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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 1: The Strange Man’s Arrival
Explanation and Analysis—Diving Helmet:
Twice, Griffin’s bandage-covered appearance is compared to a diving helmet. First, Mrs. Hall uses the simile in Chapter 1 when speaking about Griffin's strange appearance, saying:
And they goggles! Why, he looked more like a divin’-helmet than a human man!
This simile serves to further dehumanize Griffin. By describing his appearance as something more akin to an object than a human, Mrs. Halls paints him as something other—something outside the natural order of things and, thus, rather creepy.
The stranger (Griffin) is outside the normal social order of Iping, both because he is a stranger and because he is strange looking. Thus, Griffin elicits fear and suspicion from the townsfolk of Iping. Just because that suspicion is validated by Griffin being malicious does not mean that the suspicion does not serve to paint the people of Iping, in this case Ms. Hall, as provincial.
The second time the simile appears, the narrator uses a similar simile to refer to Griffin’s appearance when Mrs. Hall confronts him at the inn regarding his unpaid bill in Chapter 7:
The stranger stood looking more like an angry diving-helmet than ever. It was universally felt in the bar that Mrs. Hall had the better of him. His next words showed as much.
The simile emphasizes Griffin’s strangeness. Mrs. Hall is a native of the town, so the townspeople root for her in the dispute because they know her. She is open to the world. On the other hand, Griffin is isolated, both in appearance and due to his habits.
Related Themes:
Chapter 7: The Unveiling of the Stranger
Explanation and Analysis—Diving Helmet:
Twice, Griffin’s bandage-covered appearance is compared to a diving helmet. First, Mrs. Hall uses the simile in Chapter 1 when speaking about Griffin's strange appearance, saying:
And they goggles! Why, he looked more like a divin’-helmet than a human man!
This simile serves to further dehumanize Griffin. By describing his appearance as something more akin to an object than a human, Mrs. Halls paints him as something other—something outside the natural order of things and, thus, rather creepy.
The stranger (Griffin) is outside the normal social order of Iping, both because he is a stranger and because he is strange looking. Thus, Griffin elicits fear and suspicion from the townsfolk of Iping. Just because that suspicion is validated by Griffin being malicious does not mean that the suspicion does not serve to paint the people of Iping, in this case Ms. Hall, as provincial.
The second time the simile appears, the narrator uses a similar simile to refer to Griffin’s appearance when Mrs. Hall confronts him at the inn regarding his unpaid bill in Chapter 7:
The stranger stood looking more like an angry diving-helmet than ever. It was universally felt in the bar that Mrs. Hall had the better of him. His next words showed as much.
The simile emphasizes Griffin’s strangeness. Mrs. Hall is a native of the town, so the townspeople root for her in the dispute because they know her. She is open to the world. On the other hand, Griffin is isolated, both in appearance and due to his habits.
Related Themes:
Chapter 20: At the House in Great Portland Street
Explanation and Analysis—Turning Invisible:
In Chapter 20, Griffin uses an evocative image to explain the experience of being turned invisible to Doctor Kemp:
The pain had passed. I thought I was killing myself and I did not care. I shall never forget that dawn, and the strange horror of seeing that my hands had become as clouded glass, and watching them grow clearer and thinner as the day went by, until at last I could see the sickly disorder of my room through them, though I closed my transparent eyelids. My limbs became glassy, the bones and arteries faded, vanished, and the little white nerves went last. I gritted my teeth and stayed there to the end. At last only the dead tips of the fingernails remained, pallid and white, and the brown stain of some acid upon my fingers.
The first sense that Wells appeals to is the tactile sense of pain, or rather, the absence of pain. The process of turning himself invisible hurt, but then the pain of the transformation vanished. Griffin thinks that the release of the pain is correlated with death. His apathetic attitude toward death is also an indication of an overall experience of numbness.
Griffin also uses a simile to compare his hands to "clouded glass" because the skin covering his hands became so clear that it was rapidly becoming invisible. Although, what’s inside his hands is still visible at first. In this way, Griffin's body disappears little by little. This slow, disparate disappearance has an element of horror to it. It is like he’s being dissected. All that remains at the end of the disappearance process is his “dead” fingernail tips and the stain of acid. The deadness and the stain both invoke a feeling of horror.
Related Themes:
Chapter 23: In Drury Lane
Explanation and Analysis—Greasy Glimmer:
When, in Chapter 23, Griffin explains to Mr. Kemp how weather affects him, he uses a curious set of similes:
And fog—I should be like a fainter bubble in a fog, a surface, a greasy glimmer of humanity.
The three things that Griffin compares himself to are a “fainter bubble”, “a surface,” “a greasy glimmer of humanity.” The first two comparisons are fairly literal. He is almost clear, in the presence of fog, like a bubble. His skin is simply texture without being filled with color, like a surface. However, the last object that he is compared to is loaded with symbolic meaning. His characterization of himself as greasy serves to further characterize him as undesirable. He is grotesque in appearance and not quite human.
The fact that he is only a suggestion of humanity shows that Griffin may be missing some key components of what it is to be human, like empathy and meaningful human connections. At the same time, though, the third part of the simile shows that he is visible in some respect. The fact that he is any of the above things demonstrates the weather's effect on him. In the fog or snow, he no longer is incognito, and he becomes a very visible curiosity. The simile emphasizes his vulnerability in the face of normal weather variations.
Related Themes:
