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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
Prologue
Explanation and Analysis—Holding Back:
In the Prologue, Angelou shares a short anecdote with readers about an embarrassing moment from her childhood. During an Easter Sunday service, Angelou fails to remember the poem she memorized to read in front of the congregation. As she runs out of the church, humiliated, she has an accident. Angelou utilizes both hyperbole and simile in this moment to convey its significance:
I tried to hold, to squeeze it back, to keep it from speeding, but when I reached the church porch I knew I'd have to let it go, or it would probably run right back up to my head and my poor head would burst like a dropped watermelon, and all the brains and spit and tongue and eyes would roll all over the place.
The urine, in this story, symbolizes far more than simply a botched poetry reading on Easter Sunday. Angelou must hold things back in other parts of her life: information, joy, anger, hatred. As a young Black girl, she is forced to hold her tongue about sexual violence, racist injustice, and a plethora of thoughts adults don't want to hear spoken aloud by children. To represent this overwhelming repression, Angelou combines simile with hyperbole in the above passage from the prologue. Her assertion that her head will burst "like a dropped watermelon" if she holds back her urine is clearly an instance of figurative overstatement. This overstatement highlights the intensity of Angelou's feelings, which likely extend beyond simply having to pee.
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Chapter 3
Explanation and Analysis—Dew Drops:
In Chapter 3, Angelou recounts the measures that her Uncle Willie would take to hide from the KKK. She utilizes simile in her description of his hiding place, which happens to be a vegetable container sitting in Momma's store:
The heavy sounds pushed their way up out of the blanket of vegetables and I pictured his mouth pulling down on the right side and his saliva flowing into the eyes of new potatoes and waiting there like dew drops for the warmth of morning.
In this excerpt, Angelou compares Uncle Willie's saliva to "dew drops" settling in the eyes of "new potatoes." This simile encompasses a feeling of stillness and conveys the idea that time is unfolding, emphasizing to the reader the sheer length of time Uncle Willie must hide from the KKK. Both he and his saliva are waiting for the "warmth of morning" to come, implying that Uncle Willie is forced to remain in the vegetable bin all night.
Angelou's use of simile in this scenario illustrates the savage brutality and inhumanity of the KKK. They ride around, threatening and lynching Black men, quite literally all night—such is the extent of their racist hatred. Their tacit threats of physical violence force Uncle Willie into an uncomfortable and humiliating position for an entire night, to say nothing of the Black men for whom those threats became reality.
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Chapter 8
Explanation and Analysis—The Depression:
In Chapter 8, Angelou recounts her experience living through the Depression in rural Arkansas. She observes, using simile as a vessel, that the economic downturn affected the White and Black communities in Stamps differently:
The Depression must have hit the white section of Stamps with cyclonic impact, but it seeped into the Black area slowly, like a thief with misgivings.
Angelou compares the Depression to both a "cyclon[e]" (for White people) and a "thief with misgivings" (for Black people). These communities, being socioeconomically disparate before the Depression, are impacted differently by financial downturn. For White communities, in which more wealth is vested, economic downturn was a hard and shocking blow. Used to luxuries like running water, a full pantry, and extra spending money, the extreme frugality required to survive during the Depression would arrive as a shock to many middle-class White people— hence Angelou's cyclone comparison.
Many Black communities were and still are rife with poverty as a consequence of several hundred years of racist oppression. Tragically, this means that many Black people are used to dealing with difficulty. The Depression certainly impacts the Black community in Stamps—but, as Angelou communicates, its effect is more diffuse. Financial downturn impacts the Black community like a "thief with misgivings," almost reluctant to pile another problem on top of the many that Black people already face.
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Chapter 10
Explanation and Analysis—Virgin Mary:
In the following passage from Chapter 10, Angelou attempts to unpack her relationship with her biological mother, whom she exalts but does not understand. To illustrate the nature of this relationship, Angelou defaults to religious language, both alluding to the Bible and comparing her mother to the Virgin Mary:
I could never put my finger on her realness. . . . I thought [my mother] looked just like the Virgin Mary. But what mother and daughter understand each other, or even have the sympathy for each other's lack of understanding? Mother had prepared a place for us, and we went to it gratefully.
In the passage above, Angelou states that her mother had "prepared a place" for herself and Bailey, to which they "went [. . .] gratefully." The phrase "prepared a place for" is an allusion to the Bible's New Testament, specifically John 14:3. The Bible verse in question reads: "And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also" (King James Version). Jesus is the one speaking in this verse, asserting that he will go ahead to "prepare a place" for those who believe in him in heaven. In Angelou's analogy, it is her mother that "prepares a place" for her. Angelou idolizes her mother, literally replacing God with her in the above allusion. In a similar vein, Angelou employs simile to compare her mother to the Virgin Mary. In her child's mind, Vivian Baxter is perfect, sinless.
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Chapter 11
Explanation and Analysis—Helpless Pigs:
In the following example of simile from Chapter 11, Angelou compares Mr. Freeman to the young pigs she and her family would fatten for the slaughter on their Arkansas farm:
I felt very sorry for Mr. Freeman. I felt as sorry for him as I had felt for a litter of helpless pigs born in our backyard sty in Arkansas. We fattened the pigs all year long for the slaughter on the first good frost, and even as I suffered for the cute little wiggly things, I knew how much I was going to enjoy the fresh sausage and hog's headcheese they could give me only with their deaths.
This simile reveals a great deal about how Angelou views Mr. Freeman: to her, he is a pitiable object because he is old and dating a much younger, much more beautiful and interesting woman. Like the pigs, however, he is not such an object of concern as to prompt Angelou to act in his favor. Angelou allows pigs to be slaughtered because she likes the taste of meat; in a similar vein, she accepts Mr. Freeman as a pitiable object because it is a truth that elevates her mother as both beautiful and enviable.
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Chapter 14
Explanation and Analysis—Sarcasm:
In Chapter 14, Angelou closely observes the changes in her brother Bailey's behavior following their return to Stamps, Arkansas. His method of coping is much different from hers: where Angelou retreats in on herself as a form of protection against the trauma she experienced, Bailey hides his angst behind humor. Angelou uses simile to illustrate this:
Bailey played on the country folks' need for diversion. Just after our return he had taken to sarcasm, picked it up as one might pick up a stone, and put it snufflike under his lip. The double entendres, the two-pronged sentences, slid over his tongue to dart rapier-like into anything that happened to be in the way.
Angelou compares Bailey's use of sarcasm to a stone. In context, one could consider this "stone" a weapon: Bailey picks up sarcasm like a rock and lobs it at his unsuspecting conversation partners. Angelou also compares Bailey's use of sarcasm to tobacco, which people used to consume in the form of "snuff," absorbed into the body through the mouth. Bailey's sarcasm is both a weapon and a drug—a means of demonstrating intellectual power over people, but also a coping mechanism for Bailey, allowing him to distance himself emotionally from the traumatic events that forced them to return to Stamps.
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