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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—Like a Caterpillar:
“Gooseberries” opens with Ivan and Burkin wandering through the Russian countryside. The narrator pauses here to describe the landscape, using a simile in the process:
[T]hey both knew that this was the bank of the river, that there were meadows, green willows, homesteads there, and that if one stood on one of the hillocks one could see from it the same vast plain, telegraph-wires, and a train which in the distance looked like a crawling caterpillar, and that in clear weather one could even see the town.
The simile here—in which the narrator notes how the train in the distance “looked like a crawling caterpillar”—adds to the charming nature of this scene. Rather than disrupting the idyllic landscape with its industrial thrust, the train becomes as quaint as a caterpillar sweetly crawling along. This description says less about the scene and more about the two men who are gazing upon it—they are so enlivened by their time spent in nature (amongst the “meadows, green willows, homesteads”) that a train cannot disrupt their positive orientation to the scenery. This is one of the many moments in the story when Chekhov implies that true freedom comes from spending time in nature, not from sheltered city lives or overly curated and controlled rural ones.
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Explanation and Analysis—Like Pigs:
During Ivan’s monologue about his brother Nikolai’s recent land purchase (after two decades of saving up money for it), he describes his first visit to Nikolai’s new estate. In doing so, he uses a simile, as seen in the following passage:
“I walked toward the house, and a ginger dog met me, fat, looking like a pig. It would have liked to bark, but was too lazy. The cook came out of the kitchen, barefoot, fat, also looking like a pig, and said that the master was resting after dinner. I went into my brother's room, he was sitting in bed, his knees covered with a blanket; he had grown old, fat, flabby; his cheeks, nose, and lips thrust forward—he looked as if he were about to grunt into the blanket.”
Ivan uses the same simile twice, describing both Nikolai’s dog and chef as “looking like a pig.” Though he doesn’t explicitly use the same simile when referring to Nikolai, the implication is there in the way that Ivan notes how his brother is “flabby” and his “cheeks, nose, and lips thrust forward” such that it seemed like he might "grunt into the blanket."
Though today it would be considered problematic to equate fatness (or specific facial qualities) with being pig-like, Chekhov (via Ivan) does so here in order to make a point about wealth. In Chekhov’s time, fatness was associated with the upper classes, since people with wealth could more easily afford food and didn’t have to engage in manual labor. Ivan is communicating here that, after finally buying his estate, Nikolai became just like the other greedy and idle wealthy people.
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