The flakes of dandruff
Ozeki vividly describes Ugawa Sensei to emphasize her perception of him as a loser. The flakes of dandruff on the turtleneck sweaters that Ugawa wears are compared to spores, a comparison that makes his uncleanliness explicit: “…he used to wear polyester turtleneck sweaters with flakes of dandruff, like spores, on the shoulders.”
"Like a wisp"
The narrator’s disinterest, unconcern, and indifference with regards to the events happening in school is brought out through the direct comparison of how she slipped through the hours like a wisp or drifting patch of humidity: “ I slipped through my school days like a wisp of cloud, like a drifting patch of humidity, barely there…”
Constantly changing life
In the excerpt posted on the issue of death, a simile is used to emphasizes the constantly changing nature of life. Unambiguously, the writer compares the quickness with which this change happens to that of a puff of wind: “Life is always changing, like a puff of wind in the air, or a wave in the sea, or even a thought in the mind.”
The swelling hours
The writer compares the quick flow of the time and the piling of hours to the swelling of a wave. While the use of the simile enhances imagery, it also emphasizes how time quickly flew by: “…the hours seemed to aggregate and swell like a wave, swallowing huge chunks of her day.”
Ruth’s mind
The writer portrays Ruth’s mind through the use of a simile. Comparing her mind to a garbage patch brings out how unproductive she’d become while also alluding to disorientation. The writer notes: “Ruth’s mind felt like a garbage patch, an undifferentiated mat of becalmed and fractured pixels.”
