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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
Part I
Explanation and Analysis—Braid Like a Basket:
In the first paragraph of the story, when describing Sophy’s appearance at an outdoor concert, the narrator uses imagery and a simile, as seen in the following passage:
Under the black beaver hat, surmounted by its tuft of black feathers, the long locks, braided and twisted and coiled like the rushes of a basket, composed a rare, if somewhat barbaric, example of ingenious art.
The narrator uses visual imagery when describing the beaver hat’s “tuft of black feathers” and Sophy’s “long locks” of “braided and twisted” hair, helping readers to picture Sophy’s hat and head. The narrator then uses a simile when noting how Sophy’s braids “coiled like the rushes of a basket.” (“Rushes” are the name for the woven strips that make up a basket.)
This passage is significant because it paints a portrait of Sophy as both an upper-class woman (with her fancy hat) and also someone who doesn’t follow the rules. That the narrator calls Sophy's hair “a rare, if somewhat barbaric, example of ingenious art” demonstrates that this isn’t the hairstyle of a typical wealthy woman in London at the time. Ultimately, this passage points to the ways that Sophy exists between worlds. While she technically belongs to London high society (as the widow of a wealthy man), she has clearly never fully assimilated after moving from the countryside years before.
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Part II
Explanation and Analysis—Lamps Like Sentinels:
When describing the sights Sophy takes in outside her window when unable to sleep, the narrator uses a simile, as seen in the following passage:
Taking no exercise, she often could not sleep, and would rise in the night or early morning and look out upon the then vacant thoroughfare, where the lamps stood like sentinels waiting for some procession to go by. An approximation to such a procession was indeed made every early morning about one o’clock, when the country vehicles passed up with loads of vegetables for Covent Garden market.
The narrator uses a simile when describing how the lamps along Sophy’s street “stood like sentinels waiting for some procession to go by.” (As the narrator notes, a procession does come by, in the form of country farmers bringing their vegetables to sell at market.)
This simile is significant in the way it captures Sophy’s loneliness in the city. She imagines that the lamps, like her, await the procession of the farmers. In reality, it is only her awake at that hour, reveling in these signs of rural life. As readers know by this point in the story, Sophy misses the rural village of Gaymead where she grew up and wishes she could live there, even if it means giving up the luxuries of her urban upper-class life.
Related Themes:
Part III
Explanation and Analysis—Feathers in the Scale:
At a cricket match with her son Randolph, Sophy considers telling him about her desire to marry Sam, a working-class man from the rural village where she grew up whom Randolph will likely not approve of. The narrator uses a simile when capturing Sophy’s thought process, as seen in the following passage:
The bright idea occurred to her that she could casually broach the subject while moving round among the spectators, when the boy’s spirits were high with interest in the game, and he would weigh domestic matters as feathers in the scale beside the day’s victory.
The narrator uses a simile when conveying Sophy’s hope that Randolph would “weigh domestic matters as feathers in the scale beside the day’s victory.” In other words, she hopes that giving Randolph upsetting news when he is already happy that his cricket team won may lead to him giving her his approval to marry Sam.
This moment is significant because it captures how much power Randolph—a teenage boy—has over his mother’s fate. Sophy is scheming about how to tell him because she knows that the rules of their patriarchal society dictate that her son’s desires for her life are more important than her own desires.
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Explanation and Analysis—Black as a Cloud:
The final lines of the story—which describe Sophy’s funeral procession—contain a simile:
From the railway-station a funeral procession was seen approaching: it passed his door and went out of the town towards the village of Gaymead. The man, whose eyes were wet, held his hat in his hand as the vehicles moved by; while from the mourning coach a young smooth-shaven priest in a high waistcoat looked black as a cloud at the shop-keeper standing there.
The narrator uses a simile here when describing how Sophy’s son Randolph (the “young smooth-shaven priest”) “looked black as a cloud at the shop-keeper” (Sam) standing outside of his shop. This simile communicates how much anger Randolph feels toward Sam, likely because he views Sam as being responsible for his mother’s death. Though Hardy does not make it clear how Sophy died, the story hints that she may have died of a broken heart (because Randolph would not let her marry Sam) and subsequent disinterest in life.
While Randolph may blame Sam here—thinking that his mother would have been fine if Sam hadn’t re-entered her life—readers know that Randolph is, in fact, the one at fault. If he had allowed his mother to marry the working-class Sam, and let go of his need to follow the rules of the class-obsessed London elite, she would have had the opportunity to live a happy and fulfilling life.
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