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Figurative Language A Creative Writing Strategy
Ahhhh yes, figurative language. This is some of the funnest, yet hardest stuff to learn. It is different than the Elements of Literature, yet it is a part of it also because this is the language the author uses in order to convey his/her message to you, the reader. If you type in Figurative Language in a search engine, you will see there are hundreds of different places to go in order to get information. Some of it is mind boggling. What I have here is what I have found most commonly tested on standardized tests and is most commonly needed in order to read and understand 90% of all the reading material out there. Here we go;
Simile • A simile makes a comparison between two things which are unalike. Again, you have probably done this and not even realized it. The kicker on this one is you have to use the words like or as. • Here are a couple of examples; The muscles on his arms were strong as iron. As easy as A.B.C. As easy as pie. As fat as a pig. As fit as a fiddle. • There are thousands more. You get the idea. Here are a couple I found on the Internet. If you search for "Worst Similes and Metaphors" you will find these... Some are hilarious. This is an example of a bad simile; "Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever."
Metaphor • A metaphor compares unlike things but it DOES NOT use like or as. • Here are some examples you may know; Jumping for joy, Rolling in dough, Apple of my eye, It is raining cats and dogs. • Here are some you may not have heard, again just search for worst metaphors... "The little boat drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn't."
Personification • This is when we give human qualities to something which is not human. How many of you have a name for your car? Talk to the computer or TV or maybe your pet goldfish? You are personifying the object by giving it a human quality. • Some examples you will know include Santa Claus, Jack Frost, Mother Nature or the Angel of Death. They personify Christmas, Winter, Earth and Death respectively. We say "The wind cried..." or "My computer hates me." Those are more examples of personification. On TV this season there is KITT, the smart car of Knight Rider...
Imagery • Imagery is language that is used to describe a picture in your mind. • For example, "The young red-headed lass climbed the emerald green hillside above the ocean shore on the flawless Irish day." • You should have seen a red headed girl climbing a hillside much like the illustration in your mind. That is imagery.
Hyperbole • Here is another one you have all heard or used yourself. A hyperbole is when you make a BIG exaggeration. • For example, "I have told you a million times to stop that!" "If you don't stop that I am going to slap you into tomorrow!" "Better stop it or I am gonna kill you." Notice how these all sound like your parents.... These can also be what I like to call absolute statements, "You never clean your room." "I have always known it was you." "If I have to do this one more time, I will quit." "You never listen to me." These are all hyperbole because we say it, but it may not actually, in fact, be true.
Your Turn • Please write ONLY on your own sheet of paper. • Identify each of the ten excerpts from Edgar Allan Poe as either a simile, metaphor, personification, or hyperbole. • Explain how you know your answer is correct. • Example: • “My soul has grown deep like rivers.” • Simile ~ The soul is compared to a river using “like.”
Idiom Idioms are those little words and phrases which make a language unique. Even in American English, we have idioms which make us different. For example, if you were to go to the southern United States and say you want a 'coke' to drink. Down south you will get a Coca Cola. However. when I was growing up in New Mexico, a 'coke' meant any soft drink. That is an idiom unique for a place. Idioms are like Cliches, except an idiom is unique to a place where a cliche is known by all. Here is another way of looking at it, people in the United States, England and Australia all speak English. However, there are sayings which are unique to each country. For example, if you were to hear the following idioms, would you know where they came from? "I want to give it the Full Monty!" "I'll meet you at the chemist's and we can buy a lolly." "You guys better stop horsing around or I will write you up." All of these are in English, but I'll bet you would not know where they came from except the last one if you are in America. 'Horsing around' is an American Idiom meaning someone who is usually doing something they are not supposed to. 'Full Monty' is a term from England meaning to give it everything you have, to go all out for something. 'Chemist and lolly' are Australian. The chemist is a pharmacist and lolly is another word for candy. Idioms are hard because in this day when people move around a lot and with all the technology we have, it is hard to keep up with the 411 on what the word is, ya know dude!
Alliteration • Very simply, it is a repeating consonant sound. Vowels are A, E, I, O, U and sometimes Y. So any other letter which is repeated several times in a passage will make it an alliteration. • Here are a couple of examples, Sally sells sea shells by the sea shore. Or, Wally Walrus wondered where his socks were? One more, Tea for two and two for tea.
Assonance • This is a harder concept to get and one which I do not see very often. It is when there is a resemblance in the sounds that words in a verse make. • For example; "The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain." Or "holy and stony." Or maybe "It beats as it sweeps as it cleans." The last one was a marketing pitch for Hoover Vacuums. Pay attention to the vowels in this one.
Onomatopoeia The hardest word to spell is probably the easiest to remember. This is the one where the words make a sound. Booming bombs, buzzing bees, cracklingfire, screeching tires.
Palindrome A palindrome is a word or a number or a sequence of units that is able to be read the same way from either direction, be it forwards or backwards. Punctuation and spaces between the words or lettering is allowed. Composing literature that is categorized as a palindrome is known as ‘constrained writing.’
Analogy An Analogy is when we make a comparison between things which are not alike. Analogies are used everyday and by almost everyone. If you have ever tried to tell someone something about which they have no knowledge and you use the words "It is like..." Then you are making an analogy. For example, simple analogies may be Hot is to Fire as Cold is to Ice. Smooth is to Baby's Behind as Rough is to Sand Paper. Hard is to Rock as Soft is to Bed. You get the idea. Now, let us use some short hand, King:Prince::Queen:Princess If you noticed we used colons in the analogy instead of writing it out. Try again, Football:America::Soccer:World They can get harder, but for the most part, this is the type of analogies most people will see.
Cliché • A cliché is a tired old expression which everyone uses and no one likes to hear. • Some examples are; "in the nick of time, couldn't catch my breath, for the life of me, without moving a muscle, without a doubt, to tell the truth, couldn't keep my eyes open, at the drop of a hat, cut to the chase..." • The list goes on and on. Basically it is a word or phrase which has become very familiar to everyone. • Examples of word clichés are "awesome, totally, bad..." Words which most teenagers use today when they speak to each other... "snap!"
Pun Puns are not something which is normally taught in class. However, it is a play on words which deliberately uses words with similar meanings or spellings to make some kind of joke or point. Here is an example, "Two pencils decided to have a race. The outcome was a draw." The play on words has to do with pencils and drawing. Most people either get a pun right away or they don't. Howabout "I noticed the article about peripheral vision out of the corner of my eye." The play on words here is peripheral vision which means seeing to the side of you while still looking ahead and corner of the eye, which is another way to say, you guessed it, peripheral vision. One more before we go, "Sign on the door of an Internet hacker. 'Gone Phishing'." That was a more technological one for you. There are different kinds of puns too, perfect, imperfect, compound, homographic, extended, the list goes on. Just know it is a play on words. Like the illustration to the right....computer mouse...get it???
Satire Let us start by saying that the easiest way to think of satire is to think of making fun of something. However, satire is not always funny. It can be very pointed and make us uncomfortable. If you watched Saturday Night Live during the election season, you noticed they were making fun of the candidates, this is satire. Sometimes it was funny and sometimes it is not. "The Simpson's" and "South Park" are prime examples of satire on television these days. A lot of times, sarcasm is used in satire.
Truism These are also called Aphorisms. They are statements which are so simple and true, that you go, "Yeah, you're right." Sometimes they are witty, and sometimes they just make a point. For example, "Seat belts are not as confining as wheelchairs." Or "The nice thing about the future is that it always starts tomorrow." One person who has become famous for his witty truisms, is the former catcher and manager of the New York Yankees, Yogi Berra, a couple of his famous truisms are, "You can observe a lot by just watching." and "It's déjà' vu all over again."
Allegory An allegory is when a story is used to convey a meaning that is beyond what is written on the page. For example, in class we recently read, "The Masque of the Red Death" by Edgar Allan Poe. Though Poe did not claim any allegory, most people believe it is an allegory for the Black Death which swept Europe in the Middle Ages. Most of us know "The Wizard of Oz," but what many do not realize is that there is a huge discussion about this story being an allegory for the politics of the time in which is was written. Some people have claimed the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy was an allegory for the world wars even though it was written before the Second World War and Tolkien himself said he hated allegory.
Allusion This one is a toughie, because not everyone has seen or read the same thing. An Allusion is a reference to something which everyone is supposed to know about. For example, if I say that "It has been raining for 40 days and 40 nights." I have made an allusion to the story of Noah and the Ark. If I say, "She is no Madonna." Then I am making an allusion to the singer. Last winter, my family and I went to see a production of Mozart's "The Magic Flute" in Phoenix, Arizona. During the first act the hero is lost and comes across someone and asks for directions out of the valley. The character replies that the 'light rail doesn't run there yet.' An allusion to the light rail system under construction. So, like an Idiom, an allusion may be a specific piece of knowledge for a specific location. Do not confuseallusion with illusion. Remember, an allusion is a reference to something you are supposed to already know and an illusion is when you see something which is not there.
Irony Another toughie. People always talk about Irony, but sometimes, it takes awhile to figure out what it means. According to Henry Watson Fowler of The Kings English, he said "any definition of irony must include this, that the surface meaning and the underlying meaning of what is said are not the same." What this means is that what is said and what actually happens are not the same. Here is an example of irony. I went to college to become an Agriculture Teacher. To teach about plants and soil and animals and how they all come together to provide us with food and clothing. I am now an English Teacher. THAT is irony. Here is another one, you stay up all night studying for a huge Science test. When you go to class, you discover the test is not until the next week. That is irony. The picture to left is irony...the cat is in the cage and the bird is outside...Want more, listen to Alanis Morissette's song "Ironic." It is filled with irony.
Oxymoron I was reading at Wikipedia (More on Wikipedia in the Research Page) and it was saying that the word 'Oxy' meant sharp or pointed and the word 'Moron' came from the Greek 'moros' meaning dull. So by itself the word oxymoron is an oxymoron because most oxymoron's are not dull at all and can be very general. An oxymoron is a contradiction. The thing with an oxymoron is that it is used on purpose to make a point. Here are some examples of oxymorons: Deafening silence, now then, living dead, icy hot, start stopping, controlled chaos, open secret, resident alien, dry lake, jumbo shrimp and the list goes on.
Paradox A paradox is a true statement or group of true statements which when read or spoken, do not seem to make sense. They may sound like a contradiction. Here are some examples, "He who makes the most mistakes, wins." This refers to the fact that we learn from our failures. The more failures we have, the more we learn. "Bad things happen to good people." We expect bad things to happen to bad people and so when they do we really don't notice, but when good people have problems, we take notice. Do they happen more to good people, probably not, we just see it more. "What we learn from history is that we don't learn from history." History's number one paradox. Why is it that humans can't seem to overcome this cycle we have been in for a million years???
Rhetorical Question This is a question which is asked, but for which there is no reply. Again, we have all seen and done this. Here are some examples:"Is the sky blue?" "Are you out of your mind?!" "Are you insane?!" "Do bears poop in the woods?" In literatureJulius Caesar, Mark Antony asks the crowd after Caesar has been killed, "Here was a Caesar! When comes such another?" This is a rhetorical question because it is not expected to be answered.
