Similes

Part of the appeal of McCullers's writing style is her use of unexpected similes. As a pre-adolescent, Frankie looks for new ways to understand familiar things and also reaches for ways to understand and express experiences and feelings that are new to her. In this situation, similes are a natural form of expression.

Frankie associates her longing to go somewhere interesting with what she imagines her brother's life is like. In part one, McCullers writes, "Frankie had not seen her brother for a long, long time, and his face had become masked and changing, like a face seen under water." Later, Frankie thinks about the people at the freak show, and the Fat Lady is described as having fat that "was like loose-powdered dough which she kept slapping and working with her hands." This is a highly visual simile that is drawn from Frankie's domestic experience, as the...