Figurative Language/Sensory Detail Graphic Organizer – Cross Creek excerpt, Ch. 1, “For this is an Enchanted Land”
Directions: Find the examples of figurative language in the text. Identify whether each is a simile, metaphor, or personification. In the next
column, interpret what the actual meaning of the figurative language is, and finally, tell what impact the figurative language has on the text. An
example has been completed for you.
Figurative Language
“Yet the four miles to the Creek
are stirring, like the bleak,
portentous beginning of a good
tale.” Par. 1
Type of figurative
language
Simile
“The hammock breaks, is pushed
Personification
back on either side of the road,
and set down in its brooding heart
is the orange grove.”
“It is necessary to leave the
impersonal highway, to step
inside…”
Personification
“By this, an act of faith is
committed, through which one
accepts blindly the communion
cup of beauty.”
“… jadelike leaves”
Metaphor
“…to feel the mystery of a
seclusion that yet has shafts of
light striking through it.”
Personification
Simile
Meaning
Compares the way into the Creek to a
piercing, amazing beginning of a good
story – means that the way in is
interesting and excites a person to
want to know more about what is
actually inside.
Saying that the hammock has a heart
(a center) and that the orange grove
is what is in the area where the
hammock area opens up.
The highway is on its own; there is
nothing about the highway to
indicate that it becomes a place that
people really get to know.
Compares the inside of the Creek to
the communion cup of beauty –
something that you can’t help but
join with because of its beauty.
Jade is a mineral the shade of green
that the leaves are – jewelry is often
made of it.
Light coming in through the leaves is
described as striking through –
something a person would do – hit
their way through a barrier.
Impact on text
Gives the reader the first hint as to how the
author feels about her home in the Creek –
she really likes it!
The author describes the area as brooding to
indicate a somewhat subdued, thoughtful,
maybe even threatening atmosphere. We
know the author likes this, though, so it
doesn’t seem to be a negative characteristic.
There is a distinct difference – everything on
the highway is generic and makes little impact
on a person, but inside one finds beauty and
togetherness – a sense of belonging.
The inside of the Creek is beautiful, and when
one steps in it indicates willingness to become
one with it; to partake of it.
The leaves are beautiful – another clue about
how the author feels about the place.
The area is secluded/ set apart, but just like
the light, the author is finding a way in.
“An old thread, long tangled,
comes straight again.”
Metaphor
The idea of life is compared to a
thread.
“Old Williamsburg lived in a
genteel poverty…”
Personification
Williamsburg is a place and it is
described as living which is
something a person does.
“It is merely comfortable and
weather-beaten, meeting Time
halfway.”
“…the long, wide-screened
veranda an invitation to step
either inside or out.”
Personification
The Creek, a place, is described as
meeting Time – as if places could
meet each other like people do.
The veranda is a porch- it is
compared to an invitation.
“…that wind and rain and harsh
sun and the encroaching jungle
are ready at any moment to take
over.”
“But the rest of the Creek would
not know what to make of it, and
would be made most unhappy.”
Personification
The weather and nature could take
over – something people with power
can do.
Personification
The Creek, a place, is spoken of as a
person who would not understand
what was happening and would be
sad.
Metaphor
The author implies that in her life, things got
tangled or messed up, but now she has found
her way and things are going the right way
again.
The author is describing how, before it was
restored, Williamsburg may have looked poor
and a little run down, but it was still a gentle,
well-bred, polite society.
The Creek is a place that stays partly in the
past; it moves forward some, but is also
content to stay as is.
The author emphasizes the difference in the
old, skinny porch and the newly restored one
by showing that the new one makes people
want to be on it.
The Creek is an area that, without constant
work and fighting against nature, could easily
go back to the wild area it originally was.
The author was talking about how a nice fence
that makes everything look neat and tidy
would be out of place at the Creek, and the
Creek would not understand why anyone
would even try to have one. It would also
make the Creek sad that they would even try.
It would mean change and being different.
T-Chart – Sensory Details
Directions: Compare the characteristics and description of the original farmhouse and the same farmhouse after the owners fix it up. Try to
match up similar characteristics. The first one has been completed for you.
Old Farmhouse
Dingy
Cracked and gray
Tin roof
Porch was scarcely wide enough to pass in front of the chairs
Yard – bare, sandspurs, lean and starving rosebushes
Battleship gray, muddy ochre
Walled fireplaces filled with rubbish
Low, rambling, one-storied farmhouse
New Farmhouse
Shining (the outside)
Covered and white
Good, gray hand hewn cypress shingles
The long wide screened veranda an invitation
The yard in lush green grass
Shining inside
Implied – everything clean and shining
Low, rambling, one-storied farmhouse (Same – did not change)