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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 English Patient
Chapter I. The Villa
Explanation and Analysis—The King:
In Chapter 1, readers learn that although there are but two people living at the large Italian villa, Hana remains rather nomadic as she takes care of the English patient. She does not establish a room for herself and often sleeps in a different place each night. To highlight the difference in roles between Hana and the English patient during their first days together in Italy, Ondaatje uses a simile when describing their near-opposite living conditions:
There were few beds left. She herself preferred to be nomadic in the house with her pallet or hammock, sleeping sometimes in the English patient’s room, sometimes in the hall, depending on temperature or wind or light. In the morning she rolled up her mattress and tied it into a wheel with string. [...] She entered rooms that had been soiled by soldiers, rooms whose furniture had been burned within them. She cleared out leaves and shit and urine and charred tables. She was living like a vagrant, while elsewhere the English patient reposed in his bed like a king.
Related Themes:
Explanation and Analysis—Words Like Water:
In Chapter 1, the narrator illustrates Hana's nightly routine, which involves reading to the bed-bound and severely injured English patient. Hana’s reading appears to aid the patient in recovery, even if only mentally. To enhance the poetic quality of Hana's tending towards the English patient, Ondaatje utilizes a simile in the narration:
Unlock with LitCharts A+She reads to him from whatever book she is able to find in the library downstairs. The candle flickers over the page and over the young nurse’s talking face, barely revealing at this hour the trees and vista that decorate the walls. He listens to her, swallowing her words like water.
Related Themes:
Chapter III. Sometime a Fire
Explanation and Analysis—Hana's Moment of Peace:
As Kip and Hana get to know each other after Kip arrives at the villa San Girolamo, Kip finds himself falling in love with Hana. However, he also realizes that he will never fully assimilate into Western culture due to his Indian heritage—even if Hana herself accepts him and finds him attractive. During a peaceful moment outside of the villa while Hana sleeps on Kip's lap, Ondaatje utilizes a simile to heighten the image of Hana's tranquil beauty according to Kip:
Unlock with LitCharts A+How could he trust even this circle of elastic on the sleeve of the girl’s frock that gripped her arm? Or the rattle of her intimate breath as deep as stones within a river. She woke when the caterpillar moved from the collar of her dress onto her cheek, and she opened her eyes, saw him crouched over her.
Related Themes:
Explanation and Analysis—Lost in the Dark:
In Chapter 3, as Caravaggio watches over the resting English patient, Caravaggio recalls his own time spent in Egypt during the war. Trained as both a soldier and as a spy, Caravaggio is tasked with crafting false narratives to confuse enemies—a practice that eventually fills him with hopelessness and confusion. To illustrate the constant presence of deception amongst those directly involved in the war, Ondaatje utilizes a simile comparing Caravaggio to a lost explorer:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Just as some in Cairo he worked for invented whole platoons in the desert. He had lived through a time of war when everything offered up to those around him was a lie. He had felt like a man in the darkness of a room imitating the calls of a bird.
Related Themes:
Explanation and Analysis—The Thief:
In Chapter 3, Ondaatje crafts a simile to compare Caravaggio’s behavior as a husband to a thief, as a means of highlighting his issues with emotional intimacy, even before World War II began:
Unlock with LitCharts A+He is a man in his middle age who has never become accustomed to families. All his life he has avoided permanent intimacy. Till this war he has been a better lover than husband. He has been a man who slips away, in the way lovers leave chaos, the way thieves leave reduced houses.
Related Themes:
Chapter V. Katharine
Explanation and Analysis—Katharine's Wound:
In Chapter 5, appropriately titled "Katharine," the narrator hints that the English patient and Katherine's passionate relationship will come to an end, for Katharine is still married to Geoffrey and terrified of her affair being discovered. The English patient harbors this fear as well. As the two characters part, the English patient cannot help but ponder the tragedy of Katharine's youth, an observation Ondaatje illustrates through a simile:
Unlock with LitCharts A+All that is alive is the knowledge of future desire and want. What he would say he cannot say to this woman whose openness is like a wound, whose youth is not mortal yet.
Related Themes:
