The stretch of the elevated tracks
Martin’s mother is unyielding in terms of allowing him to cross Broadway as she herself shops at the less expensive outlets on Sixth Avenue. Here, the elevated tracks are said to stretch away, and a simile is used to compare them to a long roof with holes to allow passage of the sun: “on Sixth Avenue, where high in the air the elevated tracks stretched away like a long roof with holes in it for the sun to come through.”
The brass gate
The writer uses a simile to bring out how the brass gate stretched out. Specifically, the writer notes that the “rattling brass gate unfolded like a bellows,” a comparison that facilitates imagery while at the same time enhancing the reader’s understanding of the sound following the opening of the gate.
The tower of the bridge
The bridge, though uncompleted, is imagined as quite a magnificent structure. Its tower is described as fat and its stretch into the sky is likened to a gigantic hotel to enhance the imagery. Millhauser notes that: “The fat tower of the almost completed bridge rose into the sky like a gigantic hotel.”
The floating gulls
Millhauser employs a simile in the comparative presentation of the floating of gulls on the lustrous dark water to the floating of “wooden shooting-gallery ducks.” Through the use of the simile, the writer achieves the evocation of an image of the floating gulls in the reader’s mind through linking the same to an image of floating wooden shooting-gallery ducks. The writer notes: “Gulls floated on the gleaming dark water like wooden shooting-gallery ducks.”
Mr. Toft’s folds of tired flesh
The effect of ‘private grief’ on Mr. Toft is perceivable through the language employed by the writer. When he turns to Martin, his “pair of gloomy dark eyes” make the grief all the more pronounced and a simile is used to compare the folds of flesh under his eyes to melted candlewax: “Mr. Toft seemed sunk in some private grief and turned to Martin a pair of gloomy dark eyes over folds of tired flesh like melted candlewax.” The simile enhances the imagery of the bags under Mr. Toft’s eyes, perhaps due to tiredness or the ‘private grief.’
