Previous
Setting
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 Jungle Book
1. Mowgli’s Brothers
Explanation and Analysis—Moon Eyes:
In the face-off between Mother Wolf and Shere Khan in “Mowgli’s Brothers,” the narrator uses vivid visual and auditory imagery, a simile referring to the weather, and a metaphor to enhance the scene’s intensity:
The tiger’s roar filled the cave with thunder. Mother Wolf shook herself clear of the cubs and sprang forward, her eyes, like two green moons in the darkness, facing the blazing eyes of Shere Khan.
Related Themes:
3. Kaa’s Hunting
Explanation and Analysis—Black Velvet Embroidery:
This passage from "Kaa's Hunting" paints a vivid and captivating image of Mowgli's surroundings in the jungle palace of the Bandar-Log. Kipling blends visual imagery with simile to bring the dramatic setting to life in the reader's mind:
Unlock with LitCharts A+The domed roof had half fallen in and blocked up the underground passage from the palace by which the queens used to enter; but the walls were made of screens of marble tracery–beautiful milk-white fretwork, set with agates and cornelians and jasper and lapis lazuli, and as the moon came up behind the hill it shone through the open-work, casting shadows on the ground like black velvet embroidery.
Related Themes:
Explanation and Analysis—Bee-Tree:
In this passage from "Kaa's Hunting," Mowgli uses a smile to compare his head to a "bee-tree." He makes this comparison to explain his feelings of being overworked, overwhelmed, and hurt by the beatings Baloo gives him:
Unlock with LitCharts A+‘My head is ringing like a bee-tree,’ said a sullen little voice over their heads, and Mowgli slid down a tree trunk very angry and indignant, adding as he reached the ground: ‘I come for Bagheera and not for thee, fat old Baloo!’
Related Themes:
7. The White Seal
Explanation and Analysis—Like a Cat:
In "The White Seal," Kipling uses a simile to describe Kotick’s first encounter with the Sea-Cows, introducing some levity into the seal’s serious journey. Kotick is swimming along below the ocean's surface when all of a sudden:
Unlock with LitCharts A+[...] he jumped like a cat, for he saw huge things nosing about in the shoal water and browsing on the heavy fringes of the weeds.
Related Themes:
9. ‘Rikki-Tikki-Tavi’
Explanation and Analysis—Watch-Spring Coils:
In the fierce confrontation between Nagaina and Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, the author employs simile and auditory imagery to bring the reader closer to the fight:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Again and again and again she struck, and each time her head came with a whack on the matting of the veranda, and she gathered herself together like a watch-spring. Then Rikki-tikki danced in a circle to get behind her, and Nagaina spun round to keep her head to his head, so that the rustle of her tail on the matting sounded like dry leaves blown along by the wind.
Related Themes:
