AP® English Literature and Composition · Unit 2
6.A Simile: Main Subject and Comparison Subject (FIG-1.E)
A simile names a main subject and compares it to another subject so that only certain qualities cross over, arriving already connected to each other rather than as a separate list.
A simile has two subjects: the one the poem is actually about, called the main subject, and the one it borrows from, called the comparison subject. Saying a person is like a candle does not hand over every fact about candles. Wax, wicks, and matches stay behind. What crosses is a narrow, chosen set of qualities: a slow burning down, a light that costs something to give off. That selectivity is the whole point. A simile is a filter, not a transfer of everything.
The mechanism is a kind of editing. A poet picks a comparison subject because it holds a structure, several qualities already fused into one process, and lets that structure attach to the main subject in a single move. In Wordsworth's 'I wandered lonely as a cloud', the cloud lends its drifting, solitary movement across the sky, not its shape or its weather. That is why a list of traits feels flatter than a simile: the list gives facts one at a time, while the simile gives a relationship between facts, delivered whole. This is also why not every 'like' is a simile. 'She looked like her mother' or 'it felt like Tuesday' use 'like' to assert similarity within the same category, a person compared to a person, not a crossing between categories. A simile needs that crossing: sea compared to road, patience compared to a bank loan.
This groundwork matters for what follows in the unit, because once a simile keeps unfolding across several lines instead of closing after one, it starts behaving like an extended metaphor or conceit, and tracking which qualities stay live across all those lines becomes the real work of reading the poem's turn.
Key terms
- Main subject
- The person, thing, or idea the poem is actually describing through the comparison.
- Comparison subject
- The other thing invoked in the simile, chosen because it carries qualities the poet wants to lend to the main subject.
- Simile
- A figure using like or as that crosses categories and transfers only selected qualities from one subject to another.
- Extended simile
- A simile that continues developing its comparison across multiple lines instead of closing after a single phrase.
Watch it explained
- How it worksHow does a simile carry only some qualities across from one thing to the other?
- Worked exampleFind the qualities that move across in 'I wandered lonely as a cloud'.
- Common mistakeWhy isn't every sentence containing the word 'like' a simile?
- Going furtherWhat changes when a simile keeps unfolding for six lines instead of stopping at one?
Check yourself
End of topic.