Figurative Language

Figurative Language in A Long Way Gone

Figurative Language • Language not meant to be taken literally • Ask yourself, is this description really true, or it used for some effect?

Simile • Comparisons of unlike things using “like” or “as” • MUST be a comparison or it is not a simile • Example: • “Their voices sounded like bees.” (p. 81) –comparing voices to the sound that bees make • “We were all shaking as if we’d been placed on a vibrating machine.” – (p. 131)- “as if”- comparing their movements to what they would feel like on a machine. • “It seemed as if my heart had frozen.” (p. 126)-

INCORRECT “Similes” “Their eyes were as red as ours.” -their eyes could literally be the same color red. Also, these are not two unlike things, they are similar. “They were city soldiers, who like the men in the truck… hadn’t been to war.” –the like here is not comparing two unlike things. It is simply saying that these men looked like the men he had seen before.

Metaphor • Comparing two unlike things without the words “like” or “as”. • Examples • “I started boiling with anger.” (p. 130) – comparing his feeling of anger to a boiling pot

INCORRECT Metaphors “I looked at the guns the MP’s carried and envied them.” (p. 130)- he literally wanted the guns, or envied them. This is not figurative. “ I could smell the forest on them.” (p. 132)- nothing is being compared; the items actually smelled like the woods or forest so it is literal.

Personification • Giving human qualities to non-human objects/figures. • Examples: • “Some nights the sky wept stars…” (p. 80) –giving the sky the ability to weep/cry • “It seemed as if the sky was telling us a story.” (p. 80)- giving the sky the ability to tell a story. • “… the still newborn night.” (p. 136)- giving the night the ability to be born, a human experience.

INCORRECT Personification “As the truck slowly rocked along the busy street.” – this does not give the truck any qualities of a human, it simply describes the way it moved, like a rocking chair. “His forehead perspired profusely”- his forehead was actually perspiring (sweating) profusely, or very badly. There is no human qualities giving to a non-human thing.

Figurative Language PracticeDecide if each example is a simile, metaphor, personification, or not figurative language at all. “I was marveling at the glittering cityscape” (p. 131) “My gun was my provider, my protector.” (p. 126) “The squad had been my family.” (p. 130) “Four men dressed in clean blue jeans… with t-shirts that said UNICEF on them in big blue letters jumped out.” (p. 128) “He is a sissy civilian” (p. 134) “We just stood there looing at the beds, as if we had never seen anything like them before. (p. 132)

Figurative Language