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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: The House on Mango Street
Explanation and Analysis—Feel Like Nothing:
Cisneros makes use of a simile to describe how Esperanza feels when a nun from her school incredulously asks where she lives:
Where do you live? she asked. There, I said pointing up to the third floor. You live there? There. I had to look to where she pointed—the third floor, the paint peeling, wooden bars Papa had nailed on the windows so we wouldn’t fall out. You live there? The way she said it made me feel like nothing. There. I lived there.
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Chapter 2: Hairs
Explanation and Analysis—Hair:
Esperanza uses a series of similes to describe her and her family's hair, culminating in rich imagery that conveys the sweet smell of her mother's hair:
Unlock with LitCharts A+My Papa’s hair is like a broom, all up in the air. And me, my hair is lazy... my mother’s hair, like little rosettes, like little candy circles all curly and pretty because she pinned it in pincurls all day, sweet to put your nose into when she is holding you, holding you and you feel safe, is the warm smell of bread before you bake it, is the smell when she makes room for you on her side of the bed still warm with her skin, and you sleep near her, the rain outside falling and Papa snoring.
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Chapter 4: My Name
Explanation and Analysis—Esperanza:
Esperanza explains both what her name literally means—hope—as well as what it figuratively means, making use of both metaphor and simile to do so:
Unlock with LitCharts A+In English my name means hope. In Spanish it means too many letters. It means sadness, it means waiting. It is like the number nine. A muddy color. It is the Mexican records my father plays on Sunday mornings when he is shaving, songs like sobbing.
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Chapter 8: Gil’s Furniture Bought & Sold
Explanation and Analysis—Music Box:
In a junk store that she often frequents, Esperanza and Nelly encounter a music box that is so beautiful it can only be described through simile, although the store owner ironically refuses to sell it:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Then he starts it up and all sorts of things start happening. It’s like all of a sudden he let go a million moths all over the dusty furniture and swan-neck shadows and in our bones. It’s like drops of water. Or like marimbas only with a funny little plucked sound to it like if you were running your fingers across the teeth of a metal comb.... This, the old man says shutting the lid, this ain’t for sale.
Chapter 13: There Was an Old Woman She Had So Many Children She Didn’t Know What to Do
Explanation and Analysis—Like a Falling Star:
After describing the Vargas family, whose single mother Rosa can not keep total control or track of each child, Esperanza casually describes the death of Angel Vargas with a simile:
Unlock with LitCharts A+No wonder everybody gave up. Just stopped looking out when little Efren chipped his buck tooth on a parking meter and didn’t even stop Refugia from getting her head stuck between two slats in the back gate and nobody looked up not once the day Angel Vargas learned to fly and dropped from the sky like a sugar donut, just like a falling star, and exploded down to earth without even an “Oh.”
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Chapter 38: The Monkey Garden
Explanation and Analysis—Forgetful Monkey Garden:
Esperanza personifies the monkey garden, a whimsical and magical junk-filled garden, through simile:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Things had a way of disappearing in the garden, as if the garden itself ate them, or, as if with its old-man memory, it put them away and forgot them.
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