The sound of the church bells lingered on like a humming
In the first chapter of the novel, the narrator compares the sound of the church bells summoning people to prayer to a lingering of a humming in the ears. A simile is used to facilitate this direct comparison: "The sound of the church bells summoning people to prayer lingered on, like a humming in the ears, an uneasy transition from brightness to gloom, from gloom to brightness."
The imagery of the beggars sleeping with all their clothes on
The narrator describes the beggars sleeping in their clothes and even uses a simile to compare them to thieves. This simile gives the impression that perhaps what the beggars were doing was not permitted by law and as such they slept their illegally, "like thieves." The narrator says: "They lay down in all their clothes at a distance from one another, and slept like thieves, with their heads on the bags containing their worldly goods..."
Suspended from a hook like a piece of meat
The narrator says that the beggars in the streets were sometimes woken up by the sobs of a blind woman dreaming that she was being suspended from a hook. In order to enhance the imagery of the situation, a simile is used to compare this situation to the hanging of meat in a butcher's shop: "...sobs of a blind woman dreaming that she was covered in flies and suspended from a hook like a piece of meat in a butcher's shop."
Wept like a child
In order to bring to the attention of the reader how the drunk man who always joined the beggars on Sundays wept, the narrator uses a simile in which he compares the man's weeping to that of a child. On top of enhancing imagery, the simile also plays the role of depicting the helplessness of the drunk man: "On Sundays, this strange fraternity used to be joined by a drunk man who called for his mother and wept like a child in his sleep."
The Idiot looked like a corpse when asleep
To emphasize on how deep Zany's sleep was, the narrator compares it to a corpse. This also facilitates imagery. The narrator says: "So Flatfoot would pretend to be drunk, while the Zany (as they called the idiot), who looked like a corpse when he was asleep, became more lively with every shriek, ignoring the huddled forms lying under rags on the ground, who jeered and cackled shrilly at his crazy behaviour."
