In the Writing Center with Ronnie B: A Quick Look at Figurative Language, Metaphor, Simile, and Analogy

Explains figurative language, metaphor, simile, and analogy.

Figurative language is closely related to metaphor, while simile is related to analogy. But all are similar in the way they attempt to compare one thing to another.

Figurative or metaphorical language adds color and excitement to writing, stimulating our minds in the process. Figures of speech and metaphors invite us to look at familiar things in new ways, from different perspectives. Similes do the same, but with less intensity (the “like” or “as” lessening the force of the comparison). Look at these two examples:

• The schoolmaster is the person who takes the children off the parents’ hands for a consideration. That is to say, he establishes a child prison, engages a number of employee schoolmasters as turnkeys, and covers up the essential cruelty and unnaturalness of the situation by torturing the children if they do not learn, and calling this process, which is within the capacity of any fool or blackguard, by the sacred name of Teaching.

• The schoolmaster is the person who takes the children off the parents’ hands for a consideration. That is to say, he establishes something like a child prison, engages a number of employee schoolmasters to act like turnkeys, covers up the essential cruelty and unnaturalness of the situation by doing things to the children that are like torture if they do not learn, and calling this process, which is within the capacity of any fool or blackguard, by the sacred name of Teaching.

Both passages above say the same thing about education, but the first (with metaphors) does it with more force, intensity, and immediacy than the second (with similes). The author used the prison metaphor to emphasize a point that he could have made without it. But “prison,” “turnkeys,” and “torture” invest his argument with an emotional intensity that ordinary language cannot communicate.

Figurative language or metaphor is not only for creative or poetic writing. Figures and metaphor can add interest and clarity to all kinds of writing by making ideas (simple or complex) easily understood. Academicians of all types use figurative language/metaphor:

• Prime numbers are the most important objects in mathematics; they are the building blocks of all numbers. They are the hydrogen and oxygen of the world of mathematics, the atoms of arithmetic.
• “Goya’s Last Works,” at the Frick Museum, isn’t large, but neither are grenades.

The writer of the first example says that prime numbers are the hydrogen, oxygen, and atoms of mathematics — they are its building blocks. The writer of the second example says that the Goya exhibit is like a hand grenade — one is explosive and powerful like the other is explosive and powerful.

Here is a simile/analogy from Mark Twain:

• When a person has a poor ear for music, he will flat and sharp right along without knowing it. He keeps near the tune, but it is not the tune. When a person has a poor ear for words, the result is a literary flatting and sharping; you perceive what he is intending to say, but you also perceive that he doesn’t say it.

Metaphors can be trouble if you don’t pay attention to their literal incarnations. Many of the words and phrases we use without thinking come from dead metaphors that spring back to life when we least expect it:

• Unless marketing research can get a feel for the tastes of the younger buyer, the thrust of any advertising campaign will be fruitless.

Sometimes writers mix metaphors, which is as awkward as using dead metaphors. Here’s a mixed metaphor from a student paper:

• Monday morning armchair quarterback.

Monday morning quarterbacks are fans who talk about what they would have done, what should have been done, the day after the game. Armchair quarterbacks are fans who play the game from the comfort of their living rooms, telling players on the field what they should be doing. Both are second-guessers, but “Monday morning armchair quarterback” mixes the two metaphors.

And what about bad metaphors and analogies?

• His eyes were like two brown circles with big black dots in the center.
• Standing as tall as a 6-foot, 3-inch tree, Charles entered the room.
• The little boat drifted across the pond the way a bowling ball wouldn’t.

Don’t invent metaphors like the three above. If you can’t create a good metaphor, don’t create one at all.

Remember that figurative or metaphorical language works best in small doses. Because metaphor heightens the attention of readers and makes writing memorable, using it too frequently negates its impact.