"The past is like a tapeworm, constantly growing, which I carry curled up inside me, and it never loses its rings no matter how hard I try to empty my guts in every WC, English-style or Turkish..." (107) (Simile)
With this simile, the narrator of the story "Looks down in the gathering shadow" vividly communicates that he cannot leave his past behind. Furthermore, he colors this thought with negative connotations of disease. His reference to trying to excrete the tapeworm that represents his past in different kinds of toilets directly parallels the way he has tried to move to different settings but has still carried his identity and experiences with him rather than leaving it behind.
"This is what you were aiming at, O Reader, moving around her like a rattlesnake!" (31) (Simile)
In this simile, the reader asking Ludmilla for her phone number is compared to a rattlesnake attacking its prey. This simile sheds light on the predatory and sexist way the reader sees female people and book characters throughout If on a winter's night a traveler. He sees his role as dominant and seeks to use cunning to trap Ludmilla, similar to a vicious animal such as a rattlesnake trapping a weaker animal. However, there is some humor to this moment as the reader has stumbled through his interaction with Ludmilla. The narrator jokingly contrasts the way the hyper-masculine way the reader sees himself with the reality of the interaction.
"You wander bewildered among those austere walls which students' hands have arabesqued with outsize capital writing and detailed graffiti, just as the cavemen felt the need to decorate the cold walls of their caves" (47) (Simile)
This quote described the reader's thoughts upon arriving at the university to meet with Ludmilla and Professor Uzzi-Tuzii. His comparison of graffiti on the university's walls to cave drawings shows his patronizing attitude toward university students and their studies. This will be drawn out further during the scene in which the reader participates in a university seminar upon the invitation of Ludmilla's sister Lotaria. The description of the cavemen and their drawings and comparison to contemporary graffiti implies that humans across the ages have marked the places they live with words and art in an effort to personalize and differentiate certain spaces.
"The knot of his tie sticking out the sack as if from a sweater" (103) (Simile)
This dark simile describes the knot on the tie of Jojo, a dead man, which sticks out of the sack the narrator and his accomplice are transporting him in. This simile mixes the morbid—a dead body in a sack—with the everyday—a tie sticking out as if from a sweater. This exemplifies the tone of the entire story in which the narrator talks blithely about the criminal escapades that have led him to flee from country to country.
"The ideal model—to say it in her words—is the author who produces books 'as a pumpkin vine produces pumpkins.'" (189) (Simile)
In this quote, Silas Flannery reflects on Ludmilla's opinions about books and authorship. Throughout If on a winter's night a traveler, Ludmilla's opinions about the content and tone of a perfect book fluctuate, but her opinion of what makes a great author stays constant. She desires to see the process of authorship as a natural process, which is why she refuses to see what happens at a publishing house and is so emotionally affected by Marana's meddling with the publication process. Flannery states that Ludmilla uses many metaphors based on nature to describe the ideal writing process, but that "the image of the pumpkin referred directly to me [Flannery]" (189). The implication of this comparison, which Flannery recognizes and is somewhat hurt by, is that Flannery cares so little for writing craft that he is actually the ideal writer.
