FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE

1
FIGURATIVELANGUAGE
2
SIMILE

• A comparison of two things using like, as than,
  or resembles.
• She is as beautiful as a sunrise.
• He swims like a fish.

3
METAPHOR

• A direct comparison of two unlike things
• The moon is a silver apple.
• All the worlds a stage, and we are merely
  players. - William Shakespeare

4
EXTENDED METAPHOR

• A metaphor that goes several lines or possibly
  the entire length of a work.

The Toaster A silver-scaled Dragon with jaws
flaming red Sits at my elbow and toasts my
bread. I hand him fat slices, and then, one by
one, He hands them back when he sees they are
done.
5
IMPLIED METAPHOR

• The comparison is hinted at, but not clearly
  stated.
• The poison sacs of the town began to manufacture
  venom, and the town swelled and puffed with the
  pressure of it.
• from The Pearl, by John Steinbeck

6
Hyperbole

• Exaggeration often used for emphasis.
• My backpack weighs a ton.
• It took forever to get to the beach.
• I could eat a cow!

7
Understatement

• Basically the opposite of hyperbole. Often it is
  ironic.
• Calling a FAST moving person Slowpoke
• "Jen had stolen his watch, put a dent in his car,
  and kept him from spending time with his buddies.
  Needless to say, Jack had acquired a less than
  favorable opinion of his ex-girlfriend."

8
Euphemism

• Substitution of an inoffensive term (such as
  "passed away") for one considered offensively
  explicit ("died").
• Ground beef for ground flesh of dead cow
• pre-owned for used or second-hand
• It's just a flesh wound."
• ( Black Knight, after having both of his arms
  cut off, in Monty Python and the Holy Grail )

9
PERSONIFICATION

• An animal given human-like qualities or an object
  given life-like qualities.

The wind called out to me from across the
prairie.

• from Ninki
• by Shirley Jackson
• Ninki was by this time irritated beyond belief
  by the general air of incompetence exhibited in
  the kitchen, and she went into the living room
  and got Shax, who is extraordinarily lazy and
  never catches his own chipmunks, but who is, at
  least, a cat, and preferable, Ninki saw clearly,
  to a man with a gun.

10
ALLITERATION

• Consonant sounds repeated at the beginnings of
  words
• If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers,
  how many pickled peppers did Peter Piper pick?

11
ONOMATOPOEIA

• Words that imitate the sound they are naming
• BUZZ
• OR sounds that imitate another sound
• The silken, sad, uncertain, rustling of each
  purple curtain . . .

12
Idiom

• An expression where the literal meaning of the
  words is not the meaning of the expression. It
  means something other than what it actually says.
• Its raining cats and dogs.
• That team got toasted!