What Is a Metaphor, exactly?
Figurative Language
Doesn’t mean exactly what it says;
instead, expresses idea indirectly
Literal Language
Means exactly what it says
I did well on the companion article.
You have a pleasant voice.
Love can be dangerously unpredictable.
I got a call from President Obama.
I knocked that article out of the park.
Your voice is like a combination of Fergie and Jesus.
Love might lunge at you with its pointy teeth.
I got a call from the White House.
A metaphor is one type of figurative language.
Metaphor—What exactly is it?
Metaphor: An indirect comparison of two things in which some quality of one is transferred to the other
for a purpose.
Here’s an excerpt from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet:
But, soft! What light through yonder window breaks?
It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.
Juliet is literally a thirteen-year-old girl. But Romeo believes that…
JULIET
=
_____________________
A metaphor consists of a comparison between two things: TENOR and VEHICLE.
1) TENOR:
What is literally present; the ‘thing’ really being talked about
AND
2) VEHICLE: What is the product of the imagination; the ‘thing’ that completes the comparison.
____________________ is what Romeo is literally talking about, so she is the _____________________.
____________________ is the product of Romeo’s imagination, so it is the _______________________.