Metaphors, Similes, and the Epic
Simile
Simile
• Simile: Comparison of two unlike things using
the word like, as, or than.
• Examples:
– His teeth were crooked, like a pile of wrecked cars.
– I feel lower than a snake in a ditch.
– His feet were as big as tennis rackets.
– She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that
sound a dog makes just before it throws up.
Metaphor
• Comparison of to unlike things without using
like, as, or than.
• Examples:
– His heart is made of stone.
– Your room is a pig-sty.
– The bar of soap was a slippery eel during the dog’s
bath.
– The giant’s steps were thunder as he ran toward
Jack.
Why use similes and metaphors?
• The help writers:
– show everyday things and ideas in new ways.
– create vivid, memorable descriptions.
Epic Similes
• Homer really likes similes. But his are often
extended (longer and more involved than a
typical simile).
• “All this he told, but Odysseus was overcome as he
heard him, and his cheeks were wet with tears. He
wept as a woman weeps when she throws herself on
the body of her husband who has fallen before his own
city and people, fighting bravely in defense of his home
and children. She screams aloud and flings her arms
about him as he lies gasping for breath and dying, but
her enemies beat her from behind about the back and
shoulders, and carry her off to slavery, to a life of labor
and sorrow, and the beauty fades from her cheeks—
even so piteously did Odysseus weep” (88).
• “Even thus did we bore the red hot beam into his
eye, till the boiling blood bubbled all over it as we
worked it round and round, so that the steam
from the burning eyeball scalded his eyelids and
eyebrows, and the roots of the eye sputtered in
the fire. As a blacksmith plunges an axe or
hatchet into cold water to temper it—for it is this
that gives strength to iron—and it makes a great
hiss as he does so, even thus did the Cyclops’ eye
hiss round the beam of olive wood” (98).
…and it still pops up every now and
then in today’s literature:
“It is a curious thing, the death of a loved one. We
all know that our time in this world is limited, and
that eventually all of us will end up underneath
some sheet, never to wake up. And yet it is always a
surprise when it happens to someone we know. It is
like walking up the stairs to your bedroom in the
dark, and thinking there is one more stair than
there is. Your foot falls down, through the air, and
there is a sickly moment of dark surprise as you try
and readjust the way you thought of things”
The Bad Beginning by Lemony Snicket
Some simile starters for your journal
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Some possible starters…
The students were like
The weather was as/like
The book was as long as
The trip lasted as long as