What do you know about Dickens' use of similes in his work?

Question

'Similes' as in comparisons.

Answer 1

“... , these tumbling tenements contain, by night, a swarm of misery. As, on the ruined human wretch, vermin parasites appear, so these ruined shelters have bred a crowd of foul existence that crawls in and out of gaps in walls and boards; and coils itself to sleep, in maggot numbers, where the rain drips in; and comes and goes, fetching and carrying fever, and sowing more evil in every footprint than Lord Coodle, and Sir Thomas Doodle, and the Duke of Foodle, and all the fine gentlemen in office, down to Zoodle, shall set right in five hundred years--though born expressly to do it.”
This is from Dickens' book "Bleak House". Note the use of the word "As." That makes this a simile, which use "like" or "as" to make a comparison of two unlike things. This simile compares people to the kinds of parasites you might find on a wretched person (wretched means "miserable"). It shows what a master Dickens was at using simile. In this simile people act like maggots, spreading misery and disease, among other things.

Answer 2

In "A Christmas Carol" Dickens used this simile to describe Marley, "He was dead as a doornail". He used similes and metaphors to describe the world around him, the main reason he wrote the novels was to describe what was actually happening in his world/society that is mostly overlooked, for example Scrooge overlooks his life while consumed by greed.