O Pioneers!: Similes 4 key examples

The narrator first compares the "two dancing points of light" on Marie's face to bubbles in a glass of champagne. In the following sentence, the narrator writes that "[s]ometimes they seemed like the sparks from a forge." These two similes paint a similar physical picture of Marie's eyes, but they have different implications. Champagne bubbles carry a connotation of merriment and revelry. Marie is delightful to be around, and her eyes reflect that. Sparks from a forge, on the other hand, are hot, unpredictable, and possibly dangerous. By noting how her eyes sometimes turn fiery, the narrator hints that she can burn people if they get too close to her. The narrator goes on to write that Marie seems "so easily excited, to kindle with a fierce little flame if one but breathed upon her." Again, there is the sense that Marie's "easily excited" temperament can be a wonderful and beautiful thing, and it can blow up in someone's face if they breathe on her too hard.

The narrator is not necessarily suggesting that Marie has anger issues. Frank is the principal character whose temper sometimes slips out of his control. Rather, the idea that Marie's eyes contain both champagne bubbles and sparks from a forge suggests that, by nature, her most captivating quality can become her most dangerous. For instance, her excitability is so interesting to Emil that he pursues her even though she is married. Emil and Marie both get caught up in their excitement over one another, and the situation turns explosive. 

Emil is jealous of Amédée's ability to publicly rejoice in his marriage to Angélique. Emil feels sure that his feelings for Marie mirror Amédée's feelings for Angélique, except that his relationship with Marie brings him only despair rather than pride and happiness. Emil imagines that he and Amédée are like two grains of corn, from almost identical backgrounds, that have been planted in the same soil under the same conditions. Sometimes, despite all this sameness, one grain simply fails to thrive while the other shoots up "joyfully into the light, projecting [itself] into the future." If Amédée has shot up, Emil has "[lain] still in the earth and rotted."

Emil's simile illuminates the role luck can play in life. He and Amédée do come from similar backgrounds and have had access to similar resources throughout their lives. Still, the idea that "nobody [knows] why" Emil has had less success than Amédée seems like a refusal to accept responsibility for his own actions. On the one hand, Amédée was lucky enough to fall in love with a woman who was available to marry him. On the other hand, Emil has failed to let go of the fantasy that he will one day be able to marry Marie. Emil could choose to pursue a different woman, possibly from beyond the Divide, but instead he keeps coming back to the one who brings him "despair."

Furthermore, Emil is oversimplifying Amédée's success. Although Amédée's romantic life is happy, he nonetheless has a tragic end because of his own lot in life. Whereas Alexandra works to send Emil to college so that he can make a living away from the land, Amédée stays behind to work the land. He pours himself into this work so completely that he fails to stop to get his appendicitis treated in time. Like John Bergson, Amédée works himself to death. In fact, Emil has a greater chance than his friend to "project [himself] into the future" by pursuing his law degree, which won't be so physically taxing. But whereas the loss of Amédée ought to propel Emil away from the Divide and its harsh realities, it instead propels him toward Marie and his own tragic end. Neither of the two friends turn out to have much of a future; both of them commit too fully to the wrong things.

Alexandra compares herself to a vine that must survive in difficult conditions. In her metaphor, the many obstacles she has faced over the years (first as her father's helper and then as the outright owner of the land) have "cut her back" so that she had to grow back "harder." If she has been "hard" on Lou and Oscar, that was not because she wanted to be a critical person but rather because she wanted everyone to survive and had adapted to conditions that were going to kill them all if she remained soft.

As she describes what happened to her over the years, through all this survival, she uses a simile to compare the hardened vine to a tree. This simile helps reframe Alexandra's "hardness" in a more positive light. Whereas a toughened vine might overtake a garden and be seen as difficult to tame, a tree is strong. It is desirable for a tree to keep growing and to withstand all kinds of adverse conditions. It is helpful when its canopy can provide shade and protection. Lou and Oscar see Alexandra as an unmanageable and overbearing sister. Hurt by the idea that this is what she has become, she asks them instead to see her as a pillar of strength and protection at the center of the family.

Frank is suspiciously investigating his property after coming home to find Emil's horse in his stable. Despite his suspicion, he does not immediately realize what he is hearing when he arrives at the secluded spot where Emil and Marie are having sex. Instead, he notices a "murmuring sound" that is practically unrecognizable. The narrator compares this sound to "the sound of water coming from a spring" when there is nothing to disturb its flow. Whereas water rushing down a waterfall has a distinct sound that can be recognized from far away, as does water burbling over stones, the sound Frank hears is similar to that of a nearly-silent spring. Both the sound Frank hears and the sound of such a spring are so "perfectly inarticulate" that it is hard for a listener to pick out where such a sound is coming from or what it signals until they are upon it.

The imagery embedded in this simile builds suspense as the reader waits for Frank's reaction when he finally feels the sting of betrayal. At the same time, the imagery emphasizes Emil and Marie's naïveté. As far as they know, they are sharing a carefree moment. They do not realize that Frank is there and that their lives are about to end: if they are the spring in the narrator's simile, they are about to crash over the rocks of Frank's temper. If the idea of a "perfectly inarticulate" spring that does not give itself away is difficult to conceptualize, that is because it is practically nonexistent. Even a quiet spring eventually gives itself away to anyone who gets close enough. Emil and Marie have been operating for much of their lives under the fantasy that they can forever conceal their love for each other from the rest of the world. By sleeping together, they have finally pushed this fantasy to its limits.