Personification & Imagery & Metaphor & eXtended Metaphor American Literature A – Fall 2014

Personification: Make it Human Assigning human-like qualities to non-human things. Examples: A hook shot kisses the rim, hangs there, helplessly, but doesn’t drop. The run down house appeared depressed. My computer throws a fit every time I try to use it. The bees played hide and seek with the flowers as they buzzed from one to another. While making my way to my car, it appeared to smile at me mischievously. The evil tree was lurking in the shadows. The avalanche devoured everything in its path. I could hear Hawaii calling my name.

Imagery: Show, Don’t TelL The use of visually descriptive words that allow the reader to picture or sense the ideas of a poem. Images can also follow a pattern in a work. Also recall that imagery is not only visual, but can appeal to all senses. from “Preludes“ by T. S. Eliot: The winter evening settles down With smell of steaks in passageways. Six o'clock. The burnt-out ends of smoky days. And now a gusty shower wraps The grimy scraps Of withered leaves about your feet And newspapers from vacant lots; The showers beat On broken blinds and chimney-pots, And at the corner of the street A lonely cab-horse steams and stamps. And then the lighting of the lamps. See Hear Taste Smell Touch

Metaphor: This is that Comparison between two unlike objects; sometimes uses is/are. Sometimes sounds like a false statement, until you realize the similarities between the two things being compared. These would be phrases like: “Time is money.” “Time is a thief.” “You are my sunshine.” “He has a heart of stone.” “America is a melting pot.” "But my heart is a lonely hunter that hunts on a lonely hill.“ "Memory is a crazy woman that hoards colored rags and throws away food.“ "Ice formed on the butler's upper slopes."

Extended Metaphor: It’s Longer Comparison between two unlike things that continues throughout a series of sentences in a paragraph or lines in a poem. from Will Ferrell’s Commencement Address to Harvard University (2003): "I graduated from the University of Life. All right? I received a degree from the School of Hard Knocks. And our colors were black and blue, baby. I had office hours with the Dean of Bloody Noses. All right? I borrowed my class notes from Professor Knuckle Sandwich and his Teaching Assistant, Ms. Fat Lip Thon Nyun. That’s the kind of school I went to for real, okay?"