Here you can read an extract from the study guide:
At the beginning of the story, the narrator describes the summer when her father died as “perfectly formed, as a china tea set” (l. 7). The simile forms a clear contrast between the beautiful weather and the tragedy experienced by the narrator. This makes her father’s death seem even more horrible.
In another description of the summer when her father died, the narrator sees clouds that “rolled through the skies like long cats” (l. 9). The simile points to the narrator’s childlike imagination at the time, as well as presenting an idyllic image of summer, even though we know that it was a very difficult summer for the narrator and her family.
Whenever the mother travels to the Indian town, she changes and becomes a different person who speaks “like a song, sweet and soft” (l. 64). The simile shows the mother’s drastic change, as she is always silent and depressed in the village. In the town, however, where she is surrounded by people of her own nationality, she can finally be herself.
When the narrator breaks down in the woods, she sees “clusters of bright buttercups shining like splashes of sunshine” (l. 96) and butterflies that “flapped like scraps of paper tossed in the air” (l. 97). The similes contribute to the poetic and idyllic descriptions of the narrator’s surroundings. This is a clear contrast to her troubled state of mind.
