The Use of Simile in Geertz
by Matt Stoltz, 2005
Chapter 15 of Geertz's The Interpretation of Culture contains a number of similes that demonstrate intersections between Balinese culture and American culture. Through these similes we can better understand the author's later claim that culture is a semiotic interpretation in search of meaning. Moreover, they prepare us, and stand as evidence in themselves, for the larger project ahead.
The first simile we encounter follows Geertz interpretation of Dutch colonization in Bali. Geertz maintains that colonization caused a new wave of puritan morality to wash over the Balinese, ultimately creating an environment hostile to cockfighting. From there, Geertz constructs a simile that compares the regulation of alcohol during Prohibition with the regulation of cockfighting during post-Dutch colonization and finds similarities in sloppy enforcement. Again, the simile grants us the opportunity to see how cockfighting and Prohibition meet at a single point, namely in enforcement policy. This is patronizing but important nonetheless because it weighs in on the process of interpretation. How could such a simile function for a reader's interpretation of the text? For the American reader (or anyone familiar with American History) it should create a point of identification brining us closer to an understanding of Balinese culture. Throughout the text there are many other cases in which the simile is employed. For instance, Geertz compares the cockfight to a ball game, the rooster to a boxer, the saja komong to an umpire, the betting to the stock market, cockfighting as a whole to aesthetic theory, and so on. These similes provide the very associations that become foregrounded in the reader's interpretation of Balinese culture. As we advance to the section on "Feathers, Blood, Crowds, and Money" the larger project emerges and we see just how big Geertz eyes really are.
"Feathers, Blood, Crowds, and Money" is a pivotal section in the argument. The sentence "But no one's status really changes (31)" seems like the antithesis of the argument; but rather it acts as the hinge sentence, swinging the argument from Balinese culture into a much broader theoretical one. Furthermore, it is the major assumption, and thesis, from which the rest of the argument proceeds. Geertz suggests that the cockfight, like art, provides a kind of vicarious experience for the participants...but nothing really changes because it is merely a culturally constructed imitation. Instead, according to Geertz, the entire cultural phenomenon of cockfighting is a metasocial text that serves the function of interpretation; where feathers, blood, crowds, and money are being subjected to cultural interpretation by the Balinese themselves. This takes us back to the claim that culture is a semiotic interpretation in search of meaning, and if we stop a moment and glance back at some of those simile's it is apparent that they can serve as helpful instruments in the interpretative process of such texts. One way that Geertz searches for meaning is by using the simile in which he puts our culture in the context of theirs and this aids in systematizing his own interpretation. Also, the use of similes appears to be an imaginative exercise that passes through at least one legitimized medium producing an affect on the process of interpretation.
Upon reading the text, or at least the first half of Chapter 15, these similes struck me as very obtrusive and sent me to inquiry. Yet, I feel far more overwhelmed by questions than when I began. So rather than conclude on what has been imprudently put forward, I think it would be more appropriate to leave it open with some question marks. Does the simile work for the person inside a particular Culture, or can it only help outsiders, like us, look in? What implications may the use of similes have on interpretation? What is at stake for the culture if these similes have a distinct bearing on our interpretation of them?