1. METAPHOR
An example of figurative language (that is, language that is not to be taken literally).
A comparison in which one thing is said to be another
Like a simile, without using “like” or “as” in the comparison

4. METAPHOR
Very often, the best metaphors compare something that is ABSTRACT, such as a thought, feeling, or idea, with something that is CONCRETE, or something that can be experienced with the five senses.

5. METAPHOR
By pairing an ABSTRACT thing with a CONCRETE thing, the poet helps the reader visualize and better understand what the idea, feeling, or thought is. Ultimately, it allows the poet to better create his or her own experience for the reader by putting it into terms that are more specific.

7. The Fault in Our Stars
Battling cancer is having an unlit cigarette between your teeth.
Metaphor:
You (the person who holds it/has it) has the thing that can kill you, but you don’t light it/let it destroy you.
How?

8. The Fault in Our Stars
Hazel, fighting cancer, is a grenade.
Metaphor:
When she dies/explodes, she will cause tremendous collateral (emotional) damage to those around her; those closest to her will be hurt the most.
How?

9. THE DEAD METAPHOR
Is still alive and well in our vernacular. What makes it “DEAD” is the fact that it has become a saying, a figure of speech that is expected and understood without requiring much thought or analysis, because of regular usage. In other words, it’s not fresh and original. It’s familiar.
Linguists would say that it is “a figure of speech that has lost its force and imaginative effectiveness through frequent use.”

11. “He stabbed me in the back.”
The experience of being betrayed by someone
Being physically stabbed in the back
ARE SIMILAR IN THAT:
It’s tremendously painful.
It’s shocking and surprising in a terrible way.
You never saw it coming.
You see your offender as a coward.

12. Octopi are known for touching and manipulating things in their environment.
Chickens run away when threatened.
Bugs are annoying.
Pigs are dirty/“dirty”.
Babies cry when they don’t get their way.
Neanderthals were intellectually inferior .

13. The problem that nobody will talk about
It can’t be covered up or avoided easily.
It makes everyone feel like someone should do something about it.
Everyone is aware of it.
It takes up so much “space.”
It’s the “____________________ in the room.”

15. DEAD METAPHOR
Is a metaphor that has occurred so often that it has become a new meaning of the expression (e.g., “he is a snake” may once have been a metaphor but after years of use it has died and become a new sense of the word “snake”)
Catch a cold.
Life is a rollercoaster.
Time is a thief.
Time is running out.

16. is a succession of incongruous or ludicrous comparisons.
MIXED METAPHOR
is a succession of incongruous or ludicrous comparisons.
When two or more metaphors (or cliches) are jumbled together, often illogically, we say that these comparisons are "mixed."

18. from a speech by Boyle Roche in the Irish Parliament:
“Mr. Speaker, I smell a rat. I see him floating in the air. But mark me, sir, I will nip him in the bud."

21. Your charge:
Identify the metaphors in the poems we read and study.
Explain how the metaphors work (what two things are being compared and how they are similar).
Come up with three of your own ORIGINAL metaphors, and explain how each one works (NO DEAD ONES, PLEASE).