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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
Similes
Explanation and Analysis—As If It Were a Hotel:
Near the beginning of the story, Shoba comes home from work and removes her shoes and bag haphazardly, something she never would have done before the loss of her stillborn child (and resulting grief). The narrator—channeling Shukumar—uses a simile to capture Shoba’s changing relationship to their home since the loss, as seen in the following passage:
Shukumar moved her satchel and her sneakers to the side of the fridge. She wasn’t this way before. She used to put her coat on a hanger, her sneakers in the closet, and she paid bills as soon as they came. But now she treated the house as if it were a hotel. The fact that the yellow chintz armchair in the living room clashed with the blue-and-maroon Turkish carpet no longer bothered her.
The simile here—in which the narrator notes how Shoba “treated the house as if it were a hotel”—communicates Shoba’s loss of investment in her home (and her relationship) in the wake of losing her child. Instead of being on top of cleaning, paying the bills, and curating the furniture, such things “no longer bothered her.” Shoba's lack of interest in her home subtly foreshadows the fact that, at the end of the story, she will announce to Shukumar that she signed a lease on an apartment in another neighborhood and will be moving out, ending their relationship in the process.
Related Themes:
Explanation and Analysis—Dark and Snowy Night:
Near the beginning of the story, Shukumar cuts onions for dinner and the narrator describes the scene outside the window, using a simile and imagery in the process:
Through the window he saw the sky, like soft black pitch. Uneven banks of snow still lined the sidewalks, though it was warm enough for people to walk about without hats or gloves. Nearly three feet had fallen in the last storm, so that for a week people had to walk single file, in narrow trenches. For a week that was Shukumar’s excuse for not leaving the house. But now the trenches were widening, and water drained steadily into grates in the pavement.
This passage opens with a simile as the narrator describes the sky as being “like soft black pitch,” communicating to readers the darkness of the winter night (as well as the darkness of grief and loss Shukumar is experiencing). The imagery in this passage includes the descriptions of the surprisingly “warm” winter weather, the people walking “single file” through the “narrow trenches” of snow, and the melted snow water “drain[ing] steadily into grates in the pavement.”
In addition to appealing to readers’ senses (and thereby bringing them closer into the scene), these descriptions imply to readers that some sort of "melting" is going to be happening in the story. While the snow banks imply a harsh winter—or time of emotional withdrawal and distance between Shukumar and his wife Shoba—the melting suggests that they will finally experience a sort of emotional reckoning with the distance between them (caused by the loss, six months earlier, of their child).
Related Themes:
