Peter Schlemihl Metaphors and Similes

Peter Schlemihl Metaphors and Similes

Aware (metaphor)

Peter had ordered his servant Bendel to find the man in the grey, he wanted to get his shadow back. When Bendel came back, the news was not pleasant; he could not find him, but some man in front of the hotel had stopped him and asked to tell his master that he would be back in a year and a day. What was proposed to Peter was even more favorable offer, and only at that moment “Scales fell from Bendel’s eyes” and he realizes who this man was.

Minna – a picture to adour (metaphor)

Minna was a girl who made such a strong impression on Peter, and she came to the banquet he organized, and as he said, “In her person majesty, innocence, and grace, in union with beauty, presided over this joyous banquet.” He fell in love at the first sight.

Beautiful maid (simile)

When Peter was pompously accepted in his new dwelling, there was among the chorus of girls was the one who “eclipsed the rest as the sun eclipses the stars of night”. Peter liked this girl very much, and could thing of nothing but her.

Cut off the life (simile)

Peter felt awful without his shadow as he could not appear at the streets; everyone would notice he was shadowless, and what was more terrifying for him – sympathy from people who were poor: “Like the dragon guarding his treasure, I remained cut off from all human intercourse”. Having a lot of gold and being able to buy anything he wanted, Peter was deeply miserable.

Fever for gold (Simile)

Peter after exchanging his shadow for a purse full of gold felt like a turn of madness. When he locked the door in the most expensive room of the most expensive hotel, the first thing he did was get more and more gold out of the purse, in a sort of frenzy “that raged like a self-fed fire within him”. This was feeling that occupied him at that moment.

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