Walser as a Furnished Room (Simile)
In the beginning of the novel, Carter introduces Walser in a concentrated character analysis that focuses on his propensity to doubt what people tell him, and how this habit relates to his profession; she writes that he retains "the privileged irresponsibility of the journalist, the professional necessity to see all and believe nothing" (10). Further down the page, Carter writes that "there remained something a little unfinished about him, still. He was like a handsome house that has been let, furnished. There were scarcely any of those little, what you might call personal touches to his personality..."
Carter revisits and resolves this simile near the end of the novel: "If, before he set out with the circus in pursuit of the bird-woman, he had been like a house to let, furnished, now he was tenanted at last, even if that interior tenant was insubstantial as a phantom and sometimes disappeared for days at a time" (261). The simile and revisitation of the simile demonstrate Walser's transformation from being vacuous to a somewhat-self-actualized character.
Buffo Bottles the World (Simile)
When she introduces Buffo the Great, Carter emphasizes his nihilism and his love of, or, extreme dependence upon, alcohol. She deploys a highly imagistic simile that combines these two of Buffo's major characteristics, writing, "his drinking was prodigious yet always seemed somehow unsatisfactory to himself, as if alcohol were an inadequate substitute for some headier or more substantial intoxicant, as though he would have liked, if he could, to bottle the whole world, tip it down his throat, then piss it against the wall" (118).
Glass Mignon (Simile)
After Walser takes Mignon to Fevvers' five-star hotel, Fevvers has Lizzie draw her a luxurious bath. As Mignon bathes, she starts to sing "So We'll Go No More a Roving," and the fact that she doesn't understand the words she sings moves all of her listeners—Lizzie, Fevvers, and Walser—close to tears. Carter writes, "Mignon sang her foreign song without meaning, without feeling, as if the song shone through her, as though she were glass" (134). The simile poses Mignon's ignorance as a canvas unto which others make meaning, a quality both moving for others and troublesome for Mignon, herself, because it denies her agency in the process of others making meaning through her. As her character develops and she is transformed by her relationship with the Princess of Abyssinia, her glass-like fragility quality diminishes.
The Human Chicken Venus (Simile)
During the Grand Imperial Circus's final performance in St. Petersburg, Jack Walser, dubbed the Human Chicken by his fellow clowns, hides beneath the silver entree lid, waiting to be "served" to Buffo the Great as a part of the Christmas Dinner routine. Buffo, however, is too drunk to unveil him, so Walser is forced to burst out on his own accord. Carter writes, "Walser flexed his muscles with pleasure since his position was exceedingly cramped and uncomfortable and let out a rousing 'Cock-a-doodle-do!' The dish-cover went bounding and rebounding down the table, sending the rubber settings bouncing this way and that way. Up Walser rose out of his garnish like Venus from the foam, spraying parsley and roast potatoes around him..." (176-177).
Venus is a familiar allusion to the novel, and its farcical application to Walser in this instance—in contrast to its usual application to Fevvers, in a more earnest manner—indicates Walser's official initiation into circus- and clown-life. When Buffo misses his cue, Walser applies the first and most important tenet of the Ludic Game: the show must go on!
The Supple Lassoo of Mignon's Voice (Metaphor)
If before she met the Princess of Abyssinia, Mignon's voice was like glass, and she was, as Carter writes, "only a kind of fleshy phonograph, made to transmit music of which she had no consciousness," Carter describes her authorship of musical rendition after meeting the princess as follows: "Now she seized hold of the song in the supple lassoo of her voice and mated it with her new-found soul, so the song was utterly transformed and yet its essence did not change" (247). As with Walser's "furnished room" metaphor, this metaphor recalls an earlier metaphor for Mignon's voice, and thereby demonstrates her character's arc.
