What Are the Similes in “Fahrenheit 451”?
A simile is a figure of speech that makes a direct comparison between two different things using the words “like” or “as.” One example of a simile in the book “Fahrenheit 451” by Ray Bradbury is the quote about a machine, saying, “One of them slid down into your stomach like a black cobra down an echoing well looking for all the old water and the old time gathered there.”
That simile compares a stomach pump machine to a the slithering of a snake. Another quote with similes in it is: “How like a beautiful statue of ice it was, melting in the sun. I remember the newspapers dying like huge moths.”
The book “Fahrenheit 451” is about a dystopian future world in which firemen burn books instead of saving houses. Bradbury uses similes and metaphors in the book to illustrate the sterility of the environment and the isolation of the main character. The book describes the main character’s relationship with his wife as colorless, cold and dead. His wife is described as a shell. She is compared to the seashell radio in her ear, which is a “wasp” that buzzes constantly. The main character’s bedroom is described as “a winter island” and “an empty sea.”
