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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
Explanation and Analysis—Flesh:
In Chapter 2, Offred encounters Rita in the kitchen and reminisces fondly on the feeling of kneading bread dough. Clearly starved of human connection, Offred uses simile to tie together the act of making bread and the act of initiating physical touch:
I would help Rita make the bread, sinking my hands into that soft resistant warmth which is so much like flesh. I hunger to touch something, other than cloth or wood. I hunger to commit the act of touch.
Offred compares bread dough to flesh, stating that she misses the sensuality of flesh underneath her fingers. Repressed as she is, the smallest thing reminds Offred of carnality, of sensuality. She is a woman starved, desperate for any scrap of feeling she can find that in some way imitates the world before Gilead.
More than simply craving the feeling of flesh, Offred craves companionship: Rita, whom she sometimes helps make bread, is generally standoffish towards Offred, treating her as more of a household object than a person. Offred craves physical touch, but she also craves the companionship that accompanies the act of making bread with someone. She craves genuine proximity to other human beings, both emotionally as well as physically.
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Explanation and Analysis—Fairy Tale:
In Chapter 2, as Offred makes her way from her room to the door of the house, Atwood uses a series of striking images and similes to describe her protagonist's appearance and self-perception:
There remains a mirror, on the hall wall. If I turn my head so that the white wings framing my face direct my vision towards it, I can see it as I go down the stairs, round, convex, a pier glass, like the eye of a fish, and myself in it like a distorted shadow, a parody of something, some fairy-tale figure in a red cloak, descending towards a moment of carelessness that is the same as danger. A Sister, dipped in blood.
Offred describes a disconnect she feels from her physical body, using imagery and simile to compare her existence to that of a "fairy-tale figure in a red cloak." As a kind of trauma response, Offred dissociates; she does not view her surroundings or her predicament as "real life."
Curiously, in this scene, Offred is literally scrutinizing herself through a kind of microscope: the round, fish-eye pier glass reflects her image, representing both how Offred appears to herself as well as how she is scrutinized in extreme detail by society.
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Chapter 4
Explanation and Analysis—Dog Bone:
In Chapter 4, Offred and Ofglen depart from the Commanders' compound to go shopping. As they pass the gate, two young Guardians see them through. Offred takes this opportunity to move her body in a teasing manner, enticing the two men. She maintains plausible deniability, but still manages to exercise the one form of power left available to her: sex. Offred describes the feeling of this power through simile:
It's like thumbing your nose from behind a fence or teasing a dog with a bone held out of reach, and I'm ashamed at myself for doing it, because none of this is the fault of these men, they're too young. Then I find I'm not ashamed after all. I enjoy the power; power of a dog bone, passive but there.
In this passage, Offred characterizes the passive feeling of power she feels when the Guardians stare at her, likening her position to that of a dog bone held tantalizingly out of a dog's reach. This metaphor places her in the role of a passive object, as Offred is well aware. Nonetheless, stripped of all other sources of power or agency, Offred takes what she can get. Rebellion, more often than not, begins with small moments and gestures like this.
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Explanation and Analysis—Ofglen:
Ofglen, as a character, appears eager to be subservient. From Offred's perspective, Ofglen is uncannily obedient, behaving as a trained animal or a robot would. Offred comments on this behavior in multiple sections of The Handmaid's Tale, using imagery and simile to paint a picture of Ofglen's obedience.
In the following example from Chapter 8, Ofglen reacts mechanically to Offred's request that they head home, presenting a perfect specimen of womanly submission:
Without a word she swivels, as if she's voice-activated, as if she's on little oiled wheels, as if she's on top of a music box. I resent this grace of hers. I resent her meek head, bowed as if into a heavy wind. But there is no wind.
Offred resents this recently revitalized societal expectation of womanly subservience. Contradictorily, she also resents herself for being incapable of presenting perfect obedience to the world—her mask, as it were, is not as steadily fastened as Ofglen's.
The imagery in the above passage builds on similar language from Chapter 4:
She walks demurely, head down, red-gloved hands clasped in front, with short little steps like a trained pig's, on its hind legs.
Again, Offred uses simile to dehumanize Ofglen, belittling her out of a kind of multifaceted resentment.
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Chapter 6
Explanation and Analysis—Dolls:
In Chapter 6, Offred and Ofglen stop by the wall to observe several men hung for various crimes. Several of these men were abortion doctors before the rise of Gilead and are being punished by the current regime for these past "crimes." Using simile, Offred reveals the true terror and violence that accompany religious extremism:
It's the bags over the heads that are the worst, worse than the faces themselves would be. It makes the men like dolls on which the faces have not yet been painted; like scarecrows, which in a way is what they are, since they are meant to scare.
Offred uses multiple similes to describe the hanged men, who appear to have no more agency in death than in life: they are uncanny, faceless dolls; they, like her, are moved and manipulated by society. This violence and dehumanization are more than simply effects of Gilead's religious extremism: they are required in order to maintain such a state. Without the threat of violence or social exclusion, such extreme behaviors and rituals could not be maintained en masse by society. Violence maintains the structure; such a system cannot maintain itself on a large scale without both the implicit and explicit threat of force.
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Chapter 8
Explanation and Analysis—Dishtowel :
In the following simile from Chapter 8, Offred describes the nature of her memories and how they affect her, generating a rather violent image:
Sometimes these flashes of normality come at me from the side, like ambushes. The ordinary, the usual, a reminder, like a kick. I see the dishtowel, out of context, and I catch my breath.
Here, Offred describes bits and pieces of "normality" that break through the cracks of life in Gilead as "ambushes." These bits of memory are like "kicks" to Offred, because they remind her of the comparative quality of her life before Gilead.
This use of figurative language is notable because it connects violence and memory in an unconventional manner. Typically, it is traumatic experiences that resurface violently or intrusively as memories: these thoughts are "triggered," brought to the surface unexpectedly. The memories Offred describes are not traumatizing in the traditional sense—she is not remembering war, abuse, sexual assault, or neglect. It is memories of her past life, before Gilead, that are "triggered." The upsetting nature of these memories is not due to their content; rather, remembering feels like an ambush because these experiences, once commonplace, are now inaccessible to Offred. Remembering triggers a form of trauma response because Offred is reminded, through juxtaposition, of how dire her current position is.
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Explanation and Analysis—Ofglen:
Ofglen, as a character, appears eager to be subservient. From Offred's perspective, Ofglen is uncannily obedient, behaving as a trained animal or a robot would. Offred comments on this behavior in multiple sections of The Handmaid's Tale, using imagery and simile to paint a picture of Ofglen's obedience.
In the following example from Chapter 8, Ofglen reacts mechanically to Offred's request that they head home, presenting a perfect specimen of womanly submission:
Without a word she swivels, as if she's voice-activated, as if she's on little oiled wheels, as if she's on top of a music box. I resent this grace of hers. I resent her meek head, bowed as if into a heavy wind. But there is no wind.
Offred resents this recently revitalized societal expectation of womanly subservience. Contradictorily, she also resents herself for being incapable of presenting perfect obedience to the world—her mask, as it were, is not as steadily fastened as Ofglen's.
The imagery in the above passage builds on similar language from Chapter 4:
She walks demurely, head down, red-gloved hands clasped in front, with short little steps like a trained pig's, on its hind legs.
Again, Offred uses simile to dehumanize Ofglen, belittling her out of a kind of multifaceted resentment.
Related Themes:
Chapter 12.
Explanation and Analysis—Clean:
The following simile from Chapter 12 describes Offred's state of mind while she takes a bath:
I wish to be totally clean, germless, without bacteria, like the surface of the moon.
As Offred bathes to prepare herself for (potential) impregnation, she communicates her wish for an unnatural level of cleanliness. Both during her Handmaid training and simply over the course of living under this oppressive regime, Offred has been made vulnerable to propaganda that classifies women as inherently unclean. She herself has, in some ways, come to believe this: Offred desperately wants to be clean, despite that cleanliness being unnatural and unhealthily sterile.
Bacteria are important elements of a healthy human body: in the stomach and intestines, as well as all over and throughout the body, bacteria play a crucial symbiotic role. Offred does not view these natural aspects of her body as she once might have—no longer is bathing a simple act of physical comfort, or amoral cleanliness, or human routine. Bathing has become a ritual, representing the cleansing of both the body and the spirit. Through this lens, Offred's extreme reaction to the presence of bacteria makes sense. If physical cleanliness reflects on moral "cleanliness," then it makes sense that one would want to be as clean as physically possible, even to an unnatural or unhealthy degree.
Related Themes:
Chapter 13
Explanation and Analysis—A Newborn Mouse:
The following passage from Chapter 13 provides an interesting look into the operating mechanisms of propaganda, outlining forms of rhetoric that might be used to objectify women, isolate them, and pit them against one another. Offred uses simile in this scene to describe her reaction to Janine's humiliation:
Last week, Janine burst into tears. Aunt Helena made her kneel at the front of the classroom, hands behind her back, where we could all see her, her face red and dripping nose. Her hair dull blond, her eyelashes so light they seemed not there, the lost eyelashes of someone who's been in a fire. Burned eyes. She looked disgusting: weak, squirmy, blotchy, pink, like a newborn mouse. None of us wanted to look like that, ever. For a moment, though we knew what was being done to her, we despised her.
The similes Offred uses to describe Janine and her pain are horrible, especially considering that Janine has just been forced to recount traumatic sexual violence from her past. Offred and the other Handmaids-in-training are being conditioned to respond to other women's pain with disgust, rather than pity or sympathy. A society like Gilead, rooted in religious extremism, benefits from women's self-hatred—and, by natural extension, the intra-group hatred of other women.
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