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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—Humans and Animals:
In Burmese Days, the narrator regularly compares many different characters to animals, regardless of skin color, ethnicity, or nationality. White supremacist literature tends to include such figurative language, targeted against non-White people, as a means of dehumanizing or denigrating the "Other." Orwell upends this racist literary notion, using animalistic metaphors and similes to refer to colonized and colonizer alike.
In the following excerpt from Chapter 2, for instance, the narrator describes the European Club's butler using simile:
The butler, a dark, stout Dravidian with liquid, yellow-irised eyes like those of a dog, brought the brandy on a brass tray.
Explanation and Analysis—Dog-like:
In Chapter 2, Mrs. Lackersteen bemoans the "laziness" of "servants" in the modern age, reminiscing about simpler times when it was appropriate to pay one's butler "only twelve rupees a month." She resents the newfound audacity she senses in those she believes—in her racist worldview—are inferior to her. In her frustration, Mrs. Lackersteen uses a simile to characterize her former butler, using him as an exemplar of how things used to be:
Unlock with LitCharts A+"I remember when we paid our butler only twelve rupees a month, and really that man loved us like a dog. And now they are demanding forty and fifty rupees, and I find that the only way I can even KEEP a servant is to pay their wages several months in arrears."
Related Themes:
Chapter 4
Explanation and Analysis—Capricious Cat:
In the following example of both simile and situational irony from Chapter 4, the narrator compares Ma Hla May—John Flory’s lover-for-hire—to a cat:
Unlock with LitCharts A+She lay and let him do as he wished with her, quite passive yet pleased and faintly smiling, like a cat which allows one to stroke it. Flory's embraces meant nothing to her (Ba Pe, Ko S'la's younger brother, was secretly her lover), yet she was bitterly hurt when he neglected them.
Related Themes:
