This question is based on ONCE UPON A TIME. "I have learned to wear many faces / like dresses..." uses which poetic device?

Answer Details

The line "I have learned to wear many faces / like dresses" from Gabriel Okara's Once Upon a Time contains a direct comparison using the word like. The speaker compares putting on different social masks ("many faces") to changing dresses - both are external coverings adopted for different occasions.

A simile is a figure of speech that explicitly compares two unlike things using "like" or "as." Here, the comparison is between faces (representing false social personas) and dresses (garments changed at will). The word "like" is the grammatical signal that marks this as a simile rather than a metaphor, which would state the comparison without "like" or "as."

This is not hyperbole (deliberate exaggeration), irony (a contrast between expectation and reality), or metonymy (substituting a related term for the thing itself). The poetic device is a simile, identifiable by the comparative word "like" linking two distinct images to illuminate the speaker's critique of adult insincerity.