Maycomb later.

In describing Dill, Scout later mentions that:

...we came to know Dill as a pocket Merlin...

In comparing Dill, Scout alludes to the famed and legendary wizard Merlin, an important character in the tales of King Arthur. She exaggerates by comparing Dill to the celebrated character but effectively portrays the fact that what Dill said and did enthralled her and Jem so much that he seemed almost magical. Dill was a smaller version of Merlin.

In a later discussion about the Radley house, Scout mentions the following about Dill:

...it drew him as the moon draws water.

In using this simile, Scout is describing Dill's overwhelming fascination with the Radley house. By comparing it to a natural event, she is suggesting that Dill's attraction is instinctive. He cannot control his desire to be close to the house. It is as if it draws him in, as the moon's gravity pulls on the oceans, creating tides. It is an irresistible and uncontrollable urge. 

When they discuss Boo Radley, Scout refers to Miss Stephanie Crawford's description of him by using a simile:

...his head was like a skull lookin' at her.

Miss Crawford's portrayal supports the stereotypical view everyone in Maycomb had of Boo. He had become, in essence, the town's bogeyman. Boo was surrounded in mystery and theories about him abounded. He was perceived as a pernicious creature, out to do harm. The comparison to a skull adds to the mystery and horror associated with him. The death's head implies danger and something supernatural. Ironically, though, the children later discover that the town's perception of Boo could not have been further from the truth, for he is the one who rescues them from Bob Ewell's malice.

In chapter one, similes help us feel part of the richly imagined community of Maycomb. They also help to characterize Dill.

In the opening paragraphs, the narrator paints a picture of the slow-moving, old-fashioned southern world of Maycomb and its white privilege: "Ladies bathed before noon, after their three-o’clock naps, and by nightfall were like soft teacakes with frostings of sweat and sweet talcum."

A sense of Dill's essential innocence and purity emerges in this simile: "his hair was snow white and stuck to his head like duckfluff."

Stephanie Crawford represents, in contrast, the way some people in the town stereotype Boo Radley as a monster when she says of him that his "head was like a skull lookin‘ at her." This is a stock simile, a cliche lacking in imagination.

In discussing Dill's strong desire to get Boo out of the house, Jem says  "it’s sort of like making a turtle come out…" In the way Dill reacts to this simile with imaginative and sensitive engagement, we learn more about his essential humanity. When he finds out that, according to Jem, you make a turtle stick its head out by lighting a match underneath it. Dill reacts to this by calling it "hateful" and worrying that it will hurt the turtle. Already, we might be falling in love with Dill and his decency. 

In describing the sick, addicted, and dying Mrs. Dubose, to whom Jem has been given the assignment by Atticus of reading each afternoon, Scout employs original similes, to say the least:

She was horrible.  Her face was the color of a dirty pillowcase, and the corner of her mouth glistened with wet, which inched like a glacier down the deep grooves enclosing her chin.

 notices that Mrs. Dubose's corrections of Jem have become fewer and fewer.  And, something has happened, for only her head and shoulders are visible above her covers.  As her head moves from side to side, Scout sees saliva collecting on her lips:

Her mouth seemed to have a private existence of its own.  It worked separate and apart from the rest of her, out and in, like a clam hole at low tide.

Occasionally it would say, "Pt," like some viscous substance coming to a boil.

One simile I recall is when Aunt Alexandra comes to live with the Finches. She seems to know everything about every family’s history and makes judgments of families often referencing their ancestor’s similar tendencies. She knows the people of Maycomb, fits into the culture effortlessly, almost immediately becomes a part of the Ladies Missionary Society and the Maycomb Amanuensis Club. Scout describes her as seeming as if she had always lived there. The simile used to describe Aunt Alexandra’s transition back into Maycomb life is, “Aunt Alexandra fitted into the world of Maycomb like a hand in a glove, but never into the world of Jem and me.”

Examples of similes used by Scout in To Kill a Mockingbird:

• "He was as good as his worst performance."--Scout's description of Dill's acting skills (Chapter 4).
• "The tire bumped on gravel, skeetered... and popped me like a cork onto pavement."--Scout's description of her tire ride onto the Radley property (Chapter 4).
• "He's as old as you, nearly."--Scout describing Walter Cunningham as compared to brother Jem (Chapter 3).
• "She looked and smelled like a peppermint drop."--Scout describing Miss Caroline (Chapter 2). 

As I look through the book, the first simile that I come to is in Chapter 1.  Here, Scout, as the narrator, is talking about the climate of Maycomb.  She says that ladies are "like soft teacakes with frostings of sweat and sweet talcum."  This is, of course, because it is so hot and humid there.

The next simile I come to refers to Dill.  She says that his hair sticks to his head "like duckfluff."

A third simile used by Scout comes in Chapter 2.  The teacher is reading them a long story and the kids are getting bored.  Soon, they are "wriggling like a bucketful of catawba worms."

A simile is a figure of speech in which you compare two different things using the words "as," or "like." Good examples would be "as strong as an ox," or "like a bull in a china shop." Scout comes up with many wonderful similes in To Kill a Mockingbird. One of my own personal favorites is the colorful way she describes the ladies of Maycomb:

[The ladies] were like soft teacakes with frostings of sweat and sweet talcum.

This particular simile says a lot about the strenuous efforts of Maycomb's female population to appear ladylike and refined in the midst of the intense summer heat.

Then there's Scout's vivid description of Mrs. Dubose, the mean old lady who always yells at Scout and Jem each time they walk past her house. There's something appropriately cold and hard about the simile that Scout uses to describe the old woman, which perfectly captures her icy demeanor:

She was horrible. Her face was the color of a dirty pillowcase, and the corner of her mouth glistened with wet, which inched like a glacier down the deep grooves enclosing her chin.

There are a couple of similes in chapter 8 during the fire at Miss Maudie's.  When looking at the fire, Scout says to Jem,

"Jem, it looks like a pumpkin."

Here the house in flames is being compared to a big orange pumpkin.  Then in narration she says right after that,

"Smoke was rolling off our house and Miss Rachel's house like fog off a riverbank..."

This comparison is between smoke and fog.  One other comparison is the snowman that they made in that same chapter.  Scout says,

"He looks like Stephanie Crawford with her hands on her hips.  Fat in the middle and little-bitty arms."

A particularly striking simile can be seen when Scout says that her new teacher, Miss Caroline, looks and smells "like a peppermint drop." This is a wonderful simile, as it highlights just how much Miss Caroline wants to make an impression on her first day in her new job.

She's clearly gone to a lot of trouble sprucing herself up that morning, making sure she smells nice and is dressed immaculately. Such a shame, then, that the fragrant, well-dressed young schoolmarm should have her day ruined by the thriving colony of cooties that lives on Burris Ewell's head.

Then we have this wonderful metaphor, which aptly describes the town of Maycomb:

Maycomb was an old town, but it was a tired old town when I first knew it.

Towns are not human, of course, and so they can't literally be tired. But that's where metaphors come in. By applying the word "tired" to something to which it is not literally applicable—in this case, the town of Maycomb—this metaphor gives us a more than accurate description of what the town is like, especially from the perspective of a young girl like Scout.

In the first chapter, Scout uses a variety of metaphors and similes and the narrator to help readers relate to the characters.

For example, in describing Dill she says:

"... his hair was snow white and stuck to his head like duckfluff"

The comparison of color to snow white and not just regular white or eggshell white can function as a metaphor. The comparison of his hair to duckfluff is a simile.

In describing Boo Radley, Scout narrates:

"When people's azaleas froze in a cold snap, it was because he had breathed on them. Any stealthy small crimes committed in Maycomb were his work. Once the town was terrorized by a series of morbid nocturnal events: people's chickens and household pets were found mutilated; although the culprit was Crazy Addie, who eventually drowned himself in Barker's Eddy, people still looked at the Radley Place, unwilling to discard their initial suspicions."

These descriptors of Boo develop an extended metaphor comparing a reclusive man to a terrible phantom.

Of the Radley's pecans that fell into the school yard, Scout compares them to poison in the metaphor:

"Radley pecans would kill you."

Scout used a simile to describe Dill's obsession with the Radley Place. She compared his longing for the place to the ability the moon has to get a shine from water in the dark of night.

"The Radley Place fascinated Dill. In spite of our warnings and explanations it drew him as the moon draws water..."

All of these metaphors and simile are in the first chapter.

Similes make comparisons and indicate similarities between two things in order to enhance a visual image. They give depth to language which may otherwise be overlooked and, through the visual image they create, they allow people to remember specific characteristics or events in a more imaginative way.

In To Kill A Mockingbird, Scout narrates the story of her childhood and the significant events of Maycomb County as she sees them. Atticus, her father, has instilled a moral code within his children in an attempt to ensure that they do not suffer from Maycomb County's "usual disease" (chapter 9, page 91, 1988 ed.)

Scout, therefore, is honest and forthright and gets into trouble because of this. She struggles to please her Aunt Alexandra whose version of honesty and decency demands that Scout behave more like a lady than a tomboy: "Aunty said that one had to behave like a sunbeam" (ch 9, page 84) in order to be true to her gender. To consider it on a more universal scale, Atticus, and therefore Jem and Scout, are the rays of light in this town and the reader can connect with their intentions. Aunt Alexandra may have other ideals but behaving like a sunbeam is appropriate in any context. It is Atticus's example that sets the tone. Using a comparison with a sunbeam is appropriate and ironic in Maycomb County.   

Scout knows her father is older than most of her school friends' fathers and, in expressing her opinion honestly, she does suggest that, in fact, he would not "arouse the admiration of anyone." The trial has and will attract all the wrong kind of attention to the family and Scout laments that "he would not remain as inconspicuous as we wished him to" (ch 10, page 92), meaning that, if she is honest with herself, much of the attention is unwelcome. It is fitting that, as the story develops, the children, through Tom's case and all the attention it creates, learn the real value of honesty, integrity and how justice is not always served but that a person always has to do his best. Atticus never draws attention to himself, only to the cause.

In chapter 13, Aunt Alexandra comes to stay with the family and her style of parenting is very different from Atticus's style. Scout can never think of anything to talk about to Aunty as they have so little in common. She recognizes that her aunt "fitted into the world of Maycomb like a hand in a glove, but never into the world of Jem and me" (ch 13, page 133). The people of Maycomb believe they are honest but their hypocritical attitudes cause them to remain out of touch. The fact that Aunt Alexandra is a "good fit" for the town but that Scout and Jem are not exposes the subjective version of honesty which exists in Maycomb. 

A simile is a form of figurative language used by an author to create a more vivid impression—which might be visual, or aural, or sensory—of the scene being presented in the text. It is different to a metaphor in that the thing being described is not presented as another thing, but is simply compared to another thing, usually using the words "as" or "like." An example would be saying that somebody's face shone like the sun, which would convey a sort of inner light or happiness emanating from someone. In Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird, this type of figurative language is used from time to time, because it fits well with the relatively colloquial style of the narration. It is fairly usual for similes to be used in regular speak, as when Jem reports how Stephanie Crawford had thought Boo Radley's head "like a skull looking at her."

An example of a simile which engages more senses than just one can be found in the description of Miss Caroline, who "looked and smelled like a peppermint drop."

Later, we find this very evocative simile: "By the time Mrs. Cat called the drugstore for an order of
chocolate malted mice the class was wriggling like a bucketful of catawba worms." This simile creates a sense of the atmosphere in the classroom, conveying the attitude of the pupils and also their general restlessness.

Similes seem to come easily to Scout, as many Southern colloquialisms often contain the words like or as in forming a comparison between two unlike people or things.

--In the opening chapter, Scout describes Maycomb ladies as being "like soft teacakes with frostings of sweat and sweet talcum." (Ch. 1)

--In what seems an odd comparison for Scout to make after having been punished by Miss Caroline, Scout remarks about her, "She looked and smelled like a peppermint drop." (Ch. 2)

--Scout observes that while Miss Caroline reads a story to the class, some of the kids are "wriggling like a bucketful of catawba worms." (Catawba worms crawl across certain tree leaves, consuming the leaves at a mad pace.) (Ch.2)

--Of Mrs. Dubose, Scout says,

Her mouth seemed to have a private existence of its own. It worked separate and apart from the rest of her, out and in, like a clam hole at low tide. (Ch. 8)

--Ever the gentleman, Atticus tips his hat to Mrs. Dubose whenever he passes her house and she is outside.

"Good evening, Mrs. Dubose! You look like a picture this evening."

--After Jem retaliates against Mrs. Dubose for her insults to him, his father learns what has happened. As he stands at the hat rack in the hall, Atticus calls harshly to Jem. After hearing him say her brother's name, Scout remarks, "His voice was like the winter wind."

During the trial Mr. Raymond is like a second curtain call for the drama of town gossip.

On the stand Tom Robinson demonstrates that he is caring , but when prejudice corners him like a fox and he is convicted, Tom panics, flees, and is shot down.

After the trial, Jem shivers like a frozen fowl in the wake of hatred's retort, retreating into himself, fearful for his father.

What has been said and done at Tom Robinson's trial rests in the heart of Scout, who like the shadow on a long road,  cannot retreat to where she once was.

Like the warmth of a fire in spite of the cold winds of disagreement, the courage of Atticus warms his children and gives light to their  social consciousness. 

Scout runs out of the courthouse after Dill.  He runs out crying. because of the way the prosocuting attorny is talking to Tom Robinson.  Scout tries to calm Dill down by explaining how the whole trial system works.  Scout is as sharp as a tack and she doesn't miss much.  Dill is as mad as a hornet about the way Tom Robinson is being treated.  When Dill and Scout talk to Mr. Raymond they find out that he is really not a drunk, or as bad as people think.  Mr. Raymond is as sober as a church mouse, even though he makes people think he is always drunk.  Jem is so interested in the trial that he, Jem, and Dill all miss lunch and Calpurnia has to come to the court house to tell Atticus that the children didn't come home and they are missing.  When Atticus finds them in the balcolny of the courthouse, he sends them home.  Jem is adament that he wants to here the verdict.  Jem is as happy as a lark on the way home because he believes Tom is going to be found not guilty.

A simile is a comparison of two unlike things that uses the word "like" or "as". For instance:
1. Scout was sometimes like a fish out of water in Miss Caroline's class. Miss Caroline couldn't understand why Atticus taught her to read and Scout didn't understand why Miss Caroline wanted to give money to Walter Cunninham.
2. Jem sometimes acted like a knight in shining armor to Scout. He rescues her from many difficult situations.
3. One might think someone named Dill was as sour as a pickle, but deep inside he was a caring friend.
4. Mr. Raymond acted like a drunk in order to hide his true feelings about Black people.