Simile and Metaphor

Similes

• comparisons that show how two things that are not alike in most ways are similar in one important way. Similes are a way to describe something. Authors use them to make their writing more interesting or entertaining.

Similes use the words “as” or “like” to make the connection between the two things that are being compared.

examples:

1."Humanity, let us say, is like people packed in an automobile which is traveling downhill without lights at terrific speed and driven by a four-year-old child. The signposts along the way are all marked 'Progress.'"
2. "Life is like an onion: You peel it off one layer at a time, and sometimes you weep."
3. "He looked about as inconspicuous as a tarantula on a slice of angel food."
4. "She dealt with moral problems as a cleaver deals with meat."
5. "Life is rather like a tin of sardines: we're all of us looking for the key."

Metaphor

• A figure of speech in which an implied comparison is made between two unlike things that actually have something in common. A metaphor expresses the unfamiliar (the tenor) in terms of the familiar (the vehicle).

examples:

1. "Between the lower east side tenements the sky is a snotty handkerchief."
2. "Men's words are bullets, that their enemies take up and make use of against them."
3. "Memory is a crazy woman that hoards colored rags and throws away food."
4. "The rain came down in long knitting needles."
5. "A man may break a word with you, sir, and words are but wind."