Work like a mule
During their conversation with Frank, Morris uses a simile to compare how he worked very intensely to a mule. The "mule" is metaphorically used to add intensity of how hard he worked particularly doing menial things: "I work like a mule for what I want, and just when it looks like I am going to get it, I make some kind of a stupid move, and everything that is just about nailed down tight blows up in my face."
The planted Polish dame
The narrator uses a simile to compare the way the Polish dame was planted at the door directly to a statue. This direct comparison precipitates the reader's imagination to visualize the Polish dame's immobility. He says: "The Polish dame was planted at the door like a statue, distrusting him with beady eyes to open the place in time for her to get to work."
Description of Helen's body
The narrator uses similes while describing Helen's body to the reader in order to arouse the reader's imagination. The narrator compares her breasts to small birds in flight as well as her ass to a flower: "Her body was young, soft, lovely, the breasts like small birds in flight, her ass like a flower."
Frank's difficulty confessing
The narrator compares the difficulty that Frank had confessing to Morris that he was one of the guys that had held him up to the sticking of a bone through the neck. This direct comparison plays the role of conveying to the reader in an emphasized way how formidable and effortful Frank found it to confess: "So the confession had to come first--this stuck like a bone through the neck."
Frank's feeling
Frank having escaped out of the Russian army into the US compares his feelings in the store to a fish fried in deep fat, directly, using a simile: "He had escaped out of the Russian Army to the U. S. A., but once in a store he was like a fish fried in deep fat."
