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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—Cleaning the Coop:
When describing the foul condition of the chicken coop in which Pelayo and Elisenda lock up the angel, the narrator uses a simile, as seen in the following passage:
If they washed [the chicken coop] down with creolin and burned tears of myrrh inside it every so often, it was not in homage to the angel but to drive away the dungheap stench that still hung everywhere like a ghost and was turning the new house into an old one.
The simile here—in which the narrator describes “the dungheap stench” of the coop hanging onto the place “like a ghost”—is meant to communicate just how strong the unpleasant odor of the coop is. This description suggests that the smell of feces in the coop is so strong that it may never come out, the way that, in fantastical fiction at least, ghosts prove to be nearly impossible to get rid of.
This is one of the many moments in the story in which Marquez demonstrates how inhumanely Pelayo and Elisenda have treated the angel. Not only did they hold him captive for months—forcing him to live inside a tiny chicken coop with his own feces—but they only decide to rid the smell from the coop when it starts to affect them personally (by disrupting their sense of prosperity after their house renovation). Here Marquez highlights the moral decline that can occur when people are unwilling to extend empathy to those who are different from them.
Related Themes:
Explanation and Analysis—Circus Animal:
When describing the townspeople’s reaction to the presence of an angel in their community, the narrator uses a simile, as seen in the following passage:
[W]hen [Pelayo and Elisenda] went out into the courtyard with the first light of dawn, they found the whole neighborhood in front of the chicken coop having fun with the angel, without the slightest reverence, tossing him things to eat through the openings in the wire as if he weren’t a supernatural creature but a circus animal.
The simile here—in which the narrator describes the townspeople treating the angel “as if he weren’t a supernatural creature but a circus animal”—captures the way that the town’s immediate reaction to the angel is to dehumanize him. Despite the fact that he has large wings—a hint that he is a holy angel—the town judges him as too weak and dingy to be worthy of admiration or respect. The way that the townspeople throw food for the angel to eat “without the slightest reverence” shows what they think of people who they see as lesser or “other” in general.
In having the townspeople react to the angel this way, Marquez is highlighting how people are unable to see the sacred aspects of life, even when these realities appear right in front of their eyes.
Related Themes:
