Simile

Bringing two different things together with an explicit word, such as "like", "just as" or "seems". Unlike metaphor, comparison makes visible that they are two things.

In Crime and Punishment

It was as if he had caught a piece of his clothing in the wheel of a machine, and it had begun to pull him in

“As if he had caught a piece of his clothing in the wheel of a machine” compares the decision to a factory accident. The “as if” makes clear that it is an image, and it says that the plan pulls him in without his being able to break free.

Part One: The Crime, the narrator

he had the impression that at that moment he had cut himself off, as with scissors, from everyone and from everything

Part Two: The Inquiry, the narrator