Welcome to this lecture headed “SIMILE”. We will be discussing all about simile. Enjoy your lecture.
A simile is a figure of speech that makes a comparison, illustrating similarities between two diverse things.
Not like a metaphor, a simile draws resemblance with the assistance of the words “like” or “as”. Consequently, it is a straight comparison.
We can observe examples of simile in our day to day speech.
We frequently hear statements like “Seun is as slow as a snail.”
Snails are disreputable for their slow pace and here the tardiness of Seun is compared to that of a snail.
The utilization of “as” in the example assists to draw the similarity.
“It’s been a hard day’s night and I’ve been working like a dog”
In English, anytime we want to make comparison of two things to each other, we can make use of a simile.
The major variation between a smile and a metaphor is that the comparison in similes is constantly indirect.
In fact we are required to make use of words like ‘as’, ‘like’ or ‘than’.
On the contrary, the writer or speaker making use of a metaphor would be implying that a thing IS a different thing.
Let us observe a few instances to demonstrate the variation like in the instances below:
Life is a journey.
Life is like a journey.
Life is as exciting as a journey.
The first example is a metaphor (due to the fact that life is being unswervingly compared to a journey.
The second and third examples are similes and this is shown with the presence of the words – ‘like’ or ‘as’.
Why are similes obligatory?
“One of the fresh things people started to discover in the last century was that thoughts – simply plain thoughts – are as influential as electric batteries – as good for one as sunlight is, or as bad for one as poison.” from The Secret Garden, by Frances Hodgson Burnett.
Irrespective of the fact that this quotation itself is made up of a number of similes, the significance lies in the feeling that is passed across.
Consider the difference between these two sentences:
1. Thoughts are very significant.
2. “Thoughts, just mere thoughts, are as potent as electric batteries, as good for one as sunlight is, or as bad for one as poison.”
You would have noticed that the second sentence is much more commanding and it clarifies the idea of how significant thoughts are much more clearly and vividly.
So to sum up, this is the major reason for the utilization of similes, and this is as well why similes are very frequently seen in the works of literature’s major significant contributors.
They make readers experience the significance of the point that the writer want to pass across and this is far more efficient that phrases which are straight and to the point.
A few more instances of widespread similes are provided below.
Examples of frequently used Simile
The Nations army is as brave as lions.
His cheeks are red like a rose.
He is as funny as a monkey.
The water well was as dry as a bone.
He is as cunning as a fox.
Simile puts vibrancy into what we say. Authors and poets utilize comparisons to put across their sentiments and thoughts via clear word pictures such as a simile.
Examples of Simile in Literature
From Joseph Conrad,
I would have given anything for the power to soothe her frail soul,
“tormenting itself in its invincible ignorance like a small bird beating about
the cruel wires of a cage.”
The lines have been taken from Lord Jim. The defenselessness of the soul is being weighed against with a bird in a cage beating itself against the merciless wires of the cage, to be free.
2. An extract from a short story Lolita written by Vladimir Nabokov,
“Elderly American ladies leaning on their canes listed toward me like towers of Pisa.”
This simile creates a funny effect by evaluating old women leaning on walking sticks with the ancient leaning tower of Pisa.
3. In her novel To the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf makes comparison of the velocity of her thoughts about the two men with that of spoken words.
“. . . impressions poured in upon her of those two men, and to follow her thought was like following a voice which talks too quickly to be taken down by one’s pencil…”
She says both are hard to follow and cannot be copied in words by a pencil.
4. An extract from the poem the Daffodils.
“I wandered lonely as a cloud
that floats on high o’er vales and hills.”
The poet envisions himself as a free lone cloud that floats in a blue sky above valleys and the mountains. By choosing this simile, Wordsworth describes his loneliness.
5. Robert Burns makes use of a simile to explain the beauty of his beloved.
“O my Luve’s like a red, red rose
That’s newly sprung in June;
O my Luve’s like the melodie
That’s sweetly played in tune.”
He says that his love is a fresh red rose that blossoms in the spring.
6. A noteworthy thing to reflect on here is that at times simile is drawn without making use of “as” or “like”. Reflect on the following instance,
“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? / Thou art more lovely and more temperate” (William Shakespeare, Sonnet 18)
In the above instances, we observe a comparison between the poet’s darling and “a summer’s day” without making use of “as” or “like”.
Nevertheless, it is not a metaphor. The utilization of the word “compare” makes the comparison a simile.
Uses of Simile
From the above discussion, we can deduce the function of similes both in our everyday life in addition as in literature.
Making use of similes attracts the attention and appeals straight to the senses of listeners or readers heartening their mind’s eye to understand what is being passed across.
Additionally, it inspires life-like quality in our daily talks and in the characters of fiction or poetry.
Simile permits readers to narrate the feelings of a writer or a poet to their individual experiences.
Consequently, the utilization of similes makes it simpler for the readers to appreciate the subject matter of a literary text, which may have been or else too difficult to be understood.
Similar metaphors, similes as well provide variety in our ways of thinking and produces new perspectives of seeing the world.
Simile, as a figure of speech involves an assessment between two contrasting entities.
In the simile, not like the metaphor, the semblance is clearly shown by the words “like” or “as.”
The widespread legacy of similes in day to day speech frequently shows simple comparisons based on the normal world or common domestic objects.
For example:
“He eats like a bird,”
“He is as smart as a whip,”
“He is as slow as molasses.” In a few instances the original correctness of the evaluation is lost, as in the expression “dead as a doornail.”
A simile in literature may be particular and direct or more lengthy and complicated, like in the lines of Othello shown below:
Never, Iago. Like to the Pontic Sea,
Whose icy current and compulsive course
Ne’er feels retiring ebb, but keeps due on
To the Propontic and the Hellespont;
Even so my bloody thoughts, with violent pace,
Shall ne’er look back… – (Shakespeare, Othello)
The simile apart from asserting that Othello’s advocacy for vengeance cannot now be turned aside; also suggests enormous ordinary forces.
The proper name as well implies an exotic, inaccessible world, with mythological and historical associations, suggestive of Othello’s foreign culture and audacious past.
The Homeric, or epic, simile is an expressive assessment of bigger length typically containing a few digressive reflections, as in the following:
As one who would water his garden shows the way to a stream from a few fountain over his plants, and all his ground-spade in hand he clears away the dams to free the channels, and the little stones run rolling round and round with the water as it goes merrily down the bank faster than the man can follow – even so did the river keep catching up with Achilles albeit he was a fleet runner, for the gods are stronger than men. (Iliad, Book XII).
Thanks for reaching to this point marking the end of this lecture.
Your Lecture Master:
Mst. Ugonwanne Joshua
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