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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
Chapter 2: The Fire
Explanation and Analysis—Like a Ghost :
During Dana’s second journey to the past, Butler employs two different similes for describing the nature of Dana’s time-traveling ability. On her first trip, she saved a young White boy named Rufus from drowning before returning to her own time. This time, she again encounters Rufus, who is now a few years older, and saves him from a fire that he is setting in his home, the Weylin Plantation. After rescuing Rufus, he asks her about her earlier return to her own time, witnessed by his mother, Margaret:
“But … what’s it like? What did Mama see that she won’t tell me about?”
“Probably the same thing my husband saw. He said when I came to you, I vanished. Just disappeared. And then reappeared later.”
He thought about that. “Disappeared? You mean like smoke?” Fear crept into his expression. “Like a ghost?”
“Like smoke, maybe. But don’t go getting the idea that I’m a ghost. There are no ghosts.”
“That’s what Daddy says.” “He’s right.” “But Mama says she saw one once.”
I managed to hold back my opinion of that [...] Besides, I was probably her ghost.
After Dana notes that she “vanished” and returned to California in 1976, an ability to move through time that she cannot control, Rufus asks her if she disappeared “like smoke,” or, alternatively, “like a ghost.” Dana rejects the notion that she is a ghost, but accepts that her disappearance has been “like smoke.” These similes suggest that there is something supernatural about Dana’s swift transportation to and from the 19th and 20th centuries, though the novel refrains from exploring its precise nature.
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Chapter 3: The Fall
Explanation and Analysis—Like a Zombie :
In Chapter 3, Dana unintentionally returns to 1976 without Kevin, who is left trapped in the past. In the time that she spends alone at home, unable to leave the house for fear of suddenly being transported to the past while driving or crossing the street, she reflects upon her first meeting with Kevin while she was serving as a temp worker in an auto-parts warehouse years earlier. In Dana’s recounting of this first meeting, Kevin uses a simile that compares her to a zombie:
The first thing Kevin ever said to me was, “Why do you go around looking like a zombie all the time?” He was just one of several regular employees at an auto-parts warehouse where a group of us from the agency were doing an inventory. I was wandering around between shelves of nuts, bolts, hubcaps, chrome, and heaven knew what else checking other people’s work. I had a habit of showing up every day and of being able to count, so the supervisor decided that zombie or not, I should check the others.
Before she meets Kevin, Dana finds temporary, menial work through a job agency while working on her writing in private. At the warehouse, Kevin asks questions about Dana’s life and informs her that he will soon be leaving the store, as he has been successful in publishing a novel. Noticing that Dana has dreams beyond her temporary work, he asks her why she behaves “like a zombie” while stocking shelves. Here, Kevin’s simile registers the automatic, mundane nature of the work that Dana completes, as well as her disinterest in these poorly-paid jobs. Slightly later on, Dana herself repeats Kevin’s simile, noting that, “zombie or not,” she needs to complete her work. This simile, then, suggests that Dana has not found much fulfillment while working to support herself, as writing is her true goal.
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Chapter 4: The Fight
Explanation and Analysis—"Like a Old Dog" :
In a pathos-filled passage, Tess, an enslaved woman on the Weylin Plantation who serves, under coercion, as a “bed mate” for Tom Weylin, uses a simile that compares her position to that of “a[n] old dog”:
Poor Tess. Weylin had tired of her as a bed mate and passed her casually to Edwards. She had been afraid Edwards would send her to the fields where he could keep an eye on her. With Alice and I in the house, she knew she could be spared. She had cried with the fear that she would be spared. “You do everything they tell you,” she wept, “and they still treat you like a old dog. Go here, open your legs; go there, bust your back. What they care! I ain’t s’pose to have no feelin’s!”
Dana’s narration is punctuated with pathos as she acknowledges that “Poor Tess” has been passed from Tom to the cruel overseer, Edwards. Tess, she notes, is terrified that she will be sent from the house to the fields, where she will perform back-breaking labor under the constant supervision of Edwards. Describing her own unfortunate position, she states that the men treat her “like a old dog,” a simile that underscores the lack of compassion or sympathy that defines her relationship to the men who sexually assault her. Though Tess is terrified of Edwards, she would still prefer that he respect her feelings and offer her some of the courtesies of a genuine relationship.
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Explanation and Analysis—The Whip:
When the Weylins are briefly away from the plantation, the cruel overseer Edwards is left in charge. Dana uses a simile that describes the whip he carries as being “like part of his arm” while describing the manner in which he threatens her:
Edwards loomed over me. “You think you been whipped? You don’t know what a whippin’ is yet!” He carried his whip around with him. It was like part of his arm—long and black with its lead-weighted butt. He dropped the coil of it free. And I went out, God help me, and tried to do the wash. I couldn’t face another beating so soon. I just couldn’t. When Edwards was gone, Alice came out of Carrie’s cabin and began to help me. I felt sweat on my face mingling with silent tears of frustration and anger.
Earlier, Dana was whipped brutally, and she still carries the scars from this experience. In deep pain, she attempts to lie, pretending that Rufus had ordered her not to wash clothes, which is physically demanding labor. Edwards, however, responds with immediate threats of violence, claiming that her next whipping will be significantly more brutal than the first. Wielding his whip, Dana describes it, in a simile, as being “like part of his arm.” This simile suggests that Edwards regularly carries the whip with him and uses it so often that it is almost an extension of his own arm. Her language here suggests that Edwards is somewhat less than human, a machine designed to inflict pain upon those who are enslaved on the Weylin Plantation.
Chapter 5: The Storm
Explanation and Analysis—"Some Folks Say":
Dana uses both logos and simile in her argument with Sam Jones, who notes to Dana that many other enslaved people on the Weylin Plantation distrust her both because of her seemingly close relationship to Rufus and because they falsely perceive her to be his mistress:
“Some folks say …”
“Hold on.” I was suddenly angry. “I don’t want to hear what ‘some folks’ say. ‘Some folks’ let Fowler drive them into the fields every day and work them like mules.”
“Let him …?”
“Let him! They do it to keep the skin on their backs and breath in their bodies. Well, they’re not the only ones who have to do things they don’t like to stay alive and whole. Now you tell me why that should be so hard for ‘some folks’ to understand?”
He sighed. “That’s what I told them.”
Sam begins to inform Dana of how others on the Plantation perceive her, but she cuts him off. Despite her anger, she makes a careful and logical argument, claiming that, ultimately, all enslaved people on the Plantation have accepted that obedience is the only way to stay safe. Her position, then, is not unlike those working in the fields, who permit the overseer to “work them like mules” in order to “keep the skin on their backs.” This simile, comparing human beings to beasts of burden, underscores both the brutal work that takes place in the field and the violence that keeps this system in place. All enslaved people on the Plantation, she reasons, “have to do things they don’t like to stay alive and whole,” regardless of whether they work in the fields or are permitted greater intimacy with the members of the Weylin family.
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