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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 15: The Scowl and Smile
Explanation and Analysis—Blood to Drink:
In Chapter 15, Judge Pyncheon comes to the House of the Seven Gables and demands to see Clifford. Hepzibah expresses her dislike and suspicion of the Judge, and the narrator uses a simile to foreshadow the fact that Hepzibah's suspicious will prove to have merit:
Nay, we could almost venture to say, further, that a daily guilt might have been acted by him, continually renewed, and reddening forth afresh, like the miraculous bloodstain of a murder, without his necessarily and at every moment being aware of it.
Related Themes:
Chapter 16: Clifford’s Chamber
Explanation and Analysis—Defunct Nightmare:
In Chapter 16, Hawthorne uses a simile to describe the figure of the newly-deceased Judge Pyncheon, slumped in the chair in the House of the Seven Gables:
Unlock with LitCharts A+The brother and sister departed, and left Judge Pyncheon sitting in the old home of his forefathers, all by himself; so heavy and lumpish that we can liken him to nothing better than a defunct nightmare, which had perished in the midst of its wickedness, and left its flabby corpse on the breast of the tormented one, to be gotten rid of as it might!
Related Themes:
