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Get every literary device explanation for The Son’s VetoPlus so much more...
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Simile
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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