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Setting
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 1
Explanation and Analysis—Dog, Beard:
In Chapter 1, the narrator describes how Archie wants to change his life, guided by Fate: all he needs is a flip of a coin to be convinced that he will begin "another life." The narrator describes how this urge is fundamentally masculine, using a simile:
At the traffic lights he flipped a ten-pence coin and smiled when the result seemed to agree that Fate was pulling him toward another life. Like a dog on a leash round a corner. Generally, women can’t do this, but men retain the ancient ability to leave a family and a past. They just unhook themselves, like removing a fake beard, and skulk discreetly back into society, changed men.
Archie wants to change his life like "removing a fake beard." The narrator claims that men can do this easily, so, fittingly, the disguise in the simile is one much more likely to be used by men. Archie plans to join a long line of men abandoning their families. Humorously, though, this very same change of life is described as "like a dog on a leash around a corner." This other simile describes Archie's decision, as far as he is concerned, as entirely fated and not his own doing. The two similes suggest that Archie does want to change his life but that this desire is ultimately a subservient reaction to fate.
Related Themes:
Explanation and Analysis—Fresh Dew:
White Teeth begins with a series of Archie's attempted suicides. After these he has something of an epiphany, feeling as if his life will finally improve. The narrator describes this realization, in the second sentence below, using a simile to describe Archie's newfound "luck":
For, though he did not know it, and despite the Hoover tube that lay on the passenger seat pumping from the exhaust pipe into his lungs, luck was with him that morning. The thinnest covering of luck was on him like fresh dew. While he slipped in and out of consciousness, the position of the planets, the music of the spheres, the flap of a tiger moth’s diaphanous wings in Central Africa, and a whole bunch of other stuff that Makes Shit Happen had decided it was second-chance time for Archie. Somewhere, somehow, by somebody, it had been decided that he would live.
Archie decides not to kill himself since "the thinnest covering of luck was on him like fresh dew." This simile characterizes "luck" as a natural but fleeting substance that can temporarily cover something. In other words, luck is entirely beyond one's control, but it is something that can seem to affect every part of one's life.
But then the narrator references a great deal of other representations of luck, soothsaying, and "a whole bunch of other stuff." This paragraph shows how this narrator will often begin with a simple simile, as described above, then spiral out into a series of elaborations and allusions to embellish the story. At the end of the novel it will be revealed that luck plays a crucial role in Archie's life, especially in the fate of Dr. Perret. This elaboration shows the reader that Archie's life in fact depends on luck.
Related Themes:
Chapter 2
Explanation and Analysis—Master Plan of the East:
The narrator of White Teeth is frequently metafictional, meaning the novel makes reference to the narrative itself on a variety of occasions. In Chapter 2, the narrator informs the reader that in order to understand the story of Clara Bowden, the reader must first understand the story of Ryan Topps. The narrator articulates this through a simile comparing its own narration and a historian's work on Nazi Germany:
Clara was from somewhere. She had roots. More specifically, she was from Lambeth (via Jamaica) and she was connected, through tacit adolescent agreement, to one Ryan Topps. Because before Clara was beautiful she was ugly. And before there was Clara and Archie there was Clara and Ryan. And there is no getting away from Ryan Topps. Just as a good historian need recognize Hitler’s Napoleonic ambitions in the east in order to comprehend his reluctance to invade the British in the west, so Ryan Topps is essential to any understanding of why Clara did what she did. Ryan is indispensable.
The elaborate simile claims that even though Ryan Topps is not directly important to many of the other characters in the novel, he is still important to understand Clara's story. In the same way, the narrator argues, a historian trying to understand why Nazi Germany never invaded Britain would have to understand the history of Hitler's other campaigns far across Europe. The simile shows that the narrator conceives of the book as a complete history of the events of the main characters' lives, and every detail must be presented to the reader.
The specific historical allusion in the simile is also important to the novel. Smith references Generalplan Ost, or "Master Plan in the East," in which the Third Reich planned to conquer and colonize most of eastern Europe up to the Ural Mountains as "living space" for the German people. As the narrator describes, this was a similar ambition to those of the French Empire under Napoleon. Hitler considered this campaign a higher priority than western Europe, but the invasion of Russia became one of the costliest military campaigns in world history. For this and other reasons, Hitler never attempted an invasion of the United Kingdom. While the British did certainly suffer in the war, the ruling monarchy remained intact and was never usurped by the Nazis.
It is precisely this historical situation that allows for the British empire to persist well past the end of the war. This results in the system of immigration, particularly from former colonies in South Asia, which creates the multiracial social fabric depicted in the novel. The relationship between a declining but still surviving empire and growing immigrant populations forms a fundamental problem in the book. The narrator references Hitler's ambitions in the east both as a comparison to justify the inclusion of Ryan Topps and as a reference to important historical context for the book's situation.
Related Themes:
Chapter 7
Explanation and Analysis—Pale Blue Eyes:
In Chapter 7, Millat, Magid, and Irie visit J. P. Hamilton, an old man who at first thinks the children are asking for donations. Magid, the most socially confident of the three, steps forward to greet the man more properly. He then sees his brilliant blue eyes, which the narrator describes using a simile based in optical physics:
“Please,” came the voice from the bird-man, a voice that even the children sensed was from a different class, a different era. “I must ask that you remove yourselves from my doorstep. I have no money whatsoever; so be your intention robbing or selling I’m afraid you will be disappointed.”
Magid stepped forward, trying to place himself in the line of the old man’s sight, for the left eye, blue as Rayleigh scattering, had looked beyond them, while the right was so compacted beneath wrinkles it hardly opened.
"Rayleigh scattering" refers to the scattering of light by particles much smaller than the wavelength of the light; in this circumstance, light with longer wavelengths is scattered much more than those with shorter ones. It is the technical term for what causes the sky to be blue, as nitrogen molecules, which make up the majority of the atmosphere, are about a thousand times smaller than the wavelength of visible light, causing blue light (which has a longer wavelength) to be scattered much more than other colors.
In other words, this is simply physics jargon to say that Hamilton's eyes are sky blue. In the context of the rest of the passage, while Hamilton's voice and manner show him to be "from a different class; a different era," these bright eyes reveal a more profound spiritual depth. By describing his eyes with this scientific simile, the narrator proposes a new way of understanding Hamilton, not through his different class but by the natural beauty retained in his old face.
Furthermore, this simile shows the narrator entering into Magid's mind. This simile only arrives when Magid steps up to look at Hamilton, and Magid is the only person present who would be scientifically educated enough to be familiar with Rayleigh scattering. This is one of many passages in which the narrator takes on the voice of one of the characters, seeing the world as they do.
