The movement of arms over the table
In “Aunts,” the writer employs expert and distinguished language including the use of similes. In the first paragraph, he introduces being led through dark rooms that are crowded with furniture and voices whispering over tea. The long bony arms of his guides are said to “move over the table like the stretched feet of storks.” In this way, the writer enhances the imagery of this movement.
Dolly
The writer employs vivid descriptions in the presentation of his aunt Dolly. Perhaps as a result of her old age, the narrator compares the leaping of Dolly’s brain to the activity of a spark plug: “ [Her] brain leaps like a spark plug bringing this year that year to life.” The mechanism of action of Dolly’s brain is thus brought out in this description through the imagery evoked by comparison to spark plug.
Peggy’s aunt
The appearance of Peggy’s aunt, particularly, her “long black clothes loose at the edges,” is enhanced through the use of a simile. The writer compares her to a rooster dragging its tail: “She swept into the school at noon […] futtering down the halls in her long black clothes loose at the edges like a rooster dragging its tail.”
The brush of the fang
Lalla was quite preoccupied with finding death in her last days, something she is not successful in getting. She looks under leaves for the giant snake whose fang “would brush against the ankle like a whisper.” The writer’s use of the simile, in this case, relates to the enhancement of imagery and presentation of the ‘soft’ kind of death Lalla was interested in.
Lalla
Lalla’s swimming in the rough waters is brought out vibrantly. As she dives under the water and comes back up for air, she gets pulled in, the imagery of which is enhanced through the comparison to a bait. The imagery of what follows becomes more prevalent through the use of similes: “… then there was the great blue ahead of her, like a sheaf of blue wheat, like a large eye that peered towards her, and she hit it and was dead.”
