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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
Chapter 1. Ma: 1952
Explanation and Analysis—Doves and Hawks:
Early in the novel Owens spend a lot of time explaining how the wild, untamed land of the marsh and lowland floodplains set unwritten laws for the people who settled on it. She explains how people who live in dangerous and volatile areas adapt by trial and error, and how this might cause them to create their own system of justice rather than following the official rules of society:
Just like their whiskey, the marsh dwellers bootlegged their own laws, not like those burned onto stone tablets or inscribed on documents, but deeper ones, stamped in their genes. Ancient and natural, like those hatched from hawks and doves. When cornered, desperate, or isolated, man reverts to those instincts that aim straight at survival. Quick and just. They will always be the trump cards because they are passed on more frequently from one generation to the next than the gentler genes. It is not a morality, but simple math. Among themselves, doves fight as often as hawks.
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Chapter 2. Jodie: 1952
Explanation and Analysis—Barkley Cove :
In this passage the author uses simile and visual imagery to describe Barkley Cove as a place that's governed by natural disorder. As Owens offers the reader an outside view of the town, she constantly points to how fragile and disorganized its structures are:
Unlock with LitCharts A+The town wharf, draped in frayed ropes and old pelicans, jutted into the small bay, whose water, when calm, reflected the reds and yellows of shrimp boats. Dirt roads, lined with small cedar houses, wound through the trees, around lagoons, and along the ocean on either end of the shops. Barkley Cove was quite literally a backwater town, bits scattered here and there among the estuaries and reeds like an egret’s nest flung by the wind.
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Chapter 4. School: 1952
Explanation and Analysis—Like Doves:
Because she’s unused to being around other people, Kya does her best to remain unnoticed while the other children practice phonics during her one day at school in Barkley Cove. In this passage the author uses simile and auditory imagery to show how uncomfortable and isolated Kya feels:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Kya sat down fast in her seat at the back of the room, trying to disappear like a bark beetle blending into the furrowed trunk of an oak. Yet nervous as she was, as the teacher continued the lesson, she leaned forward, waiting to learn what came after twenty-nine. So far all Miss Arial had talked about was something called phonics, and the students, their mouths shaped like O’s, echoed her sounds of ah, aa, o, and u, all of them moaning like doves.
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Chapter 7. The Fishing Season: 1952
Explanation and Analysis—Roadkill Stork:
Kya sets the table as her mother taught her in the hopes that Pa will return home from his trip, but finds herself on tenterhooks worrying her dinner companion won't show up. In this passage the author uses visual imagery and simile to emphasize Kya’s loneliness and fear as she prepares dinner for Pa and worries she's been abandoned completely:
Unlock with LitCharts A+She didn’t know how to make gravy, so poured the backbone stock, floating with morsels of white fat, into an empty jelly jar. The plates were cracked and didn’t match, but she had the fork on the left, the knife on the right like Ma taught her. Then she waited, flattened up against the Frigidaire like a roadkill stork.
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Chapter 14. Red Fibers: 1969
Explanation and Analysis—Sweater, Scarf, Shirt...:
In this early scene, the narrator uses alliteration and simile to build a feeling of tension and secrecy around the red fibers the Sheriff Ed Jackson and his deputy Joe Purdue collect from Chase’s jacket during the beginning of the murder investigation. The men examine a plastic bag containing a small clump of fibers taken from Chase’s jacket and speculate about what the clue might reveal:
Unlock with LitCharts A+“Listen to this. They found lots of foreign fibers on his jacket. Red wool fibers that didn’t come from any of his clothes. Sample included.” The sheriff shook a small plastic bag. Both men peered at the fuzzy red threads flattened against the plastic like spider webbing.
“Wool, it says. Could be a sweater, scarf, hat,” Joe said. “Shirt, skirt, socks, cape. Hell, it could be anything. And we have to find it.”
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Chapter 18. White Canoe: 1960
Explanation and Analysis—Like Giraffes:
When Tate sees how much Kya's illiteracy is holding her back, he visits her often, bringing her books and trying to inspire her to keep learning. This passage employs simile and foreshadowing to show Tate encouraging Kya’s progress as she learns to read.
Unlock with LitCharts A+On every trip to Kya's, Tate took school or library books, especially on marsh creatures and biology. Her progress was startling. She could read anything now, he said, and once you can read anything you can learn everything. It was up to her. “Nobody’s come close to filling their brains,” he said. “We’re all like giraffes not using their necks to reach the higher leaves.”
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Chapter 27. Out Hog Mountain Road: 1966
Explanation and Analysis—A Page of Time:
When Kya (who has already started seeing Chase) runs into Tate unexpectedly, she feels her strength dramatically leaving her body. Owens uses simile and metaphor to describe the intensity Kya’s of reaction when she sees Tate after years apart:
Unlock with LitCharts A+She hung like a sail where the wind just went out. Tate was more than her first love: he shared her devotion to the marsh, had taught her to read, and was the only connection, however small, to her vanished family. He was a page of time, a clipping pasted in a scrapbook because it was all she had. Her heart pounded as the fury dissipated.
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