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Setting
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 10
Explanation and Analysis—Cloak-Wearing Boulders:
Personification, simile, and imagery bring the natural world to life in Chapter 10. During his journey out of Gods Lake with Naomi, Saul watches in wonder at their surroundings:
The humped shapes of boulders on the shore wore cloaks of white. Trees with new snow heavy in their branches looked like tired soldiers heading home from war.
By investing the wilderness with an almost human-like character, the novel’s flourish of personification doubles as imagery. More, it delicately balances weariness with persistence—the boulders’ “cloaks of white” and simile of the trees resembling “tired soldiers” obliquely gesture toward death. The details manage to communicate a sense of exhaustion even while continuing to affirm the presence of life. Cloak-wearing boulders and soldier-like trees suggest a liveliness amid circumstances so seemingly inhospitable to it. Where Naomi had earlier announced that “we will die,” nature manages to press on. In a landscape devoid of any other humans, the trees and boulders persist. The natural world breathes and lives along with its human inhabitants. Keewatin, the northern wind, “grips the world” with its “fierce fingers.” The land “had eyes,” and Gods Lake shelters Saul’s family as its own. This moment is among many others across the novel that recognize nature in its human-like powers.
Related Themes:
Chapter 18
Explanation and Analysis—Stallions from the Range:
Chapter 18 presents a simile as Saul joins the older hockey players during their practice on the rink. After nailing a shot, he officially makes the leap from rink-cleaning boy to team member:
Father Leboutilier just let us skate and after a while our plays became sharp and crisp and we were all together in the thrill of the game. When Father Leboutilier finally whistled us to a stop, the older boys skated to the boards and leaned there. I dawdled behind them, unsure of what to do. But as I drew near they made a spot for me among them. We stood there like stallions home from the range.
Saul’s simile—which likens his fellow teammates to “stallions home from the range”—extends the novel’s association between hockey players and horses. Earlier in the chapter, he watches from the sidelines as the players breathe as heavily as “mustangs.” When he later joins the Moose, Virgil and the others take to the rink like “stallions at the gate.” Saul joins the world of hockey-playing humans with that of horses.
The comparison is fitting for a character whose great-grandfather introduced the horse to his people. In a subtle way, Saul’s simile registers how yet another staple of the white world has assimilated into his. As with the Zhaunagush’s (white people's) horses, the boys at St. Jerome’s and the Moose have taken up the game in stride. And just as the horse bears tidings of “sudden change,” the sport changes Saul’s life. Hockey gives Saul a home, a sense of identity, and a professional path.
But the smile also lends itself to more sinister interpretations. Comparing young boys to powerful, strapping horses carries a subtle and dark sexual undercurrent when read against the episodes of abuse and harassment at St. Jerome’s. In the daylight, they pant like wildly powerful creatures. By night, though, they will cry in distress. For all their power and grace on the rink, the players are treated as less than human, virile and vulnerable all at once.
Related Themes:
