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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 9
Explanation and Analysis—City on a Saucer:
As the Mongolia sails to Bombay in Chapter 9, Passepartout is excited to see Mocha, a port city in Yemen. The narration uses a simile to describe his impression of it:
Passepartout was ravished to behold this celebrated place, and thought that, with its circular walls and dismantled fort, it looked like an immense coffee cup and saucer.
This simile, which compares the city to a cup of coffee on a saucer, likely has as much to do with Passepartout's attitude toward Mocha as it does with what the city actually looks like to him. Mocha was known for its coffee. Mocha coffee and chocolate are named after the real city in this passage because of a distinct type of coffee bean that was frequently shipped there, from inland, to be traded internationally. Passepartout sees a cup and saucer because he is already thinking about the coffee associated with the city.
The simile also emphasizes Passepartout's Western attitude toward colonized and "exotic" places abroad. He imagines Mocha not only as a place to buy mocha beans, but furthermore as a cup of coffee waiting to be drunk. Coffee, as a crop that does best in tropical climates, is a consumer good that has long been associated with colonialism and even the slave trade. Europeans and North Americans relied on colonial trade systems in order to enjoy their daily cup of coffee. (In many ways, this system has endured today.) Although there have always been plenty of Westerners with qualms about colonization, Western appetites for goods like coffee, chocolate, sugar, and other "luxury" imports have always made the practice profitable for colonizers. The simile is emblematic of Passepartout and other Westerners' desire to devour other cultures and economies around the world.
On the other hand, the simile also suggests that Passepartout finds Yemen inviting in a way Fogg and Fix do not. He alone goes onshore to discover local culture. Fogg wants to pass through Yemen on his way to winning a bet; Yemen is valuable to him solely as a means to wealth and prestige. He has no interest in it as a place where he might form human connections or learn about a culture. Although Passepartout can be critiqued for his colonial appetite, he also represents a Westerner who finds other cultures valuable and interesting.
Related Themes:
Chapter 11
Explanation and Analysis—Fast News:
In Chapter 11, the train to Calcutta suddenly stops because the track has run out. To explain how Fogg was misinformed about the track running all the way across India, the narration uses a simile comparing newspapers to watches that sometimes run fast:
The papers were like some watches, which have a way of getting too fast, and had been premature in their announcement of the completion of the line.
The railroad tracks were reported to be finished when they really were not. According to this simile, the reason is that the newspapers got ahead of themselves. The idea that newspapers might run like a fast watch is emblematic of the all-encompassing changes industrialization has wrought on the world. Historically, many logistical problems (in real life and also in literature) had been the result of news circulating too slowly. People in rural areas, for instance, often got outdated news because it took time for newspapers to travel to them. Poor people and servants in rural places got news even later because they had to wait for others to be done reading the paper. Whole communities might find themselves, for example, operating under the assumption that a dead monarch was still the head of state simply because they hadn't yet received news to the contrary.
The idea of news running too fast was new in the 19th century (when the novel is set) and it was tied to industrialization. Not only could human messengers carry news on faster modes of transit, but also the telegraph (only a few decades old at this point) could transmit news across long distances. News could now travel faster than human bodies. It is important to note that the narration makes this point about the quick transmission of news by comparing the media apparatus to a watch. Sharing news is no longer a human endeavor. Instead, "the papers" are a mechanical apparatus that, like a watch, keeps running even when humans aren't looking or managing it.
With faster dissemination of news comes higher risk of misinformation that gets out of hand. Because the newspapers keep churning out content unchecked, they have misinformed the public about the railroad tracks' completion. If a person was carefully fact-checking the news, this would not have happened. But the news no longer waits for humans to manage it in this way. Today we often discuss the spread of misinformation in the context of the internet. This moment in the novel makes clear that this concern predates the internet by many decades and has always been bound up with concerns about technology and modernity. The novel seems to be making the point that as much as automation has become possible, automation will never be able to accommodate the messiness of the real world (for instance, the fact that the railroad tracks are taking longer than planned to complete).
Related Themes:
