English 9 / Unit 4: Figurative Language and Poetry
4.1 Simile, Metaphor and Personification
Notes
Figurative language means more than the literal words say. Three common types compare or give life to things.
- Simile: compares using like or as ("Her voice was like thunder").
- Metaphor: compares directly, without like or as ("Her voice was thunder").
- Extended metaphor: a comparison carried over several lines or a whole poem.
- Personification: gives human traits to nonhuman things ("The wind whispered").
- Example: Emily Dickinson's "Hope is the thing with feathers" is a metaphor comparing hope to a bird.
Practice
"The classroom was a zoo after the bell rang." This is a:
It compares directly without like or as.
In Emily Dickinson's line "Because I could not stop for Death, / He kindly stopped for me," Death is given human qualities. This device is:
Death is described as a polite person who stops for the speaker.
Which sentence contains a simile?
It compares using "as."
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