Figurative Language in
To Kill a Mockingbird
Simile, Metaphor, and Personification are
considered Figurative Language literary
devices because they help paint pictures
(figures) in your mind as you read. Imagery,
which uses your senses to paint pictures, is
also figurative language.
Personification
• A figure of speech in which an inanimate
object or abstraction is endowed with
human qualities or abilities.
• The act of personifying.
Personifying words…
• “Mr. Radley’s older son lived in Pensacola;
he came home at Christmas, and he was
one of the few people we ever saw enter
or leave the place. From the day Mr.
Radley took Arthur home, people say the
house died” (Lee 14).
What are the personifying words?
• “The house was the same, droopy and
sick, but as we stared down the street we
thought we saw an inside shutter move.
Flick. A tiny, almost invisible movement
and the house was still” (Lee 19).
Personifying words?
• “There he was, returning to me. His white
shirt bobbed over the back fence and
slowly grew larger. He came up the back
steps, latched the door behind him, and
sat on his cot” (Lee 55).
???
• "At the door, we saw fire spewing from
Miss Maudie's diningroom windows. As if
to confirm what we saw, the town siren
wailed up the scale of a treble pitch and
remained there, screaming."
Metaphor
• A figure of speech in which a word or
phrase that ordinarily designates one thing
is used to designate another, thus making
an implicit comparison.
• In “a sea of troubles,” the amount of
troubles is compared to a sea.
• "All the world's a stage" (Shakespeare)
compares the world to a stage.
Metaphor
• “Then I heard Atticus cough. I held my
breath. Sometimes when we made a
midnight pilgrimage to the bathroom we
would find him reading” (Lee 57).
• Compares their trip to the bathroom with a
pilgrimage.
What is the metaphor?
• “I had never thought about it, but summer
was Dill by the fish pool smoking string,
Dill’s eyes alive with complicated plans to
make Boo Radley emerge; summer was
the swiftness with which Dill would reach
up and kiss me when Jem was not
looking…(Lee 116).
What is the metaphor?
• “I knew when there was trouble in our
street. Soft taffeta-like sounds and muffled
scurrying sounds filled me with helpless
dread” (Lee 69).
Simile
• A figure of speech in which two
fundamentally unlike things are explicitly
compared, usually in a phrase introduced
by "like" or "as."
Simile
• “The Radley place fascinated Dill. In spite
of our warnings it drew him as the moon
draws water…” (Lee 8).
• The moon draws water (an idiom!) means
the moon attracts water (gravity).
• Dill was intrigued by and attracted to the
Radley place as though gravity was pulling
him.
What’s the simile?
• “Ladies bathed before noon, after their
three-o’clock naps, and by nightfall were
like soft teacakes with frostings of sweat
and sweet talcum” (Lee 6).
What’s being compared?
What’s the simile?
What’s being compared?
• “It must have been two o’clock. The moon
was setting and the lattice-work shadows
were fading into fuzzy nothingness. Jem’s
white shirt-tail dipped and bobbed like a
small ghost dancing away to escape the
coming morning” (Lee 57).
What type of literary device is used
here?
• “[Auntie said] I should be a ray of sunshine
in my father’s lonely life. I suggested that
one could be a ray of sunshine in pants
just as well, but Aunty said that one had to
behave like a sunbeam, that I was born
good but had grown progressively worse
every year” (Lee 81).
What did she use here?
• "some tinfoil was sticking in a knot-hole
just above my eye level, winking at me in
the afternoon sun."
What did she use here?
• “…the fruits of their industry (those that
were not eaten) made the plot of ground
around the cabin look like the playhouse of
an insane child…” (Lee 170).
What did she use here?
• “The house was the same, droopy and
sick, but as we stared down the street we
thought we saw an inside shutter move.
Flick. A tiny, almost invisible movement
and the house was still” (Lee 15).
What did she use here?
• “…the business part of the meeting was
blood-curdling, the social hour was
dreary…She said no more. When Miss
Maudie was angry her brevity was icy.
Something had made her deeply angry,
and her gray eyes were as cold as her
voice” (Lee 233).
Create your own!
• You will take five word cards from the box.
• Once you have these, you can arrange and
rearrange them in any order you want to.
• You will fill in the words that go between the
cards.
• Create at least one metaphor, one simile and
one example of personification. You may use all,
or some of the words. The more you use, the
more interesting it will be.
• Write them down.
Example
Secret
Tiger
Frown
Games
Thunder
The tiger secretly frowned as the games
thundered on.