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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—Dee’s Hair:
When Dee arrives back home in rural Georgia for a visit, Mama and Maggie are surprised by her appearance. When capturing hers and Maggie’s response to Dee’s hair, Mama (the narrator) uses a series of similes, as seen in the following passage:
I hear Maggie go “Uhnnnh” again. It is her sister’s hair. It stands straight up like the wool on a sheep. It is black as night and around the edges are two long pigtails that rope about like small lizards disappearing behind her ears.
The first simile here—in which Mama describes Dee’s hair as “stand[ing] straight up like the wool on a sheep”—helps readers to understand that Dee is choosing to wear her hair naturally in an afro rather than styling it to make it look more like white hair. This was one of many ways in which members of the Black Power movement tried to embrace their identities as Black people.
In the subsequent similes, Mama describes Dee’s hair as “black as night” with two pigtails that appear “like small lizards disappearing behind her ears.” Here, again, Mama is trying to make sense of this hairstyle she has likely never seen before. It is notable that all of the similes in this passage include references to common sights in Mama's rural life—sheep, lizards, and a dark night sky. In this moment, Walker is intentionally juxtaposing Mama’s relationship to Black culture (which is rooted in relationship with place and nature) with Dee’s (one rooted in Black Power ideology and ancestral practices).
Related Themes:
Explanation and Analysis—Limp Handshake:
When describing the way that Dee’s partner Hakim-a-barber (who Mama jokingly refers to as “Asalamalakim”) greets Maggie, Mama uses a simile:
Meanwhile Asalamalakim is going through motions with Maggie’s hand. Maggie’s hand is as limp as a fish, and probably as cold, despite the sweat, and she keeps trying to pull it back. It looks like Asalamalakim wants to shake hands but wants to do it fancy. Or maybe he don’t know how people shake hands. Anyhow, he soon gives up on Maggie.
The simile here—in which Mama describes Maggie’s hand being “as limp as a fish, and probably as cold”—captures how uncomfortable Maggie is in this moment. It’s likely that, up to this point in her life in rural Georgia, she has only been greeted with a simple handshake (and with a greeting in English). Hakim-a-barber, instead, greets Maggie and Mama in Arabic and then goes to shake hands in a “fancy” way that neither woman understands.
This is one of many moments in the story in which Walker captures the culture clash between educated, privileged Black Americans and rural working-class Black Americans during the Black Power movement in the 1960s and 1970s. While Dee and Hakim-a-barber are trying to embrace their Blackness, they inadvertently alienate marginalized Black people, like Maggie and Mama.
Related Themes:
Explanation and Analysis—Like an Uncooked Pancake:
Near the beginning of the story, Mama fantasizes about reuniting with her daughter Dee on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, shifting between describing the imaginary scene and sharing details about her real life. At one point in this process, she uses a simile,
In real life I am a large, big-boned woman with rough, man-working hands. In the winter I wear flannel nightgowns to bed and overalls during the day. I can kill and clean a hog as mercilessly as a man […] But of course all this does not show on television. I am the way my daughter would want me to be: a hundred pounds lighter, my skin like an uncooked barley pancake.
After describing her appearance “in real life” as a “big-boned woman with rough, man-working hands,” Mama describes the way that Dee would want her to look: “a hundred pounds lighter, my skin like an uncooked barley pancake.” The simile here (about Mama’s skin color being like an uncooked pancake) captures something important about colorism in the United States. It is likely that Dee (who is lighter skinned) would want her mother to also be lighter skinned because, in a country with a long history of racism, lighter-skinned Black people have historically been seen as more attractive or respectable.
It is notable that Mama herself does not have an issue with her skin color or her size, but her daughter, who is ironically part of the Black Power movement, does. This is one of the many ways that Walker points to the contradictions within the Black Power movement of the 1960s and 1970s.
Related Themes:
