“Their eyes were close together and non-protruding; their ears were high set, but more laterally located than those of the Martians, while their snouts and teeth were strikingly like those of our African gorilla.”
As one might expect, much of the metaphorical language in a story about a visit to Maris where creatures exist is engaged to provide a contextual clue to what the Martian creatures look like. The secret power of the simile for the writer is that it cut down on the words needed to effectively describe something which does not actually exist. If you can provide a contextual clue through comparison, you can create a picture in the mind of the reader using remarkably less descriptive prose.
The Watchdog
Another metaphorical comparison is utilized to describe the puppy-like beast that is the Martian watchdog: “The thing was about the size of a Shetland pony, but its head bore a slight resemblance to that of a frog, except that the jaws were equipped with three rows of long, sharp tusks.”
The Conjuror
If there was any doubt as to the time period in which Burroughs wrote his novel, there is one particular simile which definitely helps to place it within the context of a certain period of history. Or, at the very least, to take it firmly out of the context of a later period:
“Possibly I had conjured up impossible dangers, like some nervous old housewife, and when I should catch up with Powell would get a good laugh for my pains.”
“the planet of paradoxes”
Here is the metaphorical nickname which John Carter has assigned to the red planet. This appellation occurs to him as a various recurring conventions which taking place there including, notably, “crude justice, which always marks Martian dealings.”
John Carter, Interplanetary Philosopher
While most of the metaphorical imagery is, as noted, given to comparative description, John Carter, as the above example exhibits, also reveals himself to be something of an interplanetary philosopher:
“cowardice is of a surety its own punishment”
