“May I make so bold,” he said then, with a smile that was like a frown, and with a frown that was like a smile, “as ask you how you have done well, since you and me was out on them lone shivering marshes?”
– Charles Dickens
Great Expectations, Chapter 39. Magwitch inquires about Pip’s success since he met him as a little boy on the marshes. The unreadable expression on the returned convict’s face is described, as he wears both a smile and a frown. Contradictory and ironic similes create a sense of mystery and unease in this crucial chapter in which Pip learns who his true patron is.