Simile

 

Modern textbooks never explain simile properly. The ones I am working with say only that it involves comparing two items using “like” or “as.” This definition is useful only for distinguishing a simile from a metaphor. “Toronto is like Montreal” is not a simile. The texts recognize that this is not a simile, and deduct marks from students who would say it is, but cannot seem to explain why not, leaving the students cruelly confused.

An online source, “literarydevices.net”, is a bit better. They explain that a simile is a comparison expressing similarity “between two things that are different enough from each other such that their comparability appears unlikely.” 

This is still not right. At what point are two things so different that a simile exists? “Toronto is like Gananoque” is still not a simile. Neither is “Toronto is like Peru.” These are straight comparisions. One goes on to explain how the one is like the other.

And even if you accept that this is what a simile is doing, why would you want to do this? It seems at least somewhat contradictory, or as though you are deliberately trying to confuse or trick the reader: asserting that dissimilar things are similar. 

Put simply, a simile conveys a sense of something unseen or difficult to see by comparison with something seen or easy to picture. They are useful, indeed necessary, because what we cannot see we cannot directly communicate. If I say “There is a rose in the garden,” my meaning is obvious to the listener; if there is any confusion, I point to the rose. If I say, “I love you,” the meaning is utterly ambiguous to the listener. I cannot point to the emotion I feel, and make the listener feel it. Hence many heartbreaks and betrayals.

To ever be sure what is meant by an abstract term, a term not describing a sense object, we need what T.S. Eliot called an “objective correlative”: an object to stand in for it, a visual or other physical sensation that conveys the idea or the emotion. Therefore simile, metaphor, and symbol. Therefore, indeed, I suspect, mythology itself. We must a something like “My love is like that red rose in your garden.” Our emotional reaction to a beautiful flower is reasonably evocative of what we feel when we love.

Therefore, simile. “Happiness is like a warm puppy.” “Hope is the thing with wings.” “Free as a bird.”  “Life is like a box of chocolates.” “As clever as a fox.” One cannot directly see cleverness, as one cannot see hope, or freedom, or happiness, or life, but you can watch how a fox behaves, and likely get the gist. 

It’s simple, but in these times we are generally such hopeless materialists that we cannot get it. It is a symptom of being dead inside.