Metaphor and Simile Practice
Read the following examples and recreate and complete the chart in your notes for three metaphors of your choice.
Examples of Metaphor
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The detective listened to her tales with a wooden face.
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She was fairly certain that life was a fashion show.
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The typical teenage boy’s room is a disaster area.
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What storms then shook the ocean of my sleep.
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The children were roses grown in concrete gardens, beautiful and forlorn.
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Kisses are the flowers of love in bloom.
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His cotton candy words did not appeal to her taste.
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Kathy arrived at the grocery store with an army of children.
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Her eyes were fireflies.
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He wanted to set sail on the ocean of love but he just wasted away in the desert.
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I was lost in a sea of nameless faces.
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John’s answer to the problem was just a Band-Aid, not a solution.
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The cast on Michael’s broken leg was a plaster shackle.
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Cameron always had a taste for the fruit of knowledge.
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The promise between us was a delicate flower.
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He’s a rolling stone, and it’s bred in the bone.
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He pleaded for her forgiveness but Janet’s heart was cold iron.
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She was just a trophy to Ricardo, another object to possess.
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The path of resentment is easier to travel than the road to forgiveness.
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Katie’s plan to get into college was a house of cards on a crooked table.
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The wheels of justice turn slowly.
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Hope shines–a pebble in the gloom.
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She cut him down with her words.
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The job interview was a rope ladder dropped from heaven.
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Her hair was a flowing golden river streaming down her shoulders.
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The computer in the classroom was an old dinosaur.
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Laughter is the music of the soul.
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David is a worm for what he did to Shelia.
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The teacher planted the seeds of wisdom.
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Phyllis, ah, Phyllis, my life is a gray day
Example chart
Metaphor
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What is being compared?
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The detective listened to her tales with a wooden face.
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The expression on the detective’s face is being compared to wood.
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Descriptors mind map
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Why is the metaphor effective?
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Hard Unchanging Unresponsive
WOODEN
Unexpressive Silent
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The use of the word wooden to describe the detective’s face, suggests that s/he is silently and unresponsively listening to the woman. Along with the use of the word “tales” to describe her story, the “wooden face” suggests the detective’s hard attitude and mistrust.
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Read the following examples and recreate and complete the chart in your notes for three similes of your choice.
Examples of Simile
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“Food?” Chris inquired, popping out of his seat like a toaster strudel.
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Grandpa lounged on the raft in the middle of the pool like an old battleship.
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If seen from above the factory, the workers would have looked like clock parts.
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The truth was like a bad taste on his tongue.
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The people who still lived in the town were stuck in place like wax statues.
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Cassie talked to her son about girls as though she were giving him tax advice.
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Alan’s jokes were like flat soda to the children, surprisingly unpleasant.
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My mother’s kitchen was like a holy place: you couldn’t wear your shoes, you had to sit there at a certain time, and occasionally we’d pray.
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The bottle rolled off the table like a teardrop.
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The handshake felt like warm laundry.
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She hung her head like a dying flower.
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Arguing with her was like dueling with hand grenades.
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The classroom was as quiet as a tongue-tied librarian in a hybrid car.
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Janie’s boyfriend appreciated her as an ape might appreciate an algebra book.
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The clouds were like ice-cream castles in the sky.
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The shingles on the shack shook in the storm winds like scared children.
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When he reached the top of the hill, he felt as strong as a steel gate.
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When the tree branch broke, Millie fell from the limb like a robin’s egg.
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She swam through the waters like she was falling through a warm dream.
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They children ran like ripples through water.
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Mikhail scattered his pocket change in front of the beggars like crumbs of bread.
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Her hair was as soft as a spider web.
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Each dollar bill was a like a magic wand to cast away problems.
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The man held the blanket like a memory.
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The ice sculptor’s hands fluttered like hummingbird wings.
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I’m about as awesome as a flying giraffe.
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You are soft as the nesting dove.
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Andre charged down the football field like it was the War of 1812.
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The stars looked like stupid little fish.
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Her laughter was like a warm blanket or a familiar song.
Example chart
Simile
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What is being compared?
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“Food?” Chris inquired, popping out of his seat like a toaster strudel.
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The way Chris jumps up is compared to a toaster strudel popping out of the toaster.
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Descriptors mind map
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Why is the simile effective?
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Convenience food Fake Quick
TOASTER STRUDEL
Sweet Enjoyed by young people
Not haut cuisine
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The simile works well, because the topic of the conversation actually revolves around food. Comparing Chris’s enthusiasm to a toaster strudel shows how he is not focused on quality food, but anything quick and sweet. The choice of a convenience food as a simile suggests that Chris is young and busy so it communicates something about his character.
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Identifying Metaphors and Similes
Metaphor: an indirect, or implied, comparison between two unlike things (eg. storm of grief)
Simile: a direct comparison between two unlike things using “like” or “as” (eg. she carried herself like a goddess)
Read each of the following literary devices and indicate if it is an example of metaphor (M) or simile (S).
1. We are all shadows on the wall of time. M
2. The music burst like a bent-up flood. S
3. The curtains stir as with an ancient pain.
4. But now her hands like moonlight brush the keys with velvet grace.
5. My heart swelled with a sea of tears.
6. When the teacher leaves her litte realm, she breaks her wand of power apart.
7. The Moo Cow’s tail is a piece of rope all raveled out where it grows.
8. My dreams are flowers to which you are a bee.
9. I flitted like a dizzy moth.
10. The clouds sailed across the sky.
11. The flowers were as soft as thoughts of budding love.
12. Each flame of the fire is a precious stone belonging to all who gaze upon it.
13. The gray of the sea, and the gray of the sky, / A glimpse of the moon like a half-closed eye.
14. And therefore I went forth with hope and fear into the wintry forest of our life.
15. Yes, the doors are locked and the ashes are white as the frost.
16. A mist about your beauty clings like a thin cloud before a star.
17. My words are chains of lead.
18. But into her face there came a flame; / I wonder could she have been thinking the same?
19. She went like snow in the springtime on a sunny hill.
20. Then I knew those tiny voices, clear as drops of dew.
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