Simile is, a comparison (usually introduced by like or as) between two things that are generally not alike--such as a line of migrant workers and a wave, or onion skins and a swarm of butterflies.Writers use similes to explain things, to express emotion, and to make their writing more vivid and entertaining.
Metaphors also offer figurative comparisons, but these are implied rather than introduced by like or as. See if you can identify the implied comparisons in these two sentences:
The farm was crouched on a bleak hillside, where its fields, fanged in flints, dropped steeply to the village of Howling a mile away.
(Stella Gibbons, Cold Comfort Farm)
Time rushes toward us with its hospital tray of infinitely varied narcotics, even while it is preparing us for its inevitably fatal operation.
(Tennessee Williams, The Rose Tattoo)
The first sentence uses the metaphor of a beast "crouched" and "fanged in flints" to describe the farm and the fields. In the second sentence, time is compared to a doctor attending a doomed patient. Similes and metaphors are often used in descriptive writing to create vivid sight and sound images, as in these two sentences:
Over my head the clouds thicken, then crack and split like a roar of cannonballs tumbling down a marble staircase; their bellies open--too late to run now!--and suddenly the rain comes down.
(Edward Abbey, Desert Solitaire)
The seabirds glide down to the water--stub-winged cargo planes--land awkwardly, taxi with fluttering wings and stamping paddle feet, then dive.
(Franklin Russell, "A Madness of Nature")
The first sentence above contains both a simile ("a roar like that of cannonballs") and a metaphor ("their bellies open") in its dramatization of a thunderstorm. The second sentence uses the metaphor of "stub-winged cargo planes" to describe the movements of the seabirds. In both cases, the figurative comparisons offer the reader a fresh and interesting way of looking at the thing being described. A metaphor is a figure of speech in which an implied comparison is made between two unlike things that actually have something important in common. The word metaphor itself is a metaphor, coming from a Greek word meaning to "transfer" or "carry across." Metaphors "carry" meaning from one word, image, or idea to another.
Some people think of metaphors as nothing more than the sweet stuff of songs and poems--Love is a jewel, or a rose, or a butterfly. But in fact all of us speak and write and think in metaphors every day. They can't be avoided: metaphors are built right into our language.For example, advertisements: 1."Life is a journey, travel it well."(United Airlines). 2"Life is a journey. Enjoy the Ride (Nissan) Metaphors are also ways of thinking, offering readers fresh ways of examining ideas and viewing the world. -"Love is the wild card of existence."
(Rita Mae Brown, In Her Day) -"Time, you thief"
(Leigh Hunt, "Rondeau") --"Memory is a crazy woman that hoards colored rags and throws away food."
(Austin O'Malley) -"Life is a zoo in a jungle."
(Peter De Vries)
Metonymy 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").Metonymy is also the rhetorical strategy of describing something indirectly by referring to things around it, as in describing someone's clothing to characterize the individual.
Examples of metonymy in poems is as follows
'He is a man of cloth', which means he belongs to a religious order.
'He writes with a fine hand', means he has a good handwriting.
'We have always remained loyal to the crown', that means the people are loyal to the king or the ruler of their country.
'The pen is mightier than the sword' refers that the power of literary works is greater than military force.
'The House was called to order', refers to the members of the House.
List of metonyms
| word | literal meaning | metonymic use |
|---|---|---|
| drinking | consuming a liquid | consuming alcohol |
| word | a unit of language | a promise (to give/keep/break one's word); a conversation (to have a word with) |
| sweat | perspiration | hard work |
| heater | a device that creates heat | a firearm |
| tongue | oral muscle | a language or dialect |
| the press | printing press | the news media |
| Houston | largest city in the state of Texas | NASA Mission Control (for which the call signis "Houston") |
| Annapolis | the capital of the state of Maryland | the United States Naval Academy, which is located there |
| Detroit | the largest city in Michigan | the American automotive industry |
| Hollywood | a district of Los Angeles | the American film & television industry |
| The Kremlin | A fortified construction in historic cities of Russia and the Soviet Union | The Government of Russia or the Moscow Kremlin |
Personification is an ontological metaphor in which a thing or abstraction is represented as a person.
Examples:
- Fear knocked on the door. Faith answered. There was no one there. - Proverb
- And like the flowers beside them chill and shiver, Will like the flowers beside them soon be gone - Robert Frost
- Earth felt the wound; and Nature from her seat, Sighing, through all her works, gave signs of woe. - John Milton
- My computer hates me.
- The camera loves me.
- Art is a jealous mistress.
- Wind yells while blowing.
- Opportunity knocked on the door.
- The sun greeted me this morning.
- Snow had wrapped a white blanket over the city.
- Time never waits for anyone.
- Trees were dancing with the wind.
- The radio stopped singing and continued to stare at me.
- The picture in that magazine shouted for attention.
- Plants were suffering from the intense heat.
- The flowers were crying for my attention.