Simile to show how a drunken woman was singing
On page 20 of Justine, the narrator uses a simile to describe how a drunken prostitute was singing at night. He says, ’’...A drunken whore walks in a dark street at night shedding snatches of song like petals.’’ The simile here illustrates that the woman kept changing songs ‘shedding snatches of song’ in a manner that mimic how a person sheds petals from a flower.
Use of both metaphor and simile to describe a kiss
While the narrator and Melissa are having an illicit affair, they meet at a colored stall where fruits were sold. The narrator says that he wold ignore that she had come from another man for her kisses were like,’’... but so fresh, so young, the open petal of the mouth that fell upon mine like an unslaked summer." The word "petal" is a metaphor for the lips of Melissa’s mouth while the simile ‘like an unslaked summer ‘ has been used to describe the kiss. The simile means that her kiss would be as welcome as an unquenched summer.
The use of similes to describe the narrator’s state of mind
On page 21 of Justine, the narrator says regarding his emotional state, ’’As for me, am neither happy nor unhappy. I lay suspended like a hair or a feather in the cloudy mixtures of memory.’’ He has therefore likened his state of neither being happy nor unhappy to a suspended hair. This simile creates imagery.
The use of simile to describe the movement in the shops of Alexandria
On page 22 of the novel Justine, the narrator says regarding the shops of Alexandria,’’ The shops filling and emptying like the lungs in the Rue des Soures.’’ This simile likens the movement of people in and out of the shops to the inflating and deflating of the lungs. The simile serves the purpose of illustration for it creates a vivid picture in the mind of the reader of how people kept coming in and out of the shops.
The behavior of the pigeons at six o’clock
The narrator, on page 22, shows how the pigeons flew around at six o’clock using the simile,”…. the dazzled pigeons, like rings of scattered paper, climb above the minarets to take the last rays of the waning light on their wings. Ringing of silver on the money-changers’ counters.” The simile therefore likens how rings of scattered paper float around to the flying of the birds.
