aunts into grandfather's hot, sweetish room.[...] He was sitting in front of a roaring fire, clasping his stick. [...] Grandfather Pinner shot his eyes at Cyril in the way he was famous for. Where was Auntie Con? She stood on the other side of Aunt Josephine [...] She never took her eyes off grandfather.
"Eh?" said Grandfather Pinner, curving his hand like a purple meringue-shell over one ear.
Related Themes:
Explanation and Analysis—Red and Green and Black:
In this passage, the author uses visual color imagery and a simile to explore Josephine and Constantia's reluctant adjustment to mourning attire after their father’s recent death:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Josephine thought of her dark-red slippers, which matched her dressing-gown, and of Constantia's favourite indefinite green ones which went with hers. Black! Two black dressing-gowns and two pairs of black woolly slippers, creeping off to the bathroom like black cats.
Related Themes:
Explanation and Analysis—Like Doors in Dreams:
Even though the Colonel is gone, his unnerving presence still lingers everywhere in the Pinner house. Mansfield uses visual and tactile imagery and a simile to depict the sisters' unsettling experience as they enter their father's bedroom to go through his things:
Unlock with LitCharts A+They might have suddenly walked through the wall by mistake into a different flat altogether. Was the door just behind them? [...] Constantia felt that, like the doors in dreams, it hadn't any handle at all. It was the coldness which made it so awful. Or the whiteness–which? Everything was covered. The blinds were down, a cloth hung over the mirror, a sheet hid the bed [...] Constantia timidly put out her hand; she almost expected a snowflake to fall. Josephine felt a queer tingling in her nose, as if her nose was freezing.
Related Themes:
Explanation and Analysis—Camels Unwinding:
In this passage, the author uses a simile and a metaphor to depict Constantia's mental escape from an uncomfortable situation with Nurse Andrew at the dinner table:
Unlock with LitCharts A+But Constantia's long, pale face lengthened and set, and she gazed away—away—far over the desert, to where that line of camels unwound like a thread of wool. . .
Related Themes:
