Chapter Six
How to Understand
Figurative LanguageRhetorical Devices
General Introduction

Figurative language is an
expressive use of language and
figures of speech/rhetorical
devices are ways of making our
language figurative. When we use
words in other than their ordinary
or literal sense to lend force to an
idea, to heighten effect, or to
create suggestive imagery, we are
said to be speaking or writing
figuratively. There are three main
types of rhetorical devices--lexical, syntactical and phonetic.

For example, if someone says that they are
'starving', they do not mean that they are in
fact dying of hunger, but that they are very
hungry. This is a simple example of a figure of
speech, where the word is used to heighten
or increase the state that they are describing.
Read the following poem and identify the figures of
speech used in its language.
Mirror
I am silver and exact. I have no preconception.
Whatever I see I swallow immediately
Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike.
I am not cruel; only truthful--The eye of a little god, four-cornered.
Most of the time I meditate on the opposite wall.
It is pink, with speckles. I have looked at it so long
I think it is a part of my heart. But it flickers.
Faces and darkness separate us over and over.
Now I am a lake. A woman bends over me.
Searching my reaches for what she really is.
Then she turns to those liars, the candles or the moon.
I see her back and reflect it faithfully.
She rewards me with tears and an agitation of hands.
I am important to her. She comes and goes.
Each morning it is her face that replaces the darkness.
In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman
Rises towards her day after day like a terrible fish.
----Sylvia Plath
Some common forms of rhetorical devices:
1. Simile：(明喻) It is a figure of speech which makes a
comparison between two unlike elements having at least
one quality or characteristic in common. To make the
comparison, words like as, as...as, as if and like are used
to transfer the quality we associate with one to the other.
e.g.


He looked as if he had
just stepped out of my
book of fairytales and had
passed me like a spirit.
It has long leaves that
sway in the wind like slim
fingers reaching to touch
something.
2. Metaphor：(暗喻) It is like a simile, also makes a
comparison between two unlike elements, but unlike a
simile, this comparison is implied rather than stated.
e.g.

The diamond department was the heart and center
of the store.

She was a flower. The flush of rose petals was in
her cheeks, and her green dress was the leaves.
3. Analogy: (类比) It is also a form of comparison, but
unlike simile or metaphor which usually uses
comparison on one point of resemblance, analogy
draws a parallel between two unlike things that have
several common qualities or points of resemblance.
e.g. Trying to find the lost contact lens was like trying
to find a needle in a haystack.
4. Personification: (拟人) It is the representation of a
thing (animal, plant, force of nature, etc) or
abstraction (love, hate, chastity, etc) as a person, or
the giving of human attributes to animals,
abstractions, or other things.
e.g.

The wind whistled through the trees.

She may have tens of thousand of babies in one
summer. (From“ Watching Ants”)
5. Metonymy (转喻） It is a figure of speech in which
one word or phrase is substituted for another with
which it is closely associated (such as "crown" for
"royalty").
e.g.

The pen (power of literature) is mightier than the
sword (forces).

The buses (bus drivers) in America are on strike now.
6. Synecdoche: (提喻) It involves the substitution of
the part for the whole ;
the whole for the part;
the special for the general;
the general for the special;
the material for the object composed of that material;
the container for its contents
e.g.
 She was dressed in silks.
 They share the same roof.
7.Allusion:(借喻) It is a figure of speech which refers
to an indirect reference to someone or something. It
usually comes from religions, fairy tales, mythologies,
legends, fables and other literal works.
e.g.

Grammar may be his heel of Achilles.

It was another of those catch-22 situations. You’re
damned if you do and you’re damned if you don’t.( A
catch-22 situation refers to a dilemma faced by
somebody. Catch-22 is a novel written by Joseph
Heller. )
8.Hyperbole: (夸张) It is the deliberate use of
overstatement or exaggeration to achieve emphasis.
e.g.
 He almost died laughing.

My blood froze.
 She gave me the impression of having more teeth,
white and large and even, than were necessary for
any practical purpose.
9. Understatement: (低调陈述/明抑暗扬) It is the
opposite of hyperbole, or overstatement. It achieves
its effect of emphasizing a fact by deliberately making
something appear less important or serious than it
really is , impressing the listener or the reader more
by what is merely implied or left unsaid than by bare
statement.
e.g.



We are none of us getting any younger.
我们都不年轻啦。
“It's just a flesh wound.”
(Black Knight, after having both of his arms cut off, in Monty
Python and the Holy Grail)
"I have to have this operation. It isn't very serious. I have this
tiny little tumor on the brain."
(Holden Caulfield in The Catcher In The Rye, by J. D. Salinger)
10. Pun: (双关语) It is a play on words, or rather a play
on the form and meaning of words, involving words
with similar or identical sounds but with different
meanings.
e.g.
 A cannon-ball took off his legs, so he laid down his
arms. (Here "arms" has two meanings: part of a
person's body; weapons carried by a soldier.)

What does that lawyer do after he dies?——Lie still.
那个律师死后干什么？──躺着仍说鬼话。（注：lie躺，
撒谎；still安静地， 仍然）
11. Irony: (反讽) It is the use of words to convey the
opposite of their literal meaning; a statement or
situation where the meaning is contradicted by the
appearance or presentation of the idea.
e.g.

We are lucky, what you said makes me feel really
good.
 Slowly the old lady stooped to pick it (the cheque )
up. Her present, her lovely present. With trembling
fingers she tore it into little bits.
12. Paradox: (似非而是的隽语) It is a figure of speech
consisting of a statement or proposition which on the face of it
seems self-contradictory, absurd or contrary to established fact
or practice, but which on further
thinking and study may prove to be true, well-founded, and even
to contain a succinct point.
e.g.

Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance.

The swiftest traveler is he that goes afoot.
13. Oxymoron: (矛盾修辞法) It is a compressed
paradox, formed by the conjoining of two
contrasting, contradictory or incongruous terms as
in bitter-sweet memories, orderly chaos(乱中有序）,
sweet sorrow(甜蜜的忧伤) and proud humility(不卑
不亢 ).
14. Rhetorical repetition:(叠言) It is the use of a
word, phrase, or clause more than once in a short
passage--dwelling on a point. Used deliberately,
repetition can be an effective rhetorical strategy for
achieving emphasis or emotional effect.
e.g. It must be created by the blood and the work of
all of us who believe in the future, who believe in
man and his glorious man—made destiny.
15. Euphemism:(委婉语) It is a substitution of an
inoffensive term for one considered offensively explicit.
e.g.

Sorry, I must answer the call of
nature. It won’t be long.
对不起，我得去方便一下，就一会儿。

Dan Foreman: Guys, I feel very
terrible about what I'm about to
say. But I'm afraid you're both
being let go.
Lou: Let go? What does that mean?
Dan Foreman: It means you're
being fired, Louie.
16. Parody：(仿拟) It is a literary or artistic work that
imitates the characteristic style of an author or a
work for comic effect or ridicule.
e.g.
To lie or not to lie-the doctor's dilemma ( “To be or
not to be, that is the question”. Hamlet)
17. Synesthesia:(通感) It is a neurologically-based
condition in which stimulation of one sensory or
cognitive pathway leads to automatic, involuntary
experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway，
such as "a bright sound" or "a quiet color" .
e.g. He give me a bitter look.
18. Transferred epithet:(移就) It’s a figure of speech
in which an adjective properly modifying one noun is
shifted to another noun in the same sentence.
e.g.

He ate with a wolfish appetite.

He shrugged with a scornful shoulder.
19. Zeugma:(轭式搭配法) It’s a construction in which a
single word, especially a verb, a preposition or an
adjective, is applied to two or more nouns although
its use is only grammatically or logically correct with
only one of them.
e.g.

I would rather be clothed in rag than shame.

We’ll see to it that the blouses appeal to the eye as well as to
the purse.
20. Syllepsis(一语双叙): It’s a figure of sppech by which a single
word refers to one or more words in the same sentence. One is
literal meaning while the other is the figurative meaning.
e.g.

She opened the door and her heart to the homeless boy.
The new elected president took the oath and the seat.
21. Parallelism:(排比)It refers to the similarity of structure in a
pair or series of related words, phrases, or clauses.
e.g.

The more we do, the more we can do.

Few people are immune to vanity, jealousy and pretension.
22. Antithesis: (对照) It is the deliberate
arrangement of contrasting words or
ideas in balanced structural forms to
achieve emphasis.
e.g.
Speech is silver; silence is golden.
United we stand; divided we fall. 合则存，分则亡。
23. Alliteration: (押头韵) It has to do with the sound rather
than the sense of words for effect. It is a device that
repeats the same sound at frequent intervals and since the
sound repeated is usually the initial consonant sound, it is
also called "front rhyme".
e.g.
 The fair breeze blew.
 The white foam flew.
 The furrow followed free.
船儿破浪前进
24.Onomatopoeia: (拟声) It is a device that uses words
which imitate the sounds made by an object (animate or
inanimate), or which are associated with or suggestive of
some action or movement.
e.g.
 On the root of the school house some pigeons were softly
cooing
 Presently there came the click of high-heeled shoes.
Identify the figure of speech used in each of the
following statements.
1. The chairman’s wife is in the family way.
2. The diamond department was the heart and center of
the store.
3. How and why he had come to Princeton, New Jersey is a
story of struggle, success, and sadness.
4. The White House asked the television networks for air
time on Monday night.
5. More haste, less speed.
6. His heart almost stopped beating when he heard his
daughter’s voice on the phone.
7. Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed
and some few to be chewed and digested.
8. They were defeated because of the Trojan horses in their
country.
9. Well, of course, I knew that gentlemen like you carry
only large notes.
10. Many eyes turned to a tall, 20-year-old black girl on the
U.S. team.
11. Such is the glorious messiness of English. That happy
tolerance, that willingness to accept words from anyway,
explains the richness of English and the way it has
become, to a very real extent, the first truly global
language.
12. Because good technique in medicine and surgery
means more quickly—cured patients, less pain, less
discomfort, less death, less disease and less deformity.
13. When you are right you cannot be too radical; when
you are wrong, you cannot be too conservative.
14. As cold waters to a thirsty soul, so is good news from a
far country.
15. She brought me into touch with everything that could
be reached or felt----sunlight, the rustling of silk, the
noises of insects, the creaking of a door, the voice of a
loved one.
16. The wind whistled through the trees.
17. Campus love is not an uncommon phenomenon in
today’s society.
Unit Six The Bridges of Madison County
Background to the Author

Robert James Waller (1939-) is an
American author, photographer and
musician. Waller received his BA ('62)
and MA ('64) from University of
Northern Iowa. He received his PhD in
business from the Kelley School of
Business at Indiana University
Bloomington in 1968. Several of his
books have been on the New York Times
bestseller list including 1992's The
Bridges of Madison County which was
the top best-seller in 1993. Both that
novel and his 1995 novel, Puerto
Vallarta Squeeze, have been made into
motion pictures. Waller currently resides
in Texas.





1992 The Bridges of Madison County
（ 《廊桥遗梦》original UK Title Love in Black and White)
1993 Slow Waltz in Cedar Bend
（ 《香杉市慢步华尔滋》 ）
1995 Puerto Vallarta Squeeze
（ 《逃命杀手》 ）
1995 Border Music
（《边界乐章》 ）
2002 A Thousand Country Roads :
An Epilogue to The Bridges of Madison County
（ 《无尽乡间路-廊桥遗梦的结局》)
Introduction to The Bridges of Madison County

The story opens when a
woman named Francesca
is already dead and has
left a will to her two
children. Both her son
and daughter now
middle-aged adults visit
their family home in
Madison county to take
care of their mother’s
possessions and to meet
the attorney who wrote
their mother’s will.

They first find out that Francesca
has made a strange request. She
desired that after her death, her
body be cremated and the ashes
sprayed over the covered bridges of
Madison County. After this discovery,
the son and the daughter come
upon their mother’s diary, which
they begin to read.
The story shifts to flashback.
Francesca Johnson, a lonely,
disillusioned Italian housewife, lives
in Iowa on a farm with her husband
and two kids. Though she takes
good care of her family and deeply
loves them, it is obvious that she is
bored and desires some time of her
own.

It is for this reason that she does not
accompany her family when they make a
trip to the Illinois state fair. They are gone
for four days and these four days and four
nights would forever remain the most
precious moments of life for Francesca.
It is at this time that Robert Kincaid, a
divorced, traveling photojournalist working
for the National Geographic, comes to the
small Iowa town where Francesca lives, in
order to shoot the covered bridges for a
photographical essay that he is working on.
He meets Francesca when he stops at the
Johnsons’ ranch to ask for directions.
Francesca offers to show him the way and
accompanies him to the bridge. Thus begins
an aesthetic, soulful, sensitive love story
between two adults, one of whom is
married.
The chemistry between the two is simply
amazing and soon sparks fly. Francesca
invites him back to her place for dinner and
he accepts. Once he shows up, they swap
stories, quote W.B. Yeats, laugh together,
drink and even dance.
Love is not shown to be happening
suddenly and in several subtle moments
we are shown the growing attraction and
love between Francesca and Robert. They
soon become lovers and find ecstatic joy
in each other’s company. At the end of
the four day period, when it is time for
Robert to leave he suggests she go with
him.
This option is extremely appealing to
Francesca who not only loves Robert but
also loves his lifestyle involving a lot of
travel to exotic locations. She however,
keeping in view her family (yet to return
from the state fair), turns it down.
The two lovers separate to never again
see each other in person. Years later
Francesca receives news that Robert
passed away and his wish is to have his
ashes scattered on the bridges of the
Madison county.


The story is not about love and not
about sex, but about an ideal. The film
opens with the information that two
people once met and fell in love, but
decided not to spend the rest of their
lives together. The implication is: If
they had acted on their desire, they
would not have deserved such a love.
It is celebrating the concept of an
ideal love which transcends the
mundane( [mʌn‘den]世俗的） and
attains a spiritual quality.
The Bridges of Madison County is
a 1992 best-selling novel and one of
the bestselling books of the 20th
century, with 50 million copies sold
worldwide.
While-reading Activity



The text is an except of The Bridges of
Madison County. Skim it to get the gist
of it.
Main idea: The text is mainly about
where the author got the story and the
preparations he made before writing it.
Finish the questions in Exercise I & II.
Cultural Notes to the text


The Lake Poets are a group
of English poets who all lived
in the Lake District of
England at the turn of the
nineteenth century.
The three main figures of
what has become known as
the Lakes School are William
Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor
Coleridge, and Robert
Southey.
Coleridge in 1795



willing suspension of disbelief
The term was coined by Coleridge in his Biographia
Literaria, published in 1817, in the context of the creation
and reading of poetry. He argued that “human interest and
a semblance of truth” would serve to seduce the reader
into an imaginative compact with the author.
It’s most often used to describe the mechanism of
assimilation required to appreciate an invented situation,
particularly a work of drama of fiction in film, theatre or
literature. To use the term is really just a fancy to say
“belief” though the underlying complexity of the doublenegative corresponds to the complexity of the term: I
believe because I agree to overlook certain factors that
would otherwise cause me not to believe.
Post-reading Activity
Respond to the following statements.
1. The most important things in life are not
always about making yourself happy.
2. Only when you understand what marriage
entails and clarify your expectations, you can
finally enjoy a happy life after marriage.
Appreciate some sentences taken from the book.
1. Nobody understands when a woman makes a choice to marry and have

children, in one way her life begins, but in another way, it stops. You
build a life of details, and you just stop and stay steady, so that your
children can move. And when they leave,they take your life of details
with them. You are expected to move on again, but you don't
remember what it was that moved you, because no one's asked you in
so long. Not even yourself.
大家都不了解，女人决定结婚生子时，她的生命一方面开始了,另一方面
却结束了。生活开始充斥琐碎的事，你停下脚步，呆在原地，好让你的
孩子能够任意来去。他们离开后，你的生活就空了。你应该再度向前，
但你已忘了如何迈步。因为长久以来，都没有人叫你动。你自己也忘了
要动。
2. Now I want to keep it forever，I want to love you the way I do now
for the rest of my life.

我希望永远保留着份爱，我希望终生都能这样的爱你。
3. I can't make an entier life disappear to start a new one.

我不能让生命就此消逝无踪，重头再来。
4. All I can do is try to hold on to both of us somewhere inside of me.

我只能试着在心灵深处紧紧的守候着你。
5. I'm coming to you as you coming to me
for so long. Although we haven't know
each other before the date.

我要向你走去，你向我走来已经很久了。
虽然我们相会之前谁也不知道对方的存在。
6.This kind of certainty comes once in a lifetime.

这样确切的爱，一生只有一次。
7.Seems right now, that all I have done in my life was making my
way here to you.

我今天才知道，我之所以漂泊就是在向你靠近。
8.The true love belongs to the adults.

真正的爱情是属于成年人的。
9.Love is magic, but without responsibility,its magic will gone.

爱情是有魔力的，但如果放弃责任，这份魔力就会消失。
10.Love won't obey our expectation. Its mystery is pure and
absolute.

爱情并不遵从我们的想象。爱情的神秘在于它的纯洁与纯粹。