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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
Act 2, Scene 2
Explanation and Analysis—Like a Mended Statue:
While ostensibly defending the widow Ochre (a character who never appears on stage), Sir Benjamin Backbite uses a simile to compare the effect of her “careless” makeup skills to that of a statue with a new, reattached head:
Nay now, Lady Sneerwell, you are severe upon the widow. Come, come, ’tis not that she paints so ill—but when she has finished her face, she joins it so badly to her neck, that she looks like a mended statue, in which the connoisseur sees at once that the head’s modern, though the trunk’s antique.
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Act 2, Scene 3
Explanation and Analysis—Like Ivy Round a Sapling:
In Act 2, Scene 3, Sir Oliver ruminates on the nature of youth as he discusses the potential merits and deficiencies of his two nephews with his friend Sir Peter. Responding to Sir Peter's overly-harsh criticism of Charles, Sir Oliver defends his nephew through the use of a simile:
Unlock with LitCharts A+And don’t, Sir Peter, be so severe against your old friend’s son. Odds my life! I am not sorry that he has run out of the course a little: for my part, I hate to see prudence clinging to the green suckers of youth; ’tis like ivy round a sapling, and spoils the growth of the tree.
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