1. Extended Metaphor

2. Definition of Extended Metaphor
An extended metaphor is a metaphor that unfolds across multiple lines or even paragraphs of a text, making use of multiple interrelated metaphors within an overarching one.

3. Why Writers Use it:
 Extended metaphors allow writers to draw a larger comparison between two things or ideas. They allow the audience to visualize a complex idea in a memorable way or tangible. They highlight a comparison in a more intense way than simple metaphors or similes.

4. Simple vs. Extended Metaphors
So while "life is a highway" is a simple metaphor, it becomes an extended metaphor when you say:
"Life is a highway that takes us through green pastures, vast deserts, and rocky mountains. Sometimes your car breaks down or you run out of gas, and sometimes you get lost. Friends are the roadmaps that help you get where you're going."
Now you've spread the idea of "life = highway" across multiple sentences and related ideas, and created an extended metaphor.

5. ...Example Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate: Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer's lease hath all too short a date: Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, And often is his gold complexion dimm'd; And every fair from fair sometime declines, By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd; But thy eternal summer shall not fade Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest; Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade, When in eternal lines to time thou growest: So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, So long lives this and this gives life to thee
-William Shakespeare
Sonnet 18

6. …Another Example Hope Is The Thing
Hope is the thing with feathers That perches in the soul, And sings the tune--without the words, And never stops at all, And sweetest in the gale is heard; And sore must be the storm That could abash the little bird That kept so many warm. I've heard it in the chillest land, And on the strangest sea; Yet, never, in extremity, It asked a crumb of me Emily Dickinson

7. Extended Metaphor in Shakespeare and Literature
Perhaps the most famous extended metaphor of all…
“All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts.” Shakespeare’s As You Like It
But soft! What light through yonder window breaks? It is the East, and Juliet is the sun! Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon, Who is already sick and pale with grief…— Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet

8. More Shakespeare… Macbeth, scene 5
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

9. Will Ferrell 2003 Harvard Commencement Speech:
metaphor/

10. Building an Extended Metaphor: My life is a game of Pac-Man
Concrete: Pac-Man
Pac-dots
Maze
Ghosts
Game over
Electronic noise
Control stick
Screen
Power pellets
High score
Abstract: Life
Goals
Struggles
Challenges
Twists
Turns
Fears
Pressure
Knowledge
Quick decisions
Adaptability
Persistence

11. Combine the concrete and abstract:
My life is a game of Pac-Man. I strive for mastery, for that elusive high score. I navigate the maze to the electronic, hypnotic, frenetic beat. Frantically, I gobble up experience, knowledge, making deft turns, quick decisions. Ghosts are always in pursuit: my fear of failure, my challenges, my struggles. But I keep moving, munching through the Pac-dots, racing toward the power pellets so I can turn to face those ghosts head-on to devour them once in a while. I want to get to that next stage and then the next and the next. Each stage brings more ghosts, faster and trickier ones. I’m ready. I’m up to the test, gripping the control stick with confidence. I refuse to hear those tumbling notes or to see the flashing game-over screen.

12. Your Turn: Brainstorm a concrete list and an abstract list for one of the following simple metaphors: Fear is cold water. or Anger is a palace. or Love is a fountain or Parents are blankets.

13. What is the comparison in this passage?
And then there is that day when all around, all around you hear the dropping of the apples, here and one there, and then it is three and then it is four and then nine and twenty, until the apples plummet like rain, fall like horse hoofs in the soft, darkening grass, and you are the last apple on the tree; and you wait for the wind to work you slowly free from your hold upon the sky, and drop you down and down. Long before you hit the grass you will have forgotten there was ever a tree, or other apples, or a summer, or green grass below. You will fall in darkness. (From Dandelion Wine, pg )

14. The Assignment:
Write a simple metaphor, using “LIFE” as the abstract idea. You need to think of a “concrete” item to make a comparison.
Brainstorm a list for “LIFE” and a list for the concrete item.
Write an extended metaphor using your lists for inspiration.