Friday as Scared Horse (Simile)
“Whenever I spoke to him I was sure to smile and touch his arm, treating him as we treat a frightened horse.” (41)
Susan describes her treatment of Friday after she brings him onto the ship, leaving the island behind and setting out for England. The comparison she makes here between herself with Friday and horse-whisperer with horse reveals more about her than it does about Friday. Her condescension is self-evident. Friday in this scene isn’t otherwise comparable to an animal.
Friday's Amputated Tongue as Inert Amphibian (Simile)
“I think of the root of his tongue closed behind those heavy lips like a toad in eternal winter, and I shiver.” (57)
The “toad in eternal winter” hibernates in a dark place, pulsing and alive, but incapable of leaping out, becoming itself. This simile that Susan uses in imagining Friday’s dismembered tongue captures an excruciating impotence that brings the experience of Friday’s physical muteness to life and indeed inspires a deep “shiver.”
Conversation as Embrace (Simile)
“The desire for answering speech is like the embrace of, the embrace by, another being.” (80)
Susan is speaking to Friday, trying to describe to him the experience of speech, language, and conversation. Her simile comparing conversational speech to an act of coupling is an evocative way of imagining a dialectical exchange of language.
Solitary Woman as Frightened Prey (simile)
“But remember, a woman alone must travel like a hare, one ear forever cocked to the hounds.” (100)
Susan describes traveling alone. The comparison she makes speaks to the constant threat that a single woman faces in the period of the novel. The alert hare captures the nervous tension of the solitary female. The hounds describe the physical threat of men.
Existential Questions as Cause of Paralysis (Simile)
“As to who among us is a ghost and who not I have nothing to say: it is a question we can only stare at in silence, like a bird before a snake, hoping it will not swallow us." (134)
In this simile, Coetzee illustrates an experience of paralysis in the face of the question of the meaning of personal identity. The question of whether or not we’re all ghosts arises after the girl claiming to be Susan Barton’s daughter returns and Susan begins to doubt her own existence. The question is more than Susan’s literal question. It’s a broader question about the meaning of personal existence in the face of historical erasure. The illustration of the bird before the snake shows that the question is one that threatens to consume and indeed, erase us.
