Name______Figurative Language

Date______Period______English 9

One of the most captivating aspects of good literature is the use of figurative language, or ideas communicated beyond their literal meaning to create an image in the reader’s mind. There are several types of figurative language, also called figures of speech. For this exercise, you will use the following figures of speech:

Metaphor: a comparison, based upon similarity or resemblance, of two or more objects: “The pillow was a cloud.” Metaphors can also be more complex: “His recliner was his throne and his remote, his scepter: with these he ruled his kingdom.”

Simile: a comparison made between two unlike objects, using the words “like” or “as” in the comparison: “The pillow was like a marshmallow.”

Personification: giving human qualities or characteristics to non-human objects: “The wind sang its sad song.”

Part 1:

Directions: Decide which of the following underlined figures of speech are contained in the excerpts from F451. Some excerpts contain more than one type of figurative language, so you may circle more than one choice for each.

1. “The stars poured over his sight like flaming meteors” (145).

A) Metaphor B) Simile C) Personification

2. “Out of the black wall before him, a whisper. A shape. In the shape, two eyes. The night looking at him.The forest, seeing him” (145).

A) Metaphor B) Simile C) Personification

3. “A deer. He smelled the heavy musk-like perfume mingled with blood and the gummed exhalation of the animal's breath, all cardamom and moss and ragweed odor in this huge night where the trees ran at him, pulled away, ran, pulled away, to the pulse of the heart behind his eyes” (146).

A) Metaphor B) Simile C) Personification

4. “ ‘I am Plato’s Republic. Like to read Marcus Aurelius? Mr. Simmons is Marcus’ ” (153).

A) Metaphor B) Simile C) Personification

5. “Perhaps he had expected their faces to burn and glitter with the knowledge they carried, to glow as lanterns glow, with the light in them” (156).

A) Metaphor B) Simile C) Personification

6. “Now, a full three seconds, all of the time in history, before the bombs struck, the enemy ships themselves were gone half around the visible world, like bullets in which a savage islander might not believe because they were invisible” (160).

A) Metaphor B) Simile C) Personification

7. “The concussion knocked the air across and down the river, turned the men over like dominoes in a line, blew the water in lifting sprays, and blew the dust and made the trees above them mourn with a great wind passing away south” (162).

A) Metaphor B) Simile C) Personification

8. “The men lay gasping like fish laid out on the grass. They held to the earth as children hold to familiar things, no matter how cold or dead, no matter what has happened or will happen, their fingers were clawed into the dirt, . . .” (163).

A) Metaphor B) Simile C) Personification

9. “A shotgun blast went off in his leg every time he put it down. . .” (123).

A) Metaphor B) Simile C) Personification

10. “The land rushed at him, a tidal wave” (145).

A) Metaphor B) Simile C) Personification

11. “ ‘Come on now, we're going to go build a mirror-factory first and put out nothing but mirrors for the next year and take a long look in them’ “ (166).

A) Metaphor B) Simile C) Personification

12. “She was beginning to shriek now, sitting there like a wax doll melting in its own heat” (78).

A) Metaphor B) Simile C) Personification

13. “There were people on the suction train but he held the book in his hands and the silly thought came to him, if you read fast and read all, maybe some of the sand will stay in the sieve” (80).

A) Metaphor B) Simile C) Personification

14. “The books leapt and danced like roasted birds, their wings ablaze with red and yellow feathers” (118).

A) Metaphor B) Simile C) Personification

15. “So they must have their game out, thought Montag. The circus must go on, even with war beginning

within the hour. . . (136).

A) Metaphor B) Simile C) Personification

Part 2 directions:

Practice writing simile, metaphor, or personification for 3 details you wish to include in your personal narrative. Look at your brainstorm maps and plot comic strips to find details you know you want in the story.

1.

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