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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 3: The Husband and Father
Explanation and Analysis—Bitter as Wormwood:
In Chapter 3, George uses a simile to describe his life to Eliza after his master forces him to leave his factory job and return to the plantation:
My life is bitter as wormwood; the very life is burning out of me. I’m a poor, miserable, forlorn drudge; I shall only drag you down with me, that’s all.
Related Themes:
Chapter 13: The Quaker Settlement
Explanation and Analysis—Fears like Fog:
In Chapter 13, the narrator uses a simile to describe George’s experience being around the Quakers who take him in:
Unlock with LitCharts A+It was the first time that ever George had sat down on equal terms at any white man's table; and he sat down, at first, with some constraint, and awkwardness; but they all exhaled and went off like fog, in the genial morning rays of this simple overflowing kindness.
Related Themes:
Chapter 40: The Martyr
Explanation and Analysis—Tom's Death:
Beecher Stowe uses vivid imagery and figurative language to emphasize and foreshadow Tom's death throughout Chapter 40, which is fittingly titled "The Martyr." In the passage below, note how Beecher Stowe uses simile to underscore Uncle Tom’s intense emotions once he hears he is to be murdered:
Unlock with LitCharts A+The savage words none of them reached that ear!—a higher voice there was saying, “Fear not them that kill the body, and, after that, have no more that they can do.” Nerve and bone of that poor man’s body vibrated to those words, as if touched by the finger of God; and he felt the strength of a thousand souls in one. As he passed along, the trees and bushes, the huts of his servitude, the whole scene of his degradation, seemed to whirl by him as the landscape by the rushing car.
