Figurative Language
Simile
• A comparison of two unlike things using like or as
• She is like a cow.
Metaphor
• A comparison of two unlike things (explicit and implied)
• She is a cow.
Hyperbole
• An over exaggerated statement (not a comparison)
• I have been waiting forever!
• I could eat a horse!
Symbolism
• When something represents something else
• The lightning bolt in the Lightning Thief
• The colors in the Book Thief
Personification
• Giving an inanimate object human qualities
• The dog laughed.
• The waves whispered.
Identify the type of figurative language in the following poems.
The type of figurative language is labeled, just find the example.
Metaphor
• I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings
• The free bird leaps
on the back of the wind
and floats downstream
till the current ends
and dips his wings
in the orange sun rays
and dares to claim the sky.
But a bird that stalks
down his narrow cage
can seldom see through
his bars of rage
his wings are clipped and
his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing.
The caged bird sings
with fearful trill
of the things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill for the caged bird
sings of freedom
The free bird thinks of another breeze
an the trade winds soft through the
sighing trees
and the fat worms waiting on a dawnbright lawn
and he names the sky his own.
But a caged bird stands on the grave of
dreams
his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream
his wings are clipped and his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing
The caged bird sings
with a fearful trill
of things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill
for the caged bird
sings of freedom.
• Maya Angelou
Personification
• Two Sunflowers
Move in the Yellow Room.
• "Ah, William, we're weary of weather,"
said the sunflowers, shining with dew.
"Our traveling habits have tired us.
Can you give us a room with a view?"
• They arranged themselves at the window
and counted the steps of the sun,
and they both took root in the carpet
where the topaz tortoises run.
William Blake
(1757-1827)
Personification
• The Train
• I like to see it lap the miles,
And lick the valleys up,
And stop to feed itself at tanks;
And then, prodigious, step
• Around a pile of mountains,
And, supercilious, peer
In shanties by the sides of roads;
And then a quarry pare
• To fit its sides, and crawl between, Complaining all the while
In horrid, hooting stanza;
Then chase itself down hill
And neigh like Boanerges;
Then, punctual as a start its own,
Stop-docile and omnipotentA stable door.
• By Emily Dickinson
Simile and Personification
“The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”
LET us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherized upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question….
Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”
Let us go and make our visit.
5
10
In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.
The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,
15
Symbolism
• The Road Not Taken
• Two roads diverged in a yellow
wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I
could
To where it bent in the
undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better
claim
Because it was grassy and wanted
wear,
Though as for that the passing
there
Had worn them really about the
same,
•
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden
black.
Oh, I marked the first for another
day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to
way
I doubted if I should ever come
back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and
I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the
difference.
Robert Frost
Hyperbole
Practical Application
He’s teaching her arithmetic,
He said it was his mission,
He kissed her once, he kissed
her twice and said,
“Now that’s addition.”
And as he added smack by
smack
In silent satisfaction,
She sweetly gave the kisses
back and said,
“Now that’s subtraction.”
Then he kissed her, she kissed
him,
Without and explanation,
And both together smiled and
said,
“That’s multiplication.”
Then Dad appeared upon the
scene and
Made a quick decision.
He kicked that kid three blocks
away
And said, “That’s long division.”
Test yourself
• Identify the type of figurative language used in the following
poems.
Joyce Kilmer. 1886–1918
119. Trees
I THINK that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.
A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the sweet earth's flowing breast;
A tree that looks at God all day,
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And lifts her leafy arms to pray;
A tree that may in summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;
Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.
Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.
10
Answers
• Personification
• Simile
Shall I Compare Thee To A Summer's Day
Sonnet 18
William Shakespeare
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date.
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course untrimmed.
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st;
Nor shall death brag thou wand'rest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st.
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
Answer
• Metaphor
Wasatch High School
• The Wasp
Answer
• A symbol
Shoulders
A man crosses the street in rain,
Stepping gently, looking two times
north and south,
Because his son is asleep on his
shoulders.
No car must splash him.
No car drive too near to his
shadow.
This man carries the world’s most
sensitive cargo
But he’s not marked.
Nowhere does his jacket say
FRAGILE,
HANDLE WITH CARE.
His ear fills up with breathing.
He hears the hum of a boy’s
dream
Deep inside him.
We’re not going to be able
To live in this world
If we’re not willing to do what he’s
doing
With one another.
The road will only be wide.
The rain will never stop falling.
-Naomi Shihab Nye
Answers
• Metaphor
• Symbolism
Appetite
In a house the size of a postage stamp
lived a man as big as a barge.
His mouth could drink the entire river
You could say it was rather large
For dinner he would eat a trillion beans
And a silo full of grain,
Washed it down with a tanker of milk
As if he were a drain.
Answer
• Hyperbole
Assignment
• Pick a popular song.
• Using the music, rewrite the words to the song.
• Your new lyrics should teach figurative language, meaning
they should give the definition and an example for each kind
of figurative language we learned.
• Turn in your lyrics and be ready to present your new song to
the class next time.
• Examples can be found at these links:
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yAxi_PPpG9Y
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kDNCdb3vSE