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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 1: A Gathering
Explanation and Analysis—Mice and Lizards:
At the dinner party in Chapter 1 at Captain Tiago's house, Rizal describes some women who do not seem to be enjoying the function. They are very quiet, which Rizal describes using a simile:
The woman's group is composed of a few young ladies, Filipinas and Spaniards: they open their mouths to stifle a yawn, but immediately cover them with their fans; they barely whisper a few words, and any ventured conversation dies in monosyllables, like the nocturnal sounds of mice and lizards one hears in a house.
Rizal describes these fashionable, demure women half-yawning and engaging in "ventured conversation." The women sound "like the nocturnal sounds of mice and lizards one hears in a house." "One hears" these sounds in a house in the Philippines in particular, especially the more cheaply-made houses in the poorer areas of the city where many episodes in the novel take place. The pair of "mice and lizards" perhaps intentionally juxtaposes a mouse, a house pest common in European literature, with a more tropical animal. So the simile situates this party, attended by Filipinas and Spaniards alike, in a distinctly indigenous context.
Explanation and Analysis—Like Tortoises:
Chapter 1 describes a fancy dinner party at the home of Captain Tiago. The narrator takes great pains to describe Tiago's house in detail. Rizal describes why he does so, even against his better judgement, in a simile:
If it were up to me, I would spare you a description of the house, but it is too important. We mortals are, in general, like tortoises: we value and classify ourselves according to our shells; but the people of the Philippines are like tortoises in other ways as well.
With his typical irony and personal repartee between the reader and narrator, Rizal wants to "spare the reader a description of the house"; Rizal's narrator is often explicitly aware of how long the story runs. But, as expressed through the simile, people classify one another by outward appearances presented to the world, such as a house, so it is important to describe the house in order to introduce the reader to Tiago. He uses the simile to describe this: people are "like tortoises." It is not clear exactly what tongue-in-cheek implication Rizal intends here for the "other ways" that Filipinos are like tortoises. Perhaps he means that they move slowly, or that they grow very old, or that they retreat to their own "shells," like religion or tradition, in response to threats. Either way, Rizal abandons the tortoise comparison quickly and goes on to show the rest of the house in great detail. This is characteristic of Rizal's tongue-in-cheek style, especially with literary devices, which he rarely explains.
Related Themes:
Chapter 7: Idyll on a Terrace
Explanation and Analysis—That Dazzling Light:
In Chapter 7, Ibarra and María Clara meet for the first time in the novel. At this point they are, as the narrator describes, "a loving couple." The narrator describes their eye contact when they meet:
What did those two souls say to each other? What was exchanged in the language of their eyes, more perfect than their lips, the language afforded the soul so that no sound disturbs an ecstasy of feeling? In these moments, when the thoughts of two happy beings meld through their pupils, words move slowly, coarsely, weakly, like the raspy, awkward noise of thunder from that dazzling light that appears after the quickness of the flash.
Ibarra and María Clara are silent when they meet, and Rizal coyly asks, "What did those two souls say to each other?" Then there is an extensive metaphor in which their eyes seem to be speaking to one another more than their lips. It is difficult to speak in moments of total infatuation, yet the couple's looks are still communicating affection for each other, as Rizal expresses through the metaphor. Their feelings are apparently very large, an "ecstasy," though they still aren't saying anything. Then, in a simile, Rizal continues to describe this effect, now comparing their muteness to thunder and lightning: speech comes later after intense emotion, as thunder follows lightning. Though the characters are silent here, the narrator fills the space with exuberant comparisons in this simile and metaphor.
Chapter 40: Right and Might
Explanation and Analysis—Phantasms From Space:
In the great fireworks show on the final evening of the festival, in Chapter 40, people stand on rooftops to prevent fires. Rizal describes these people's dangerous job, seen from across the city in the dark, using a simile:
It would be ten at night. The final rockets rise lazily into the dark sky, where they shine brightly like new stars. A few paper balloons went up a moment ago, thanks to the smoke and sultry air. Some, fireworks attached, burst into flames and menace all the houses, so one still sees on the rooftops men armed with long bamboo poles with a cloth on their ends, and equipped with buckets of water. Their black silhouettes stand in sharp relief in the air's hazy light and seem like phantasms come down from space to attend man's festivities.
The simile, that the men are "like phantasms from space," is unusual. Such paranormal description is rare in the book, which usually takes a secular, cynical view of the world. In addition, much of the figurative language depends on knowledge of Filipino customs or concepts, but these aliens are imagined to be entirely separate from the experience of the Spanish or the Filipinos. These men and their actions, with their long bamboo poles, still do seem fundamentally Filipino: bamboo is very common in the Philippines. The simile is also a reassertion of the grandeur and beauty of the festival, because it supposes that the celebration is so wonderful as to attract extraterrestrial visitors. This is amplified by the earlier simile in the passage, that the fireworks "shine brightly like new stars." This astronomical description broadens the rhetorical scope of the end of the festival. This will serve as an important contrast to the rest of the chapter, which returns from these grand, cosmic comparisons to small, personal feuds between the priests and Ibarra, which erupt into a riot, with yet more fire, at the theater.
Related Themes:
Chapter 45: The Persecuted
Explanation and Analysis—Tree Shorn of its Limbs:
In Chapter 45, Elías meets an old man in the forest named Captain Pablo, a haggard traveler. Pablo explains how his daughter was raped by a minister and how his family unraveled in the aftermath. Pablo uses a simile to describe these events:
I had two sons and one daughter, a home, a fortune. I benefited from respect and esteem. But now I'm like a tree shorn of its limbs, a wandering fugitive, hunted like a wild animal in the forest, and everything that goes along with it. And why? Because a man undid my daughter, because her brothers demanded this man make restitution, and because the man's station was above everyone else's, with the title of God's minister.
Pablo uses a series of similes here: he is "like a tree shorn of its limbs, a wandering fugitive, hunted like a wild animal in the forest, and everything that goes along with it." The first of these is one of the book's many uses of the common metaphor of a family as a tree. Here, the dead, shorn tree turns that metaphor into a tragic description. This pile-up of similes might be a representation of how out of sorts Pablo is; it sounds as if he is stumbling over his words. However, the more romantic similes, like "a wandering fugitive," come off slightly ironic, making Pablo seem melodramatic. These similes and Pablo's distress show the utter power of the church in the Philippines. A priest, as "God's minister," can act with total impunity. That total power is represented in Pablo's shorn tree.
Related Themes:
