posture

See Also: BEARING, BENT, STRAIGHTNESS

1. Arched like a cavalry horse getting a whiff of the battlefield —Katherine Anne Porter
2. A back like a marine drill instructor’s … straight as a rifle shot —Loren D. Estleman
3. Bolt upright like drawn bayonets —Aharon Megged
4. Erect as a candle —Isak Dinesen

   Dinesen used this simile in a short story, The de Cats Family. Because many a simile is hard to establish as one writer’s creative invention, it should come as no surprise that it also appeared in Ignazio Silone’s novel, The Secret of Luca.

5. Erect as a cavalry officer —Francine du Plessis Gray
6. Erect as a Grecian pillar —Anon
7. Held his shoulders back as though they were braced, and he sucked in his stomach like a soldier —John Steinbeck
8. Her back is curved like a shell —Louise Erdrich
9. Her entire posture seemed to have bunched up like a fist —Robert B. Parker
10. Her spine droops like a dying daisy —Ira Wood
11. Huddled up like a pale misshapen piece of pastry —Hugh Walpole
12. Hunched his shoulders like a fighter tensing for a blow —Harvey Swados
13. Hunched like a cowboy that hears a rattler —Paul Theroux

    Theroux’s simile was particularly apt for the photographer-heroine of his novel, Picture Palace.

14. Hunched, like a man made lintel-shy by too many cracks on the head through adolescence —Harold Adams
15. Hunched over like an old turtle —Louise Erdrich
16. (Sit …) hunched up like a crow —Elizabeth Spencer
17. Like a schoolmistress dealing with problem pupils, sat straight-backed —Dorothea Straus
18. Posture … like an emaciated old man who once had been an athlete —Kenzaburo Oë
19. Posture … rigid and stylized as a pair of bookends —George Garrett
20. Rigid as an effigy —Gavin Lambert

    See Also: FIRMNESS

21. (A sort of) savage stoop, like a bull lowering his horn —G. K. Chesterton
22. Shoulders humped like a bull’s —Mary Hedin
23. Shoulders sagged like empty sacks —James Crumley
24. Shoulders … set like those of a man carrying a banner —Hugh Walpole
25. Sits back, relaxed, as if she were watching an invisible TV and weeping over a soap opera —John J. Clayton
26. Slumped like a chimpanzee —Mary Morris
27. Slumped there like a bag of bones —Beryl Bainbridge
28. Slump … like rags —Karl Shapiro
29. Slumps there like an outsized parenthesis —Marge Piercy
30. Standing to attention like a dead centurion at his post —John Le Carré
31. Stands stiff as a bobby when the Queen appears —Maxine Kumin
32. Stands tall, straight and stern as an angel —Louise Erdrich
33. Stiff-backed as a cadet —George Garrett
34. Stood like a dart —Brian Merriman
35. Stood rigid as a carving —Madison Smartt Bell
36. Stood stiff as a marble statue —Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
37. Stood up very straight like somebody in opera —Rebecca West
38. Stooped, as though half-crouching under an expected blow —Ben Ames Williams
39. Stooped like too tall visitors to an igloo —John Irving
40. Stooping like a decayed tree, he was so old —A. E. Coppard
41. Straightened like soldiers under review —Jay Parini
42. Tilted forward at the waist like a stickshift in third gear —Rick Borsten
43. Upright as a palm tree —The Holy Bible/Proverbs

    Variations of this biblical simile link uprightness with a variety of other trees; for example, “Upright as a pine.”

44. Upright like stalks —Aharon Megged