simile (n.)
[sim-uh-lee]
1) a figure of speech in which two unlike things are explicitly compared
metaphor (n.)
[met-uh-fawr, -fer)
1) a figure of speech in which a term or phrase is applied to something to which it is not literally applicable in order to suggest a resemblance
Similes
Chapter 1
"He came like a protecting spirit to the poor girl"
This was the part when Frankenstein's father met his mother for the first time, and "saved" her.
Chapter 2
"The saintly soul of Elizabeth shone like a shrine-dedicated lamp in our peaceful home."
This shows that Victor really idolizes his sister Elizabeth.
"When I would account to myself for the birth of that passion which afterwards ruled my destiny. I find it arise, like a mountain river, from ignoble and almost forgotten sources; but, swelling as it proceeded, it became the torrent which, in its course, has swept away all my hopes and joys.
Frankenstein compares his passion to a mountain river.
"Sir Isaac Newton is said to have avowed that he felt like a child picking up shells beside the great and unexplored ocean of truth."
Isaac Newton compared himself to a curious child
Chapter 4
"Not that, like a magic scene, it all opened upon me at once: the information I had obtained was of a nature rather to direct my endeavours so soon as I should point them towards the object of my search, than to exhibit that object already accomplished."
Victor's realization was similar to that of a magic scene.
"I was like the Arabian who had been buried with the dead, and found a passage to life, aided only by one glimmering, and seemingly ineffectual, light."
He compares himself to Sinbad in The Arabian Nights.
"No one can conceive the variety of feelings which bore me onwards, like a hurricane, in the first enthusiasm of success."
Frankenstein's feelings are identical to a hurricane.
Chapter 10
"The surface is very uneven, rising like the waves of a troubled sea, descending low, and interspersed by rifts that sink deep."
This was right before the part when Frankenstein encounters his Monster after a year. He was traveling at the time, and compared the surface he was on, to the "waves of a troubled sea".
Metaphors
Chapter 2
"Harmony was the soul of our companionship."
Here, Shelley compares the relationship between Victor and Elizabeth to one of harmony. A reader knows what something is when it harmonious. Therefore, one is able to understand the level of love between Victor and Elizabeth based upon the comparison to harmony.
"I feel exquisite pleasure in dwelling on the recollections of childhood, before misfortune had tainted my mind, and changed its bright visions of extensive usefulness into gloomy and narrow reflections upon self . . . I find it arise, like a mountain river, from ignoble and almost forgotten sources; but swelling as it proceeded, it became the torrent which, in its course, has swept away all my hopes and joys."
The use of a mountain river to describe Victor’s feelings is the beginning of a theme that is continued throughout the story. The introduction of an association of human feeling and nature, shows how Shelley prefers to use metaphors of a natural setting rather than other descriptions. She chooses the more "romantic" image of a swelling mountain stream, to relate Victor's experiences and feelings to.