Madame Vera's perfume
In chapter one, the narrator (Hang) introduces the intensity of Madame Vera's perfume using a simile. She says:
"As she shuffled off, the smell of her cheap perfume hung in the room, sticking like glue to the yellowed, peeling walls"(Paradise of the Blind, 12).
Through the use of this particular simile, the reader is able to conceptualize the fierceness and sharpness of the perfume that Vera had on.
Hang's shoulder's after the fever
Having been down with a fever for a few days, Hang presents the way that she walked with her shoulders hunched. She uses a simile in which she directly compares the aspect of being "hunched" to an old drug addict. She says:
"I walked with my shoulders hunched over like an old drug addict, my tiny breasts floating under a baggy shirt" (Paradise of the Blind, 13).
Flickering of the light in Hang's grandfather's house
Hang remembers an episode when she was just a girl and visited her grandfather's house. She provides a vivid and rather graphic description of the house. Additionally, she compares the flickering of the light in her grandfather's house to the phosphorescent bursts that haunt cemeteries:
"Light flickered through cracks in the chipped, rotting tiles, flashing at me like the phosphorescent bursts that haunt cemeteries" (Paradise of the Blind, 19).
The tiles in grandfather's house
Hang also uses a simile to compare the tiles which dotted her grandfather's house to the scales of a fish. The use of this direct comparison plays the role of precipitating and provoking the reader's information as the writer passes the relevant information across. Hang says:
"It was low [the house] and covered with tiles shaped like fish scales" (Paradise of the Blind, 19).
The cackling of the group of neighbour women
After being teased by one of the women, an acquaintance of her mother's, Hang compares their laughter that follows to the cackling of a bunch of young girls. This comparison plays the role of conveying to the reader, the nature of the immaturity of the women as observed by Hang at the time. She says:
"Wild laughter rippled through the group of women, and they slapped each other on the back, cackling like a bunch of young girls" (Paradise of the Blind, 20).
