In stark contrast to where I grew up-in warm, lush green Trivandrum, Kerala, filled with rich sights, sounds and people-life at the Poles is quiet. The harshness of winter brings along with it an eerie desolation and near-total silence. Survival in this frigid, dark and windy terrain is only for the fittest. A misstep can mean anything from an icy injury to a bitter, benumbed death.
But while it is tenuous, life here is also humbling-physically, mentally, and even spiritually. The experience has allowed me to witness the wonderous dualities of nature: raw, brutal and unforgiving but nurturing and awe-inspiring at the same time.
As the days shorten, almost all life starts to depart seeking warmer lands. But those who stay are surrounded by glacial beauty and an otherworldly stillness that stands unmatched. In peak winter months, the sun seems to live only in memory. Its absence however, is only an illusion: shimmering displays of blue, red, yellow, green, and orange auroras shifting and snaking like billowing curtains across the pitch black sky remind me that the light shall one day return.
Even the emptiness of the land is deceptive. Look closely and out waddles a flock of penguins from behind an ice shelf on the Antarctic peninsula.
Identify the literary device in the sentence given below:
"shimmering displays of blue, red, yellow, green, and orange auroras shifting and snaking like billowing curtains across the pitch black sky..."
Choose the correct option:-
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 3
The correct answer is Option (3) → simile
Simile:
- A simile compares two unlike things openly, using like or as.
- Its parts:
- the thing described: the auroras, shifting and snaking across the sky;
- the thing it is compared with: billowing curtains;
- the comparing word: like.
- The comparison lets the reader see the coloured lights rising and folding in waves, as a curtain does in the wind.
Example: Her smile was like sunshine after the rain.
Why the Other Options are Incorrect?
Option 1: metaphor — Incorrect. A metaphor compares without "like" or "as", saying that one thing is another ("Time is a thief"). Here the comparison is made openly with "like".
Option 2: hyperbole — Incorrect. Hyperbole is deliberate exaggeration ("I have told you a million times"). The line describes the auroras as they really look; nothing is exaggerated.
Option 4: assonance — Incorrect. Assonance is the repetition of vowel sounds in nearby words ("the rain in Spain"); the line is built on a comparison, not on a pattern of vowel sounds.
Contrast: a simile compares openly with like or as; a metaphor says that one thing is another.