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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: Paradise Pickles & Preserves
Explanation and Analysis—The Lion Tamer:
In the later years of her life, Baby Kochamma spends her time gardening. The novel describes her gardening expertise and diligence with a metaphor and simile:
Baby Kochamma spent her afternoons in her garden. In sari and gum boots. She wielded an enormous pair of hedge shears in her bright-orange gardening gloves. Like a lion tamer she tamed twisting vines and nurtured bristling cacti. She limited bonsai plants and pampered rare orchids. She waged war on the weather. She tried to grow edelweiss and Chinese guava.
In this passage, the novel compares Baby Kochamma to a lion tamer, as she gardens and tends to the unruly plants. Like lions, her plants run wild with abandon. Baby Kochamma's penchant for gardening is ironic, though: She spends her time bringing plants to life while she lets her own life and family house fall apart around her.
There is also a metaphor in how Baby Kochamma "wage[s] war" on weather. She is not waging a literal war, of course, but this metaphorical language illustrates Baby Kochamma's toughness in the face of adversity, the same toughness she displays in her life-long, unrequited love for Father Mulligan. Baby Kochamman is willing to do the hard and selfish thing—therefore, it is unsurprising that she betrays Ammu and the twins to save herself in the end.
Related Themes:
Explanation and Analysis—Drifting into Marriage:
When Rahel is older, she attends an architecture college in Delhi and meets Larry McCaslin. The story uses a simile to describe how Rahel, numb and dejected, settles for marriage with Larry:
Rahel drifted into marriage like a passenger drifts towards an unoccupied chair in an airport lounge. With a Sitting Down sense. She returned with him to Boston.
[…] He held her as though she was a gift. Given to him in love. Something still and small. Unbearably precious.
But when they made love he was offended by her eyes. They behaved as though they belonged to someone else. Someone watching. Looking out of the window at the sea. At a boat in the river. Or a passerby in the mist in a hat.
In this passage, the novel compares Rahel’s decision to marry Larry McCaslin to a passenger at an airport trying finding a seat. These passengers wander aimlessly, looking for the first available and acceptable seat. Larry McCaslin was likely the first respectable, available man that Rahel came across in her adulthood.
Much like how Estha surrenders to the quietness tangling inside of him, Rahel simply lets life happen to her without taking action or making decisions for her own good. After the traumatic events in Ayemenem, Rahel no longer possesses the strength to refuse people and opportunities—good or bad—that life throws at her. For this reason, she is absent even when she and Larry are together. While her body is with Larry, her mind is elsewhere, trapped in Ayemenem and in the unresolved past.
Related Themes:
Chapter 2: Pappachi’s Moth
Explanation and Analysis—Invidious Doctors:
Ammu, Chacko, Baby Kochamma, and the twins encounter a Marxist march on their way to the movies in Cochin. A cynical comment from Ammu causes her brother Chacko to lash out with a simile:
“Ammu,” Chacko said, his voice steady and deliberately casual, “is it at all possible for you to prevent your washed-up cynicism from completely coloring everything?”
Silence filled the car like a saturated sponge. “Washed-up” cut like a knife through a soft thing. The sun shone with a shuddering sigh. This was the trouble with families. Like invidious doctors, they knew just where it hurt.
Though Chacko is a supporter of Marxism, Ammu is more cynical towards life and political systems. When Chacko lashes out, he verbally hurts Ammu. The simile "like invidious doctors" compares family members to unpleasant doctors who know just where to hurt people. Family members knows each other best, yet this means that they know each other's weaknesses best as well. Chacko's comment in return is also a testament to the flawed family element in the novel: family members are one other’s greatest enemies, sources of pain, and outlets for love. Even the sun is offset by Chacko's cruelty here, as it gives a "shuddering sigh" when Chacko offends his sister.
Related Themes:
Chapter 10: The River in the Boat
Explanation and Analysis—The Old Boat:
On the banks of the Meenachal, the twins find an old, rundown boat, which they describe with childlike personification and a simile:
They looked across the river with Old Boat eyes. From where they stood they couldn’t see the History House. It was just a darkness beyond the swamp, at the heart of the abandoned rubber estate, from which the sound of crickets swelled.
Estha and Rahel lifted the little boat and carried it to the water. It looked surprised, like a grizzled fish that had surfaced from the deep. In dire need of sunlight. It needed scraping, and cleaning, perhaps, but nothing more.
Estha and Rahel compare the Old Boat to a fish returned from the deep, covered in muck and river plants. It is dirty, but like a fish, it is alive beneath the surface, ready to ride the currents of the river. The twins also use personification, attributing a look of surprise to the Old Boat. This example of personification demonstrates the childlike perspective and imaginative tendencies of Estha and Rahel, as they imbue a basic object like a boat with animal-like mannerisms and appearances. The Old Boat is shocked to have been found by two children, to have been dragged back into the sunlight. Through the discovery of this boat, the reader continues to understand how the twins use personification, similes, and metaphors to escape from their tired and sometimes cruel reality.
Related Themes:
Chapter 18: The History House
Explanation and Analysis—Belly Up:
When the twins fall asleep in the History House, traumatized by Sophie Mol's death, they awake to the sound of Velutha being brutally beaten by the police. With a simile, the twins experience another traumatizing event:
Esthappen and Rahel woke to the shout of sleep surprised by shattered kneecaps.
Screams died in them and floated belly up, like dead fish. Cowering on the floor, rocking between dread and disbelief, they realized that the man being beaten was Velutha. Where had he come from? What had he done? Why had the policemen brought him here?
The novel likens the twins’ screams as fish dying and floating to the surface of the water. For such a shocking and violent situation, this simile is rather slow, with floating up rather than falling down. Estha and Rahel are watching the scene of Velutha’s beating in slow motion, unable to process what they are seeing. The amount of violence and brutality is something the twins have never encountered. To wake to the sound of "shattered kneecaps" is traumatizing.
The twins' inability to process the scene is represented through the death of their screams:not even a scream is a powerful enough response to this violence. The simile can also serve as a comparison of the twins's souls to dead fish. Not only do their screams die in them, but also their innocence. Their shock is further proven by their lists of questions asked in an attempt to comprehend the situation.
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