simile/metaphor
In looking at this line, what we see is that the author is
comparing the whip’s movement and sound to that of a piece of wood being
shattered by manner of splintering. The
author is doing this so that readers, who may not have had any experience of
seeing a ringmaster at a circus crack a whip, may have a good idea as to just
how the whip may have sounded. This is a
common technique in literature and poetry called simile/metaphor. Technically, the air cannot be actually be splintered,
thus, we know that this is figurative.
