The third time the Soul tries to tempt the Fisherman to abandon the Mermaid and explore the world with him, he describes a beautiful dancer in a nearby town, hoping to arouse the Fisherman’s carnal desires. While doing so, the Soul uses a simile, as seen in the following passage:
“Her face was veiled with a veil of gauze, but her feet were naked. Naked were her feet, and they moved over the carpet like little white pigeons. Never have I seen anything so marvellous, and the city in which she dances is but a day’s journey from this place.”
The simile here—in which the Soul describes how the woman’s feet “moved over the carpet like little white pigeons”—captures the magical quality of the woman’s dancing. She is so light-footed that her feet seem to fly about like birds. The poetic language that the Soul uses here demonstrates his cunning nature: he is describing the dancer’s movements in this romantic and poetic way in the hopes of convincing the Fisherman to leave the Mermaid and rejoin with him on land.
Part of the reason the Soul emphasizes the dancer’s feet is because the Fisherman’s mermaid love “had no feet and could not dance.” Having spent three years transforming into a cruel version of himself (given his lack of access to a heart), the Soul knows exactly how to entice the Fisherman’s carnal nature.
Immediately after the scene in which the Fisherman and his Soul separate from each other, the narrator captures the Fisherman’s sense of freedom and excitement using a pair of similes, as seen in the following passage:
And his Soul besought him piteously, but he heeded it not, but leapt from crag to crag, being sure-footed as a wild goat, and at last he reached the level ground and the yellow shore of the sea.
Bronze-limbed and well-knit, like a statue wrought by a Grecian, he stood on the sand with his back to the moon, and out of the foam came white arms that beckoned to him, and out of the waves rose dim forms that did him homage.
The first simile here—in which the Fisherman is compared to “a wild goat”—captures the man’s excited movements as he leaps his way toward the sea. It is clear from these “wild” leaps that the Fisherman is eager to be reunited with the Mermaid and to live with her in the sea. The second simile—in which the narrator describes the “bronze-limbed” and “well-knit” Fisherman as being “like a statue wrought by a Grecian”—helps readers understand the Fisherman’s sense of virility and power in this moment, after a long and tiresome search for a way to rid himself of his soul.
These two similes—as well as the surrounding descriptions—paint a clear picture of the Fisherman’s love for the Mermaid. Romantic love is such an all-consuming force for the man that he willingly and excitedly rids himself of his own soul.
When introducing readers to the character of the Mermaid, the narrator uses a series of similes, as seen in the following passage:
Her hair was as a wet fleece of gold, and each separate hair as a thread of fine gold in a cup of glass. Her body was as white ivory, and her tail was of silver and pearl. Silver and pearl was her tail, and the green weeds of the sea coiled round it; and like sea-shells were her ears, and her lips were like sea-coral. The cold waves dashed over her cold breasts, and the salt glistened upon her eyelids.
The first pair of similes here describe the Mermaid’s hair, comparing it as a whole to a “wet fleece of gold” and each individual strand to “a thread of fine gold in a cup of glass.” These comparisons help readers picture the ethereal, otherworldly nature of the Mermaid’s beauty, therefore helping them understand why the Fisherman comes to love her and long for her so deeply. The next simile—which compares the Mermaid’s body to “white ivory”—achieves a similar goal.
The final two similes in this passage—that describe the Mermaid’s ears as being “like sea-shells,” and her lips as looking “like sea-coral”—highlight the fact that the Mermaid is fundamentally part of the sea, unlike the Fisherman, who comes from land. While this juxtaposition doesn’t seem all that significant in this moment, it becomes clear later in the story—when the Soul tempts the Fisherman to leave the Mermaid for an attractive dancer—that the man longs for human women with bodies that look like his own.
