mouths of animals have more range than ours do in size and elasticity, and so likewise provide fodder for caricature.
Presently there were nods and winks in the direction of the bell-rope; and, as these produced no effect, uncouth visages were made, like those of monkeys when enraged; teeth were gnashed, tongues thrust out, and even fists were bent at me.
Borrow, Lavengro (1851)
These regions passed, we came to savage islands, where the glittering coral seemed bones imbedded, bleaching in the sun. Savage men stood naked on the strand, and brandished uncouth clubs, and gnashed their teeth like boars.
Melville, Mardi (1849)
The old man gaped helplessly like some monstrous fish.
Chesterton, The Club of Queer Trades (1905)
Or motion: a tendency merely suggested or half-visible in human movement is invariably presented in more exaggerated form by some member of the animal kingdom.
To complete the whole, he had a stateliness in his gait, when he walked, not unlike that of a goose, only he stalked slower.
Fielding, Joseph Andrews (1742)
Be smooth-tongued, and the Englishman will withdraw from you as quickly as may be, walking sideways like a crab, and looking askance at you with panic in his eyes. But stammer and blurt to him, and he will fall straight under the spell of your transparent honesty.
Beerbohm, The House of Commons Manner (1909)
Sometimes he would tickle the nose of his eldest child (he had two children); sometimes he would hook the rake on to the branch of a tree, and hoist himself up with horrible gymnastic jerks, like those of a giant frog in its final agony.
Chesterton, Manalive (1912)
These comparisons tend to be unflattering to their subjects. They force the reader to create a mental picture of a hybrid, and sometimes to attribute more of the animal to the human subject than the author explicitly invited. The theater of the mind has rules of its own.
2. Sounds. Humans are notable for their ability to speak words. When they make other sounds they more closely resemble animals, and so lend themselves to comparison.
Two of the enemy’s men entered the boat just where this fellow stood in the foresheets; he immediately saluted them with a ladle full of the stuff, boiling hot which so burned and scalded them, being half-naked that they roared out like bulls, and, enraged with the fire, leaped both into the sea.
Defoe, Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1719)
“Certainly not!” shouted Mr. Pickwick. “Hurrah!” And then there was another roaring, like that of a whole menagerie when the elephant has rung the bell for the cold meat.
Dickens, The Pickwick Papers (1837)
His phrase was greeted by a strange laugh from a student who lounged against the wall, his peaked cap down on his eyes. The laugh, pitched in a high key and coming from a so muscular frame, seemed like the whinny of an elephant.
Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916)
By the same token, human speech, when it does take the form of words, can be compared to the noises of animals to put the speaker into a bestial light.
“Where’s the girl?” says he, with a voice as loud as the braying of a jackass.
Kipling, The Man Who Would Be King (1888)
Women with hoarse voices and harsh laughter had called after him. Drunkards had reeled by, cursing and chattering to themselves like monstrous apes.
Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890)
Quivering with rage, I returned to my bedroom. “Intolerable,” I heard myself repeating like a parrot that knew no other word.
Beerbohm, Hilary Maltby and Stephen Braxton (1919)
The tone of a voice:
Her voice sounded to him like that of a broken-throated lamb, so painful and weak it was, with the plaintive stop in the utterance.
Meredith, The Ordeal of Richard Feverel (1859)
His voice was thin like the buzzing of a mosquito.
Conrad, Chance (1913)
3. Resemblances in character and ability. Many human traits can be found in purer form in animals. Strength and tenacity are common examples; and these sometimes are cases where a comparison to an animal will elevate its subject rather than reducing it in stature.
Harry, champion, by acclamation, of the college heavy-weights, broad-shouldered, bull-necked, square-jawed, six feet and trimmings, a little science, lots of pluck, good-natured as a steer in peace, formidable as a red-eyed bison in the crack of hand-to-hand battle!
Holmes, The Professor at the Breakfast Table (1859)
And she had found a will like that of a crab or a boa-constrictor, which goes on pinching or crushing without alarm at thunder.
Eliot, Daniel Deronda (1876)
Ignorance, insensitivity, and other brute traits likewise find their epitome in animals, which can make less flattering reference points for human versions of the same.
. . . the Duke of Albemarle, who takes the part of the Guards against us in our supplies of money, which is an odd consideration for a dull, heavy blockhead as he is, understanding no more of either than a goose. . . .
The Diary of Samuel Pepys (1667)
To talk to those imps about justice and mercy, would have been as absurd as to reason with bears and tigers. Lead and steel are the only arguments that they understand.
Douglass, My Bondage and My Freedom (1855)
Ready in gibes, quick-answer’d, saucy, and
As quarrelous as the weasel.
Cymbeline, 3, 4
With the possible exception of the last, those examples involved general references to animals not distinguished for their wit. The comparison can be made more specific by putting the creature into a particular circumstance.
Empire has happened to them and civilization has happened to them as fresh lettuces come to tame rabbits. They do not understand how they got, and they will not understand how to keep.
Wells, An Englishman Looks at the World (1914)
They may even be suffering quite terribly by it. But they are no more mastering its causes, reasons, conditions, and the possibility of its future prevention than a monkey that has been rescued in a scorching condition from the burning of a house will have mastered the problem of a fire. It is just happening to and about them.
Wells, War and the Future (1917)
He went home as a horse goes back to his stable, because he knew nowhere else to go.
The Education of Henry Adams (1918)
A human behavior or quality of character may be diminished precisely because it is shared by animals.
mouths of animals have more range than ours do in size and elasticity, and so likewise provide fodder for caricature.
