"with its little windows like the eyes in needles, and its little doors like the covers of school-books" (pg. 329) (Simile)
This simile is used to describe the home of Miss Peecher, the prim and proper schoolteacher. The simile draws comparisons to the main areas of Miss Peecher's life: her domestic responsibilities (sewing and taking care of her household) and teaching (with the mention of school-books). She devotes careful attention to both of these areas, and the repeated use of the word little suggests that everything about Miss Peecher is modest, quiet, and unassuming. However, the simile is also quietly ironic since under her sedate and domestic appearance, Miss Peecher is actually driven by a passionate and obsessive love for Bradley Headstone.
"grinding his words slowly out, as though they came from a rusty mill" (pg. 336) (Simile)
This simile is used to compare Headstone's speech when he speaks to Lizzie, asking if he might take on the responsibility of educating her. The simile suggests that Headstone does not speak naturally or comfortably, and also highlights the way he does not seem to be entirely human. He behaves more like something mechanical or industrial, bent on a single purpose and unable to adapt.
“where accumulated scum of humanity seemed to be washed from higher grounds, like so much moral sewage” (pg. 20) (Simile)
This simile is used to describe how impoverished and sometimes criminal individuals tended to cluster in rough waterside neighborhoods, pulled there like discarded waste drawn along on the current. Dickens was often sympathetic to the poor, and by no means assumed that everyone who was poor was a criminal, but he also recognized that these working-class neighborhoods were locations where criminals and morally undesirable individuals would gather to seek refuge and opportunities. In his project of mapping out different neighborhoods, Dickens charts out where different types of individual tend to congregate.
“Thus, like the tides on which it had been borne to the knowledge of men, the Harmon murder… went up and down, ebbed and flowed” (pg. 30-31) (Metaphor)
This metaphor is used to describe how gossip about the apparent murder of John Harmon spreads through different neighborhoods, classes, and social groupings. The gossip is compared to the flow of the river as it passes along, always in motion and changing. The metaphor creates a thematic connection, since the river was the site of Harmon's death, but also reflects how many individuals who might seem totally separate from one another are actually interconnected by their interest in this news as it flows from one household to the next.
"had crept into the copse like a hunted animal, to hide and recover breath" (pg. 494) (Simile)
This simile describes how Betty Higden responds when she believes she is in danger of being arrested and taken to the workhouse. Even though Betty is old, sick, and on the verge of death, she finds the strength to run away and hide because she is so terrified. The comparison of her to a hunted animal highlights this fear, as well as her vulnerability and innocence. This simile allows Dickens to offer a powerful critique of a system that many Victorians believed was helpful to the poor, but actually created much fear and suffering.
