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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
Chapter 1: Paradise Pickles & Preserves
Explanation and Analysis—The Lion Tamer:
In the later years of her life, Baby Kochamma spends her time gardening. The novel describes her gardening expertise and diligence with a metaphor and simile:
Baby Kochamma spent her afternoons in her garden. In sari and gum boots. She wielded an enormous pair of hedge shears in her bright-orange gardening gloves. Like a lion tamer she tamed twisting vines and nurtured bristling cacti. She limited bonsai plants and pampered rare orchids. She waged war on the weather. She tried to grow edelweiss and Chinese guava.
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Explanation and Analysis—Drifting into Marriage:
When Rahel is older, she attends an architecture college in Delhi and meets Larry McCaslin. The story uses a simile to describe how Rahel, numb and dejected, settles for marriage with Larry:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Rahel drifted into marriage like a passenger drifts towards an unoccupied chair in an airport lounge. With a Sitting Down sense. She returned with him to Boston.
[…] He held her as though she was a gift. Given to him in love. Something still and small. Unbearably precious.
But when they made love he was offended by her eyes. They behaved as though they belonged to someone else. Someone watching. Looking out of the window at the sea. At a boat in the river. Or a passerby in the mist in a hat.
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Chapter 2: Pappachi’s Moth
Explanation and Analysis—Invidious Doctors:
Ammu, Chacko, Baby Kochamma, and the twins encounter a Marxist march on their way to the movies in Cochin. A cynical comment from Ammu causes her brother Chacko to lash out with a simile:
Unlock with LitCharts A+“Ammu,” Chacko said, his voice steady and deliberately casual, “is it at all possible for you to prevent your washed-up cynicism from completely coloring everything?”
Silence filled the car like a saturated sponge. “Washed-up” cut like a knife through a soft thing. The sun shone with a shuddering sigh. This was the trouble with families. Like invidious doctors, they knew just where it hurt.
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Chapter 10: The River in the Boat
Explanation and Analysis—The Old Boat:
On the banks of the Meenachal, the twins find an old, rundown boat, which they describe with childlike personification and a simile:
Unlock with LitCharts A+They looked across the river with Old Boat eyes. From where they stood they couldn’t see the History House. It was just a darkness beyond the swamp, at the heart of the abandoned rubber estate, from which the sound of crickets swelled.
Estha and Rahel lifted the little boat and carried it to the water. It looked surprised, like a grizzled fish that had surfaced from the deep. In dire need of sunlight. It needed scraping, and cleaning, perhaps, but nothing more.
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Chapter 18: The History House
Explanation and Analysis—Belly Up:
When the twins fall asleep in the History House, traumatized by Sophie Mol's death, they awake to the sound of Velutha being brutally beaten by the police. With a simile, the twins experience another traumatizing event:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Esthappen and Rahel woke to the shout of sleep surprised by shattered kneecaps.
Screams died in them and floated belly up, like dead fish. Cowering on the floor, rocking between dread and disbelief, they realized that the man being beaten was Velutha. Where had he come from? What had he done? Why had the policemen brought him here?
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