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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
Chapter 5
Explanation and Analysis—Tourists as Animals:
At multiple times in the Italian part of the novel, the narrator and characters compare foreigners in Italy to animals. The first of these is a simile that comes directly from the narrator: "So Miss Lavish proceeded through the streets of the city of Florence, short, fidgety, and playful as a kitten, though without a kitten’s grace." This simile is comedic because Miss Lavish believes she has an authoritative knowledge of the city and a commanding presence, but the narrator reveals her to be as helpless and clumsy as a kitten. Her kitten-like behavior would make her endearing if she weren't so arrogant. She claims to know the true Italy, but she gets herself and Lucy lost on the way to the Santa Croce. This outing contributes the eventual shattering of Lucy's view of Miss Lavish as clever and interesting.
As they walk to the Santa Croce, Miss Lavish herself uses an animal simile to express her disdain for "the Britisher abroad." Looking at the Emersons, she says that they "walk through my Italy like a pair of cows" and admits that she "would like to set an examination paper at Dover, and turn back every tourist who couldn’t pass it." Although cows are gentle and kind creatures, Miss Lavish uses the cow comparison as a disparaging insult, suggesting that the Emersons and British people like them are dim-witted. She wants to keep people like them out of Italy by setting up a test at Dover, the port from which British people accessed the continent, insinuating that they wouldn't have the knowledge needed to pass.
Mr. Eager, the British chaplain in Florence, similarly sees himself as superior to other foreigners in Italy. A member of the British residential colony in Florence, Mr. Eager has attained "that intimate knowledge, or rather perception, of Florence" that is inaccessible to tourists. For this reason, Lucy and Charlotte covet his friendship. Miss Lavish sees other foreigners in terms of cows; Mr. Eager sees them in terms of migratory sheep, for whom he is the shepherd. The livestock metaphor doesn't come from his mouth directly in the form of dialogue, but the narrator offers his views through indirect interior monologue:
Between the two sections of his flock he was often the only link, and it was his avowed custom to select those of his migratory sheep who seemed worthy, and give them a few hours in the pastures of the permanent.
Ironically, some of these animal metaphors and similes come from people who are also foreigners in Italy. Blind to their own touristic impulses and inability to access the authenticity they claim to know so much about, they believe that their engagement with Italy is superior to that of other British people.
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Chapter 6
Explanation and Analysis—Mr. Eager's Italian:
Mr. Eager serves as the guide when the characters go on an outing to Fiesole in the sixth chapter. He paternalistically sees himself as in possession of the real Italy, which he generously shares with the helpless British tourists. The reader has already sensed that this isn't quite right, but the view of Mr. Eager as a suave expert on Italy is properly shattered by a metaphor in which the narrator presents fluent Italian as a running "stream"—in contrast, the narrator uses a simile to compare Mr. Eager's Italian to an "acid whistling fountain":
Italian in the mouth of Italians is a deep-voiced stream, with unexpected cataracts and boulders to preserve it from monotony. In Mr Eager’s mouth it resembled nothing so much as an acid whistling fountain which played ever higher and higher, and quicker and quicker, and more and more shrilly, till abruptly it was turned off with a click.
Whereas Italians speak like a stream that contains boulders and cataracts, Mr. Eager speaks Italian like an acid whistling fountain. A whistling fountain is a fountain that is designed to make noise when its water bubbles. These fountains do not usually feature acid; it seems that Forster added this to the simile to heighten the grating sound he wants the reader to associate with Mr. Eager's Italian. Had he compared it to a normal fountain, he would be suggesting that Mr. Eager speaks Italian in a smooth way. Forster holds onto the fountain but contorts it from something that indicates beauty and tranquility to a cacophony that increases in pitch, speed, and shrillness. While the metaphor of the stream calls to mind a harmonious sound and enchanting image, the metaphor of the fountain evokes a sound that would make one want to cover their ears.
The timing of these comparisons is significant, as Mr. Eager and Mr. Emerson are in the midst of a disagreement on whether to separate their driver and his lover. Mr. Emerson feels that it is an enviable thing "to be driven by lovers" and considers it sacrilege to part them. Mr. Eager, on the other hand, is concerned with propriety and feels like the driver sees them as ignorant tourists. He claims to know and appreciate the real Italy, but he is determined to impose his British values on one of the few Italians to actually grace the novel's pages. When he communicates his indignation, he speaks Italian as shrilly and unpleasantly as the sounds made by a whistling fountain that contains acid instead of water. Forster uses the simile to poke fun at the stuffy clergyman and undermine his self-proclaimed authority.
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Chapter 8
Explanation and Analysis—Cecil as Gothic Statue:
When Cecil appears in the story for the first time in the eighth chapter, the narrator takes great care in describing him. This description is framed around a simile that compares the character to a gothic statue:
He was medieval. Like a Gothic statue. Tall and refined, with shoulders that seemed braced square by an effort of the will, and a head that was tilted a little higher than the usual level of vision, he resembled those fastidious saints who guard the portals of a French cathedral. Well educated, well endowed, and not deficient physically, he remained in the grip of a certain devil whom the modern world knows as self-consciousness, and whom the medieval, with dimmer vision, worshipped as asceticism.
This description highlights Cecil as a pompous and old-fashioned man who wants to be commanding but is really just excessively self-conscious. This self-consciousness translates into chauvinism and condescension towards women and people who aren't a part of the London elite. His tilted head emphasizes his tendency to look down on people—and likely to avoid eye contact with people outside of high society.
The gothic statue simile emasculates Cecil, especially when the narrator goes on to say, "A Gothic statue implies celibacy, just as a Greek statue implies fruition." Underlying this is the suggestion that George looks like a Greek statue. Later in the novel, Lucy tells Charlotte that George appeared to her like someone in a book, "heroes—gods—the nonsense of schoolgirls." Whereas Cecil is a solemn and ascetic Gothic statue, George is a sensual and alluring statue of a Greek hero or god.
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Explanation and Analysis—A Woman of Leonardo:
In the eighth chapter, Lucy has returned from Italy and accepted Cecil's proposal. When the narrator grants the reader access to this new character's thoughts for the first time, Cecil muses on Lucy and uses a simile to compare her to a painting by Leonardo da Vinci:
She was like a woman of Leonardo da Vinci’s, whom we love not so much for herself as for the things that she will not tell us. The things are assuredly not of this life; no woman of Leonardo’s could have anything so vulgar as a ‘story’. She did develop most wonderfully day by day.
The reader's first impression of Cecil is not overwhelmingly positive. On Cecil's behalf, the narrator divulges that he initially saw Lucy "as a common-place girl who happened to be musical." When he met her in Rome, she had at first "seemed a typical tourist — shrill, crude, and gaunt with travel." Cecil is evidently an unsympathetic and judgmental person. What's more, he sees his own fiancée as a painting and feels that people love her not for what she is but for what she signifies. Ultimately, he is eager for Lucy to "develop."
The metaphor of Lucy as a painting (as Cecil's painting) returns repeatedly throughout the second half of the novel. In the ninth chapter, Lucy expresses her fierce dislike of Mr. Eager, to the surprise of Mrs. Honeychurch and Cecil. The narrator writes that the latter finds her outburst incongruous, and he again sees her as a painting by da Vinci:
It was as if one should see the Leonardo on the ceiling of the Sistine. He longed to hint to her that not here lay her vocation; that a woman’s power and charm reside in mystery, not in muscular rant. But possibly rant is a sign of vitality: it mars the beautiful creature, but shows that she is alive. After a moment, he contemplated her flushed face and excited gestures with a certain approval. He forbore to repress the sources of youth.
As she rants about Mr. Eager, Lucy does something she rarely does: she expresses her own uninhibited feelings. It is not wholly surprising that Lucy's mother attempts to quell her daughter's spiteful words about another person, especially a clergyman. Cecil's internal response, however, is shocking in its calculation and condescension. Part of him wants to tell her off for expressing her feelings strongly, as he feels that women should conceal their emotions rather than express them. Another part of him, however, is attracted to her intense emotions. This passage reveals the degree to which Cecil's understanding of Lucy is always informed by his devotion to propriety and the opinions of good society.
In relation to this, Cecil detests the people in Lucy's life and does not see any of them as good society. He again invokes the Leonardo metaphor when in the company of Lucy's family members and friends, thinking about how in "January he would rescue his Leonardo from this stupefying twaddle." The Leonardo metaphor comes up one final time in the seventeenth chapter, when Lucy breaks off her engagement with Cecil:
He looked at her, instead of through her, for the first time since they were engaged. From a Leonardo she had become a living woman, with mysteries and forces of her own, with qualities that even eluded art.
In the end, Lucy has to stand up to Cecil to make him see her as a real woman. His newfound respect is accompanied by actual love; this is the first time he says her loves her.
Related Themes:
Chapter 9
Explanation and Analysis—A Woman of Leonardo:
In the eighth chapter, Lucy has returned from Italy and accepted Cecil's proposal. When the narrator grants the reader access to this new character's thoughts for the first time, Cecil muses on Lucy and uses a simile to compare her to a painting by Leonardo da Vinci:
She was like a woman of Leonardo da Vinci’s, whom we love not so much for herself as for the things that she will not tell us. The things are assuredly not of this life; no woman of Leonardo’s could have anything so vulgar as a ‘story’. She did develop most wonderfully day by day.
The reader's first impression of Cecil is not overwhelmingly positive. On Cecil's behalf, the narrator divulges that he initially saw Lucy "as a common-place girl who happened to be musical." When he met her in Rome, she had at first "seemed a typical tourist — shrill, crude, and gaunt with travel." Cecil is evidently an unsympathetic and judgmental person. What's more, he sees his own fiancée as a painting and feels that people love her not for what she is but for what she signifies. Ultimately, he is eager for Lucy to "develop."
The metaphor of Lucy as a painting (as Cecil's painting) returns repeatedly throughout the second half of the novel. In the ninth chapter, Lucy expresses her fierce dislike of Mr. Eager, to the surprise of Mrs. Honeychurch and Cecil. The narrator writes that the latter finds her outburst incongruous, and he again sees her as a painting by da Vinci:
It was as if one should see the Leonardo on the ceiling of the Sistine. He longed to hint to her that not here lay her vocation; that a woman’s power and charm reside in mystery, not in muscular rant. But possibly rant is a sign of vitality: it mars the beautiful creature, but shows that she is alive. After a moment, he contemplated her flushed face and excited gestures with a certain approval. He forbore to repress the sources of youth.
As she rants about Mr. Eager, Lucy does something she rarely does: she expresses her own uninhibited feelings. It is not wholly surprising that Lucy's mother attempts to quell her daughter's spiteful words about another person, especially a clergyman. Cecil's internal response, however, is shocking in its calculation and condescension. Part of him wants to tell her off for expressing her feelings strongly, as he feels that women should conceal their emotions rather than express them. Another part of him, however, is attracted to her intense emotions. This passage reveals the degree to which Cecil's understanding of Lucy is always informed by his devotion to propriety and the opinions of good society.
In relation to this, Cecil detests the people in Lucy's life and does not see any of them as good society. He again invokes the Leonardo metaphor when in the company of Lucy's family members and friends, thinking about how in "January he would rescue his Leonardo from this stupefying twaddle." The Leonardo metaphor comes up one final time in the seventeenth chapter, when Lucy breaks off her engagement with Cecil:
He looked at her, instead of through her, for the first time since they were engaged. From a Leonardo she had become a living woman, with mysteries and forces of her own, with qualities that even eluded art.
In the end, Lucy has to stand up to Cecil to make him see her as a real woman. His newfound respect is accompanied by actual love; this is the first time he says her loves her.
Related Themes:
Chapter 10
Explanation and Analysis—Poverty and Equality:
The tenth chapter begins with background information about Lucy's father and her family's social standing. Before Lucy went to Italy, her understanding of the world was largely formed by her immediate social circles. The narrator uses a simile to explain Lucy's conception of the outside world before her trip:
Life, so far as she troubled to conceive it, was a circle of rich, pleasant people, with identical interests and identical foes. In this circle one thought, married, and died. Outside it were poverty and vulgarity, for ever trying to enter, just as the London fog tries to enter the pine-woods, pouring through the gaps in the northern hills.
Until Lucy goes to Italy, she understands society as a circle that she belongs to, and she thinks that poverty and vulgarity—like the London fog—attempt to spread into this circle. The image of the fog is notable, as fog is hard to get ahold of and is an ever-present menace. When Lucy goes to Italy, however, her worldview changes. The narrator goes on to describe her conception of the world through nature similes:
But in Italy, where anyone who chooses may warm himself in equality, as in the sun, this conception of life vanished. [...] You jump over them just as you jump into a peasant’s olive-yard in the Apennines, and he is glad to see you. She returned with new eyes.
On her trip, Lucy recognizes the value of striving for equality. Encountering working-class Italians and, perhaps more so, encountering middle-class British people like the Emersons shows Lucy that people who do not share her social standing are nothing like a fog. Although her new conviction that social barriers can be jumped over as easily as one jumps into a peasant's olive-yard seems excessively naive, the simile does speak to the progressive aspirations her trip gave her. Lucy no longer sees life as "a circle of rich, pleasant people" in which "one thought, married, and died," and this new perspective excites her as well as alienates her from her family.
Related Themes:
Chapter 17
Explanation and Analysis—A Woman of Leonardo:
In the eighth chapter, Lucy has returned from Italy and accepted Cecil's proposal. When the narrator grants the reader access to this new character's thoughts for the first time, Cecil muses on Lucy and uses a simile to compare her to a painting by Leonardo da Vinci:
She was like a woman of Leonardo da Vinci’s, whom we love not so much for herself as for the things that she will not tell us. The things are assuredly not of this life; no woman of Leonardo’s could have anything so vulgar as a ‘story’. She did develop most wonderfully day by day.
The reader's first impression of Cecil is not overwhelmingly positive. On Cecil's behalf, the narrator divulges that he initially saw Lucy "as a common-place girl who happened to be musical." When he met her in Rome, she had at first "seemed a typical tourist — shrill, crude, and gaunt with travel." Cecil is evidently an unsympathetic and judgmental person. What's more, he sees his own fiancée as a painting and feels that people love her not for what she is but for what she signifies. Ultimately, he is eager for Lucy to "develop."
The metaphor of Lucy as a painting (as Cecil's painting) returns repeatedly throughout the second half of the novel. In the ninth chapter, Lucy expresses her fierce dislike of Mr. Eager, to the surprise of Mrs. Honeychurch and Cecil. The narrator writes that the latter finds her outburst incongruous, and he again sees her as a painting by da Vinci:
It was as if one should see the Leonardo on the ceiling of the Sistine. He longed to hint to her that not here lay her vocation; that a woman’s power and charm reside in mystery, not in muscular rant. But possibly rant is a sign of vitality: it mars the beautiful creature, but shows that she is alive. After a moment, he contemplated her flushed face and excited gestures with a certain approval. He forbore to repress the sources of youth.
As she rants about Mr. Eager, Lucy does something she rarely does: she expresses her own uninhibited feelings. It is not wholly surprising that Lucy's mother attempts to quell her daughter's spiteful words about another person, especially a clergyman. Cecil's internal response, however, is shocking in its calculation and condescension. Part of him wants to tell her off for expressing her feelings strongly, as he feels that women should conceal their emotions rather than express them. Another part of him, however, is attracted to her intense emotions. This passage reveals the degree to which Cecil's understanding of Lucy is always informed by his devotion to propriety and the opinions of good society.
In relation to this, Cecil detests the people in Lucy's life and does not see any of them as good society. He again invokes the Leonardo metaphor when in the company of Lucy's family members and friends, thinking about how in "January he would rescue his Leonardo from this stupefying twaddle." The Leonardo metaphor comes up one final time in the seventeenth chapter, when Lucy breaks off her engagement with Cecil:
He looked at her, instead of through her, for the first time since they were engaged. From a Leonardo she had become a living woman, with mysteries and forces of her own, with qualities that even eluded art.
In the end, Lucy has to stand up to Cecil to make him see her as a real woman. His newfound respect is accompanied by actual love; this is the first time he says her loves her.
Related Themes:
Chapter 19
Explanation and Analysis—Words like Waves:
In the nineteenth chapter, Lucy has a conversation with Mr. Emerson. During this conversation, the old man eventually discovers that his son's love for Lucy is requited, and he makes it clear that he has figured this out. By way of a simile, the narrator compares Lucy's reaction to being hit by waves in the ocean.
Then he burst out excitedly: ‘That’s it; that’s what I mean. You love George!’ And after his long preamble the three words burst against Lucy like waves from the open sea.
Lucy remains, throughout the novel, firmly committed to being "absolutely truthful." It becomes clear to both her and the reader, however, that telling the truth is not always straightforward. Sometimes, Lucy finds the boundary between truth and lies frustratingly blurry. Most of all, it proves difficult for her to tell others the truth when she is unwilling to be honest with herself. At this point in the novel, she has refused to admit to her love to George for several months. When Mr. Emerson realizes that she loves him, and says it out loud, the truth finally hits Lucy like crashing waves.
The forceful effect that Mr. Emerson's words have on Lucy speak to the effort she has put into suppressing her love for George. As she responds to Mr. Emerson, the metaphorical water from the waves remains in the scene:
‘How dare you!’ gasped Lucy, with the roaring of waters in her ears. ‘Oh, how like a man! — I mean, to suppose that a woman is always thinking about a man.’ ‘But you are.’
The roaring of the water continues as Lucy grapples with the truth catching up to her. Her gut reaction is to call Mr. Emerson sexist for claiming that she's always thinking about a man. This is somewhat ironic, given that Mr. Emerson seems to be the least sexist man who exerts influence on Lucy throughout the novel but the only one she calls out. He stands firm, simply telling her that in this situation she is clearly thinking about a man and that she shouldn't forgo the rare possibility of true love. The loudness and intensity contained in the wave simile, as well as in Lucy's response, contrasts sharply with Mr. Emerson's calm conviction. The wave simile underlines the discomfort of being honest with oneself, as well as the irrationality of true love.
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