Figurative Language in non-fiction Metaphors (implied metaphors/direct metaphors) Similes Analogies Personification Why use figurative language in non-fiction? (write these down) • • • • Create immediate drama Create a visual or appeal to another sense Establish mood Clarify a concept (relating something known to unknown) • Emphasis - Reinforce an observation • Persuade or convince Analyze some examples • Think about what type of figurative language (direct metaphor, implied metaphor, simile, or analogy • What is the author’s purpose (drama, imagery, mood, clarify, emphasis, persuade) The Help by Sharon Sharkey "The Help" is a delicious peppery stew of home-cooked, 1960s Southern-style racism that serves up a soulful dish of what ails us and what heals us. Laughter, which is ladled on thick as gravy, proves to be the secret ingredient — turning what should be a feel-bad movie about those troubled times into a heart-warming surprise. The movie is richly flavored by the work of a sprawling cast that puts the exceptional Viola Davis and Emma Stone at the film's impassioned center, with the scene-stealing tang of Octavia Spencer and the sweet-tart of Jessica Chastain thankfully never far away Looper by Erik Weber “Now just as I was all set to hand Looper a "C" for making me shift in my seat entirely too many times, waiting for something to blow my doors off, it happened. An ending that well, blew my doors off. The finish is the cinematic equivalent of David Tyree's Super Bowl catch; a conclusion that miraculously magnificently - manages to close the final loop with an off-theRichter-scale stroke of genius. Nicely played Mr. Johnson, nicely played.” Watch the video (which I embedded below) before answering reason why. Kia Optima Hybrid by Benson Kong • Now, the sheetmetal. Generally speaking, hybrids aren't supposed to look this way; look at the alpha dog Toyota Prius and its near doppelgänger, the Honda Insight. At first innocent glance, you could mistake the Optma Hybrid for possessing Teutonic origins, which isn't a huge surprise considering Kia's head designer is Peter Schreyer, formerly of Audi. • There are some pictures on the next slide to help you with the underlined words. “Why We Crave Horror Movies” by Stephen King “Why? Some of the reasons are simple and obvious. To show that we can, that we are not afraid, that we can ride this roller coaster. Which is not to say that a really good horror movie may not surprise a scream out of us at some point, the way we may scream when the roller coaster twists through a complete 360 or plows through a lake at the bottom of the drop” Breaking Bad season 5 episode 15 review: by Toni Mendelsohn • • • The second half of this show's fifth and final season is finally playing out like an authentic Shakespearian tragedy - albeit one which has had four-and-ahalf series' worth of prologue to it. So if last week's explosive realignment of the universe was Walt's Lear-like fall from grace, this week is his descent into madness. The big question, of course, is the form his redemption will take, if indeed he even gets one. The Lear comparison holds quite strongly in this episode. Much like the mad king, Walt is forced into the wilderness, his kingdom in tatters and his family deposed. We even have a fool-like character in the form of the extractor, who, in admitting he'll appropriate Walt's money after he dies, is telling him not what he wants to hear, but what the truth is. Of course, Lear dies at the end of the play, leaving the noble youth to seize power. It remains to be seen whether Jesse will recover anything of himself and do the same, but then again Breaking Bad and King Lear aren't identical stories. Miley Cyrus and Ugly Sex by Victor Davis Hanson • “For going “beyond” — not singing more mellifluously, dancing more adroitly, or energizing the crowd more enthusiastically — is now the point. In Petronius Arbiter’s first-century novel, The Satyricon, the fatter and more repugnant is Trimalchio, and the more loudly he passes wind, burps, mangles mythology, and invokes scatology, the more he thinks that he appeals to his bored dinner guests. In terms of repugnance, Miley Cyrus was the anorexic and mobile version of Jabba the Hutt.” Takers By Ty Burr • “Takers’’ might have made a perfectly decent little B heist movie, but someone had to go and forget to give the cameraman his Ritalin. Since the film is about 45 percent chase scene and 45 percent frenzied shootout — the other 10 percent is strained macho posturing — that’s an awful lot of blurry, whip-pan action defying you to make visual sense of it. Who’s zooming who? Where’s Waldo? Where’s the script? • This one is tricky figure out what a cameraman is being compared to. Who takes Ritalin, cannot pay attention? One more classic – just cause it is weird! “2012 BMW 650i Convertible” by Jarred Gall • If we may, a hypothetical situation for the reader: Say a family of ducks lives in your yard. And when the neighbor kid mows your lawn, he runs over a duckling. You’d complain, right? And if he kept doing it, you’d continue to complain until he finally stopped? (For the purposes of this illustration, you must retain his services.) • We ask because we realize we’re repeating ourselves, but the reader must understand that BMW has been dicing some ducks. We cried foul after the company fitted the 5-series with a new electric power-steering system, as it deprives the driver of any feel through that most important of automotive interfaces. Now BMW has fitted the 6er with this system. It’s as if there were a rogue faction within the Bayerische Motoren Werke that is trying to scuttle the mother ship.
