Metaphor

Metaphor


A metaphor is used to compare two unlike things to get a better understanding of someone's feelings or actions they make. Metaphors are used in poetry to help the reader to get a better understanding on how the character feels at the moment in the story. For example "John is as fast as a jaguar on the track field" that is describing how fast John is.

You can also use similes to describe things to get a better understanding of it. Similes are often used in regular conversations and in poetry. Simile compare things with "like" or "as". For example "He runs like a horse","It's as cold as the North Pole", and "hard as a rock". Metaphor is used to help us understand the unknown, because we use what we know in comparison to something we don't know to get a better understanding of the unknown.

Another metaphor is personification.Personification is giving animals or objects human abilities. For example "the sun shines happily over the earth" which is saying the sun is happy giving the sun the human ability to feel.

The metaphor hyperbole is exaggeration or overstatement. For example "I'm so hungry I can eat a cow" we know nobody can eat a whole cow but the person is so hungry they could.

Metaphor is a comparison. It is a useful way to understand things that are hard to understand to certain people. It is a shortcut to the meaning of something. It take two unlike things and put them side by side to show us the likeness between them. When Robert Herrick wrote "You are a lovely July-flower" he used a metaphor. He used a metaphor to describe how beautiful she appeals to him. In the poem "The Eagle" by Alfred, Lord Tennyson he he uses personification when he wrote "The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls". He gave the sea the ability to crawl.

A parable is like a metaphor that has been extended to form a brief. The defining characteristic of the parable is the presence of a prescriptive subtext suggesting how a person should behave or believe. Parables frequently use metaphorical language which allows people to more easily discuss difficult or complex ideas.

In the poem "The Force That Through the Green Fuse Drives the Flower" the central metaphor is the word "force". The poet is suggesting that the same force that gives life, and death, to the flower also drives him. In the line of this stanza we see that the "force" that "drives" nature is the force of life that also drives the poet or protagonist. The metaphor, which continues throughout the poem, is intended to develop a sense of the close relationship between nature and humanity. The poet uses the word green which we know as plant life to refer to human life as well. In this poem nature is what drives the poet. In the line "My youth is Bent by the same wintry fever." the poet is comparing the life of a human being to the growth and decline of a tree. The word "bent" is referring to the same thing that bends the tree or flower causes old age and finally death to human being. The force that drives life for nature also drives life for human life.

In the poem "A Meditation for his Mistress" by Robert Herrick he uses metaphor. In the line "You are a lovely-July flower" he is comparing and describing how beautiful his lover is. In this poem he uses nothing but metaphors to describe the looks of his mistress and reason for loving her, but at the end he talks about how he has to leave her in line 20 and 21 when he says "But die you must, fair maid, ere long, As he, the maker of this song."

Another good poet is Emily Dickinson and she uses comparison with great originality. She mixed similes and metaphors superbly in such poems as " A Book," "Indian Summer," and "A Cemetery." In her poem "A Book" she compares poetry to a ship. She thinks ship and horse were too commonplace. The ship became a "frigate," a beautiful full-sailed vessel of romance, and the everyday "horse,"the plodding beast of the field and puller of wagons, became instead a "courser," a swift and spirited steed, an adventurous creature whose hoofs beat out a brisk rhythm, "prancing" like a page of inspired poetry. In the poem "The Wind" by Emily Dickinson she uses personification to describe how the wind tapped when she wrote " The wind tapped like a tired man ". Poetry is communication, it helps imagine what's going on in a story or how the ready feels in the poems.

The metaphor that would apply to me is hyperbole, because I exaggerate things to give a better understanding of the situation to people. Metaphors are used in conversations and poetry. Metaphors help people imagine and understand the situation.


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© Berney Maldonado 2010