SIMILES AND
METAPHORS
Chapters 12-17
SIMILES AND METAPHORS
Similes and metaphors are comparisons between two things to create
images in the reader’s mind.
• Similes compare two things with the use of the word “like” or “as.”
• “Standing stiff as a stork” is a simile that compares someone standing still just as
a stork does, and one can imagine a stork, one let up behind it.
SIMILES AND METAPHORS
Similes and metaphors are comparisons between two things to create
images in the reader’s mind.
• Metaphors compare two things as though they were the same thing.
• “Summer was Dill” is a metaphor that says summer and Scout’s friend, Dill, were
the same thing to her because Scout always associated summer with their
adventures together at that time.
SIMILES
Some of the similes Harper Lee uses in this section of the book include the following.
The key words are in bold print to help you recognize what makes each phrase a
simile.
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Ladies are like soft teacakes with frosting of sweat and sweet talcum.
The Radley place…drew Dill as the moon draws the water.
Jem waved my words away as if fanning at gnats.
Smoke was rolling off our house…like fog off a riverbank.
…suspend in thin layer of ice like a fly in amber.
He shivered like a rabbit.
…screaming like a stuck hog.
METAPHORS
Some of the metaphors in the book include these. The words in parenthesis
name the two things being compared.
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I never loved to read. One does not love breathing. (reading and breathing)
…tinfoil…winking at me in the afternoon sun. (tinfoil and something with eyes)
Jem’s mind was racing. (mind and something which moves quickly)
He began pouring out our secrets left and right. (secrets and something pourable)
Time has slowed to a nauseating crawl. (time and something which crawls)
…walls of a pink penitentiary closing in on me. (walls and something that moves)
Shadows become substance. (shadows and something you can feel)
ASSIGNMENT
1. Find three more similes in this section of the book and write them in
your notebook.
2. Find three more metaphors in this section of the book and write
them in your notebook.
3. Write a simile and a metaphor of your own.
4. Write a paragraph in your notebook describing one of the following,
using at least one simile and one metaphor.
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A scene at the beach or the lake
An auto race
A fashion show
Saturday afternoon at the shopping mall
A school assembly
CITATIONS
Robbins, Mari Lu. "Similes and Metaphors." A Guide for Using To Kill a Mockingbird
in the Classroom, Based on the Novel Written by Harper Lee. Westminster, CA:
Teacher Created Materials, 1999. 25. Print.