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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
The Window, 1
Explanation and Analysis—Lean as a Knife:
The novel opens with Mr. Ramsay dashing his son James's hopes to sail to the lighthouse off the coast of Skye. Ramsay's negativity elicits no small amount of rage from James, as a sinister simile illustrates in Chapter 1 of "The Window":
Had there been an axe handy, a poker, or any weapon that would have gashed a hole in his father's breast and killed him, there and then, James would have seized it. Such were the extremes of emotion that Mr. Ramsay excited in his children's breasts by his mere presence; standing, as now, lean as a knife, narrow as the blade of one...
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The Window, 3
Explanation and Analysis—The Waves:
The sea is a recurring symbol in To the Lighthouse, and a recurring motif that establishes this symbol is the waves on the shore of Skye. Woolf frequently invokes waves as comparands in metaphor and simile, as in Chapter 3 of "The Window":
Unlock with LitCharts A+...the monotonous fall of the waves on the beach, which for the most part beat a measured and soothing tattoo to her thoughts and seemed consolingly to repeat over and over again as she sat with the children the words of some old cradle song, murmured by nature, 'I am guarding you - I am your support,' but at other times suddenly and unexpectedly, especially when her mind raised itself slightly from the task actually in hand, had no such kindly meaning, but like a ghostly roll of drums remorselessly beat the measure of life...
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The Window, 7
Explanation and Analysis—Mr. vs. Mrs. Ramsay:
In To the Lighthouse, Mr. Ramsay constantly seeks praise and sympathy from the women in his life—particularly from Mrs. Ramsay, while she is alive. In Chapter 7 of "The Window," the reader sees James's experience of his father's neediness through both metaphor and simile:
Unlock with LitCharts A+...and James, as he stood stiff between her knees, felt her rise in a rosy-flowered fruit tree laid with leaves and dancing boughs into which the beak of brass, the arid scimitar of his father, the egotistical man, plunged and smote, demanding sympathy. Filled with her words, like a child who drops off satisfied, he said, at last, looking at her with humble gratitude, restored, renewed, that he would take a turn; he would watch the children playing cricket.
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The Window, 9
Explanation and Analysis—The Tombs of Kings:
Tasked with painting a portrait of Mrs. Ramsay, Lily Briscoe spends the bulk of To the Lighthouse transfixed by her subject. In Chapter 9 of "The Window," Lily remembers a conversation with Mrs. Ramsay the evening prior, and her memory of the conversation includes a simile:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Sitting on the floor with her arms round Mrs. Ramsay's knees, close as she could get, smiling to think that Mrs. Ramsay would never know the reason of that pressure, she imagined how in the chambers the mind and heart of the woman who was, physically, touching her, were stood, like the treasures in the tombs of kings, tablets bearing sacred inscriptions, which if one could spell them out would teach one everything, but they would never be offered openly, never made public.
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Explanation and Analysis—The Waves:
The sea is a recurring symbol in To the Lighthouse, and a recurring motif that establishes this symbol is the waves on the shore of Skye. Woolf frequently invokes waves as comparands in metaphor and simile, as in Chapter 3 of "The Window":
Unlock with LitCharts A+...the monotonous fall of the waves on the beach, which for the most part beat a measured and soothing tattoo to her thoughts and seemed consolingly to repeat over and over again as she sat with the children the words of some old cradle song, murmured by nature, 'I am guarding you - I am your support,' but at other times suddenly and unexpectedly, especially when her mind raised itself slightly from the task actually in hand, had no such kindly meaning, but like a ghostly roll of drums remorselessly beat the measure of life...
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Time Passes, 9
Explanation and Analysis—The House Decays:
In "Time Passes," the Ramsay family moves out of their summer house on Skye and remains away for a decade. During this period, the house begins to take on a life of its own as it begins to rot and crumble from neglect. The book recounts this transformation using both alliteration and simile at the very beginning of Chapter 9:
Unlock with LitCharts A+The house was left; the house was deserted. It was left like a shell on a sandhill to fill with dry salt grains now that life had left it. The long night seemed to have set in, the trifling airs, nibbling, the clammy breaths, fumbling, seemed to have triumphed. The saucepan had rusted and the mat decayed. Toads had nosed their way in. Idly, aimlessly, the swing shawl swung to and fro. A thistle thrust itself between the tiles in the larder.
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The Lighthouse, 9
Explanation and Analysis—The Old God of the Sea:
In Chapter 9 of "The Lighthouse," at the very end of the novel, Lily sees that the Ramsays have, at long last, made it to the lighthouse island. As she stands with Mr. Carmichael looking out to sea, the narrator uses a simile to depict the aging poet:
Unlock with LitCharts A+'He has landed,' she said aloud. 'It is finished.' Then, surging up, puffing slightly, old Mr. Carmichael stood beside her, looking like an old pagan God, shaggy, with weeds in his hair and the trident (it was only a French novel) in his hand. He stood by her on the edge of the lawn, swaying a little in his bulk, and said, shading his eyes with his hand: 'They will have landed,' and she felt that she had been right.
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