an metaphor essay

25 Metaphors for Essays

Metaphors are a powerful tool in writing and can add depth and richness to your essay.  

A metaphor is a figure of speech that compares two unlike things, using “like” or “as” to make the comparison. 

By using metaphors in your writing, you can paint a vivid picture in the reader’s mind and help them better understand and relate to your ideas. 

In this blog post, we will explore some common metaphors for essays and the different ways they can be used to enhance your writing. 

Whether you are just starting out with essay writing or are an experienced writer looking for new ways to engage your readers, this post will provide you with some helpful tips and ideas for using metaphors effectively. 

So, let’s dive in and explore the world of metaphors for essays!

Metaphors for Essays

• “The world is a stage.” This metaphor suggests that life is a performance and we are all actors on the stage of the world.
• “Time is money.” This metaphor equates the value of time with the value of money, implying that time is a valuable resource that should not be wasted.
• “He is a snake in the grass.” This metaphor describes someone who is sneaky and untrustworthy, likening them to a snake hiding in the grass.
• “She has a heart of gold.” This metaphor describes someone who is kind and generous, likening their heart to the precious metal gold.
• “He is a bear in the market.” This metaphor describes someone who is aggressive and successful in business, likening them to a bear in the stock market.
• “She is a ray of sunshine.” This metaphor describes someone who brings joy and light to a situation, likening them to a ray of sunshine.
• “He is a lion in the courtroom.” This metaphor describes someone who is confident and fierce in a legal setting, likening them to a lion.
• “She is a diamond in the rough.” This metaphor describes someone who has untapped potential or hidden qualities, likening them to a diamond that has yet to be polished.
• “He is a butterfly in the wind.” This metaphor describes someone who is unpredictable or fleeting, likening them to a butterfly being blown by the wind.
• “She is a rose among thorns.” This metaphor describes someone who stands out or is exceptional in a negative or difficult situation, likening them to a rose among thorns.
• “He is a fish out of water.” This metaphor describes someone who is uncomfortable or out of place in a particular situation, likening them to a fish out of water.
• “She is a bird in a gilded cage.” This metaphor describes someone who is trapped or unable to fully experience life, likening them to a bird in a gilded cage.
• “He is a wolf in sheep’s clothing.” This metaphor describes someone who appears kind or harmless, but is actually dangerous or deceitful, likening them to a wolf disguised as a harmless sheep.
• “She is a butterfly emerging from a cocoon.” This metaphor describes someone who is going through a transformation or transition, likening them to a butterfly emerging from its cocoon.
• “He is a snake oil salesman.” This metaphor describes someone who is dishonest or fraudulent in their sales tactics, likening them to a 19th century salesman who sold fake cures in the form of snake oil.
• “She is a feather in the wind.” This metaphor describes someone who is easily swayed or influenced, likening them to a feather being blown by the wind.
• “He is a monkey on his back.” This metaphor describes someone who is struggling with an addiction or problem that they cannot shake, likening it to a monkey clinging to their back.
• “He is a tiger in the jungle.” This metaphor describes someone who is strong and fierce in a particular environment, likening them to a tiger in the jungle.
• “She is a flower in bloom.” This metaphor describes someone who is flourishing or thriving, likening them to a flower in bloom.
• “He is a dragon hoarding treasure.” This metaphor describes someone who is greedy or possessive, likening them to a dragon hoarding treasure.

In conclusion, metaphors are a valuable and effective tool for writers looking to add depth and clarity to their essays. 

By comparing two unlike things and using “like” or “as” to make the comparison, metaphors can help readers better understand and relate to your ideas. 

Whether you are just starting out with essay writing or are an experienced writer looking for new ways to engage your readers, incorporating metaphors into your writing can be a powerful technique.

We hope that this blog post has provided you with some helpful tips and ideas for using metaphors effectively in your own essays. 

Remember to always consider your audience and the purpose of your writing when choosing and using metaphors, and don’t be afraid to get creative and try out different approaches. 

With a little practice and experimentation, you can master the art of using metaphors to add depth and impact to your writing.

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Last updated on Feb 11, 2022

90+ Must-Know Metaphor Examples to Improve Your Prose

What figure of speech is so meta that it forms the very basis of riddles? The answer: a metaphor.

As Milan Kundera wrote in The Unbearable Lightness of Being : “Metaphors are dangerous. Metaphors are not to be trifled with.” Yet, paradoxically, they are an inescapable part of our daily lives — which is why it’s all the more important to understand exactly how they function.

To help, this article has a list of 97 metaphor examples to show you what they look like in the wild. But if you have a moment to spare, let's learn a bit more about what a metaphor is.

What is a metaphor?

A metaphor is a literary device that imaginatively draws a comparison between two unlike things. It does this by stating that Thing A is Thing B. Through this method of equation, metaphors can help explain concepts and ideas by colorfully linking the unknown to the known; the abstract to the concrete; the incomprehensible to the comprehensible. It can also be a rhetorical device that specifically appeals to our sensibilities as readers.

To give you a starting point, here are some examples of common metaphors:

• “Bill is an early bird.”
• “Life is a highway.”
• “Her eyes were diamonds.”

Note that metaphors are always non-literal. As much as you might like to greet your significant other with a warhammer in hand (“love is a battlefield”) or bring 50 tanks of gasoline every time you go on a date (“love is a journey”), that’s not likely to happen in reality. Another spoiler alert: no, Katy Perry doesn't literally think that you're a firework. Rather, these are all instances of metaphors in action.

How does a metaphor differ from a simile?

Simile and metaphor are both figures of speech that draw resemblances between two things. However, the devil’s in the details. Unlike metaphors, similes use like and as to directly create the comparison. “Life is like a box of chocolates,” for instance, is a simile. But if you say, “Life is a highway,” you’re putting a metaphor in motion.

The best way to understand how a metaphor can be used is to see it in practice — luckily, we’ve got a bucket-load of metaphor examples handy for you to peruse.

The Ultimate List of 90+ Metaphor Examples

Metaphors penetrate the entire spectrum of our existence — so we turned to many mediums to dig them up, from William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet to the Backstreet Boys’ ancient discography. Feel free to skip to your section of interest below for metaphor examples.

Literature Poetry Daily Expressions Songs Films Famous Quotations

Metaphors in literature are drops of water: as essential as they are ubiquitous. Writers use literary metaphors to evoke an emotional response or paint a vivid picture. Other times, a metaphor might explain a phenomenon. Given the amount of nuance that goes into it, a metaphor example in a text can sometimes deserve as much interpretation as the text itself.

Metaphors can make prose more muscular or imagery more vivid:

1. “Exhaustion is a thin blanket tattered with bullet holes.” ― If Then , Matthew De Abaitua

2. “But it is just two lovers, holding hands and in a hurry to reach their car, their locked hands a starfish leaping through the dark.” ― Rabbit, Run , John Updike

3. “The sun in the west was a drop of burning gold that slid near and nearer the sill of the world.” — Lord of the Flies , William Golding

4. “Bobby Holloway says my imagination is a three-hundred-ring circus. Currently I was in ring two hundred and ninety-nine, with elephants dancing and clowns cart wheeling and tigers leaping through rings of fire. The time had come to step back, leave the main tent, go buy some popcorn and a Coke, bliss out, cool down.” — Seize the Night ,   Dean Koontz

Writers frequently turn to metaphors to describe people in unexpected ways:

5. “But soft, what light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Juliet is the sun!” — Romeo & Juliet , William Shakespeare

6. “Who had they been, all these mothers and sisters and wives? What were they now? Moons, blank and faceless, gleaming with borrowed light, each spinning loyally around a bigger sphere.  ‘Invisible,’ said Faith under her breath. Women and girls were so often unseen, forgotten, afterthoughts. Faith herself had used it to good effect, hiding in plain sight and living a double life. But she had been blinded by exactly the same invisibility-of-the-mind, and was only just realizing it.” ― The Lie Tree , Frances Hardinge

7. “’I am a shark, Cassie,’ he says slowly, drawing the words out, as if he might be speaking to me for the last time. Looking into my eyes with tears in his, as if he's seeing me for the last time. "A shark who dreamed he was a man.’” ― The Last Star , Rick Yancey

8. “Her mouth was a fountain of delight.” — The Storm , Kate Chopin

9. “The parents looked upon Matilda in particular as nothing more than a scab. A scab is something you have to put up with until the time comes when you can pick it off and flick it away.” — Matilda , Roald Dahl

10. “Mr. Neck storms into class, a bull chasing thirty-three red flags." — Speak , Laurie Anderson

11. “’Well, you keep away from her, cause she’s a rattrap if I ever seen one.’” — Of Mice and Men , John Steinbeck

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Metaphors can help “visualize” a situation or put an event in context:

12. “But now, O Lord, You are our Father, We are the clay, and You our potter; And all of us are the work of Your hand.” —Isaiah 64:8

13. “He could hear Beatty's voice. ‘Sit down, Montag. Watch. Delicately, like the petals of a flower. Light the first page, light the second page. Each becomes a black butterfly. Beautiful, eh? Light the third page from the second and so on, chainsmoking, chapter by chapter, all the silly things the words mean, all the false promises, all the second-hand notions and time-worn philosophies.’” — Fahrenheit 451 , Ray Bradbury

To entertain and tickle the brain, metaphor examples sometimes compare two extremely unlike things:

14. “Delia was an overbearing cake with condescending frosting, and frankly, I was on a diet.” ― Lament: The Faerie Queen's Deception , Maggie Stiefvater

15. "The sun was a toddler insistently refusing to go to bed: It was past eight thirty and still light.” — Fault in Our Stars , John Green

16. “If wits were pins, the man would be a veritable hedgehog.” ― Fly by Night , Frances Hardinge

17. “What's this?" he inquired, none too pleasantly. "A circus?" "No, Julius. It's the end of the circus." "I see. And these are the clowns?" Foaly's head poked through the doorway. "Pardon me for interrupting your extended circus metaphor, but what the hell is that?” ― Artemis Fowl , Eoin Colfer

18. “Using a metaphor in front of a man as unimaginative as Ridcully was the same as putting a red flag to a bu — the same as putting something very annoying in front of someone who was annoyed by it.” ― Lords and Ladies , Terry Pratchett

Metaphors can help frame abstract concepts in ways that readers can easily grasp:

19. “My thoughts are stars I cannot fathom into constellations.” — Fault In Our Stars , John Green

20. “If you can look into the seeds of time, and say which grain will grow and which will not, speak then to me.” — Macbeth , William Shakespeare

21. “Memories are bullets. Some whiz by and only spook you. Others tear you open and leave you in pieces.” ― Kill the Dead , Richard Kadrey

22. “Wishes are thorns, he told himself sharply. They do us no good, just stick into our skin and hurt us.” ― A Face Like Glass , Frances Hardinge

23. “’Life' wrote a friend of mine, 'is a public performance on the violin, in which you must learn the instrument as you go along.” ― A Room with a View , E.M. Forster

24. “There was an invisible necklace of nows, stretching out in front of her along the crazy, twisting road, each bead a golden second.” ― Cuckoo Song , Frances Hardinge

25. “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.” — As You Like It , William Shakespeare

Particularly prominent in the realm of poetry is the extended metaphor: a single metaphor that extends throughout all or part of a piece of work . Also known as a conceit , it is used by poets to develop an idea or concept in great detail over the length of a poem. (And we have some metaphor examples for you below.)

If you’d like to get a sense of the indispensable role that metaphors play in poetry, look no further than what Robert Frost once said: “They are having night schools now, you know, for college graduates. Why? Because they don’t know when they are being fooled by a metaphor. Education by poetry is education by metaphor.”

Poets use metaphors directly in the text to explain emotions and opinions:

26. She must make him happy. She must be his favorite place in Minneapolis. You are a souvenir shop, where he goes to remember how much people miss him when he is gone. —“ Unrequited Love Poem ,” Sierra DeMulder

27. She is all states, and all princes, I. Nothing else is. Princes do but play us; compared to this, All honour's mimic, all wealth alchemy. —“ The Sun Rising ,” John Donne

28. I watched a girl in a sundress kiss another girl on a park bench, and just as the sunlight spilled perfectly onto both of their hair, I thought to myself: How bravely beautiful it is, that sometimes, the sea wants the city, even when it has been told its entire life it was meant for the shore. —“I Watched A Girl In A Sundress,” Christopher Poindexter

Extended metaphors in particular explore and advance major themes in poems:

29. All our words are but crumbs that fall down from the feast of the mind. Thinking is always the stumbling stone to poetry. A great singer is he who sings our silences. How can you sing if your mouth be filled with food? How shall your hand be raised in blessing if it is filled with gold? They say the nightingale pierces his bosom with a thorn when he sings his love song. —“ Sand and Foam ,” Khalil Gibran

30. But a BIRD that stalks down his narrow cage / Can seldom see through his bars of rage / His wings are clipped and his feet are tied So he opens his throat to sing. —“ Caged Bird ,” Maya Angelou

31. Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— I took the one less traveled by / And that has made all the difference. —“ The Road Not Taken ,” Robert Frost

32. Marriage is not a house or even a tent it is before that, and colder: the edge of the forest, the edge of the desert the edge of the receding glacier where painfully and with wonder at having survived even this far we are learning to make fire —“ Habitation ,” Margaret Atwood

33. These poems do not live: it's a sad diagnosis. They grew their toes and fingers well enough, Their little foreheads bulged with concentration. If they missed out on walking about like people It wasn't for any lack of mother-love. —“ Stillborn ,” Sylvia Plath

34. Hope is the thing with feathers / That perches in the soul / And sings the tune without the words / And never stops at all. —“ Hope Is The Thing With Feathers ,” Emily Dickinson

Daily Expressions

Here’s some food for thought (35): you’ve probably already used a metaphor (or more) in your daily speech today without even realizing it. Metaphorical expressions pepper the English language by helping us illustrate and pinpoint exactly what we want to say. As a result, metaphors are everywhere in our common vocabulary: you may even be drowning in a sea (36) of them as we speak. But let’s cut to our list of metaphor examples before we jump the shark (37).

38. Love is a battlefield.

39. You’ve given me something to chew on.

40. He’s just blowing off steam.

41. That is music to my ears.

42. Love is a fine wine.

43. She’s a thorn in my side.

44. You are the light in my life.

45. He has the heart of a lion.

46. Am I talking to a brick wall?

47. He has ants in his pants.

48. Beauty is a fading flower.

49. She has a heart of stone.

50. Fear is a beast that feeds on attention.

51. Life is a journey.

52. He’s a late bloomer.

53. He is a lame duck now.

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Metaphors are a must-have tool in every lyricist’s toolkit. From Elvis to Beyonce, songwriters use them to instinctively connect listeners to imagery and paint a visual for them. Most of the time, they find new ways to describe people, love — and, of course, break-ups. So if you’re thinking, “This is so sad Alexa play Titanium,” right now, you’re in the right place: here’s a look at some metaphor examples in songs.

54. You ain't nothin' but a hound dog / Cryin' all the time —“Hound Dog,” Elvis Presley

55. You're a fallen star / You're the getaway car / You're the line in the sand / When I go too far / You're the swimming pool / On an August day / And you're the perfect thing to say — “Everything,” Michael Buble

56. 'Cause baby you're a firework / Come on show 'em what your worth / Make 'em go "Oh, oh, oh!" / As you shoot across the sky-y-y — “Firework,” Katy Perry

57. I'm bulletproof nothing to lose / Fire away, fire away / Ricochet, you take your aim / Fire away, fire away / You shoot me down but I won't fall, I am titanium —“Titanium,” David Guetta

58. Life is a highway / I wanna ride it all night long / If you're going my way / I wanna drive it all night long —“Life Is A Highway,” Rascal Flatts

59. She's a Saturn with a sunroof / With her brown hair a-blowing / She's a soft place to land / And a good feeling knowing / She's a warm conversation —“She’s Everything,” Brad Paisley

60. I'm a marquise diamond / Could even make that Tiffany jealous / You say I give it to you hard / So bad, so bad / Make you never wanna leave / I won't, I won't —“Good For You,’ Selena Gomez

61. Remember those walls I built / Well, baby, they're tumbling down / And they didn't even put up a fight / They didn't even make a sound —“Halo,” Beyonce

62. Did I ever tell you you're my hero? / You're everything, everything I wish I could be / Oh, and I, I could fly higher than an eagle / For you are the wind beneath my wings / 'Cause you are the wind beneath my wings —“Wind Beneath My Wings,” Bette Midler

63. You are my fire / The one desire / Believe when I say I want it that way —“I Want It That Way,” Backstreet Boys

64. Your body is a wonderland / Your body is a wonder (I'll use my hands) / Your body is a wonderland —“Your Body Is A Wonderland,” John Mayer

65. I'm walking on sunshine (Wow!) / I'm walking on sunshine (Wow!) / I'm walking on sunshine (Wow!) / And don't it feel good —“I’m Walking On Sunshine,” Katrina and the Waves

66. If you wanna be with me / Baby there's a price to pay / I'm a genie in a bottle / You gotta rub me the right way —“Genie in a Bottle,” Christina Aguilera

67. If God is a DJ, life is a dance floor / Love is the rhythm, you are the music / If God is a DJ, life is a dance floor / You get what you're given it's all how you use it —“God Is A DJ,” P!nk

68. If this town / Is just an apple / Then let me take a bite —“Human Nature,” Michael Jackson

69. I just wanna be part of your symphony / Will you hold me tight and not let go? —“Symphony,” Clean Bandit

70. My heart's a stereo / It beats for you, so listen close / Hear my thoughts in every note —“Stereo Hearts,” Gym Class Heroes

71. I'm the sunshine in your hair / I'm the shadow on the ground / I'm the whisper in the wind / I'm your imaginary friend —“I’m Already There,” Lonestar

Films can add a different angle to the concept of a metaphor: because it’s a visual medium, certain objects on-screen will actually represent whatever the filmmaker intends it to represent. The same principle applies, of course — there’s still a direct comparison being made. It’s just that we can see the metaphor examples with our own eyes now.

Films can visually make clear comparisons between two elements on the screen:

72. “What beautiful blossoms we have this year. But look, this one’s late. I’ll bet that when it blooms it will be the most beautiful of all.” —from  Mulan

73. “Love is an open door Can I say something crazy? Will you marry me? Can I say something even crazier? Yes!” —from  Frozen

Metaphors are used in dialogue for characters to express themselves:

74. “You're television incarnate, Diana. Indifferent to suffering, insensitive to joy.” — Network

75. “Life's a climb. But the view is great.” — Hannah Montana: the Movie

Famous Quotations

Did you know that Plato was using metaphors to express his thoughts all the way back in 427 BC? Since then, some of our greatest minds have continued to turn to metaphors when illuminating ideas in front of the general public — a practice that’s become particularly prominent in political speeches and pithy witticisms. Here’s a sample of some of the ways that famous quotes have incorporated metaphor examples in the past.

76. “All religions, arts and sciences are branches of the same tree.” —Albert Einstein

77. “A good conscience is a continual Christmas.” —Benjamin Franklin

78. “America has tossed its cap over the wall of space.” —John F. Kennedy

79. “I don't approve of political jokes; I have seen too many of them get elected.” —Jon Stewart

80. “Conscience is a man’s compass.” —Vincent Van Gogh

81. “In the depths of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.” —Albert Camus

82. “Time is the moving image of eternity.” ―Plato

83. “Every human is a school subject. This is rather a metaphorical way of saying it, to put it straight, those you love are few, and the ones you detest are many.” ―Michael Bassey Johnson

84. “Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there.” —Will Rogers

85. “Life is little more than a loan shark: it exacts a very high rate of interest for the few pleasures it concedes.” —Luigi Pirandello

86. “America: in the face of our common dangers, in this winter of our hardship, let us remember these timeless words.  With hope and virtue, let us brave once more the icy currents, and endure what storms may come.” —Barack Obama

87. “Bolshevism is a ghoul descending from a pile of skulls. It is not a policy; it is a disease. It is not a creed; it is a pestilence.” —Winston Churchill

88. “Books are mirrors of the soul.” —Virginia Woolf

89. “My life has a superb cast, but I can't figure out the plot.” —Ashleigh Brilliant

90. “I feel like we’re all in a super shitty Escape Room with really obvious clues like, ‘vote’ and ‘believe women’ and ‘don’t put children in cages.’” — Natasha Rothwell

91. “I travel the world, and I'm happy to say that America is still the great melting pot — maybe a chunky stew rather than a melting pot at this point, but you know what I mean.” —Philip Glass

92. “Life is a long road on a short journey.” —James Lendall Basford

93. “What therefore is truth? A mobile army of metaphors, metonymies, anthropomorphisms: in short a sum of human relations which become poetically and rhetorically intensified, metamorphosed, adorned, and after long usage seem to a nation fixed, canonic and binding.” —Nietzsche

94. “Life is a foreign language: all men mispronounce it.” —Christopher Morley

95. “Dying is a wild night and a new road.” —Emily Dickinson

96. “And your very flesh shall be a great poem.” —Walt Whitman

And as a bonus gift, here’s one last metaphor for the road, from one of our brightest philosophers. We’ll let Calvin have the last word:

Did we miss any of your favorite metaphors? Have more metaphor examples for us? Leave them in the (non-metaphorical) box below and we'll add them right in.

6 responses

James Hubbs says:

21/10/2018 – 23:44

Very useful article. Thank you. However, Fahrenheit 451 was written by Ray Bradbury, not George Orwell.

↪️ Reedsy replied:

22/10/2018 – 00:42

Great spot, James! That's now been fixed. Glad that the article was useful :)

Jonboy says:

21/05/2019 – 19:11

That Sylvia Plath quote nailed me. Ouch! Haven't read it but have to now...

21/06/2019 – 17:02

Another metaphor I love is “I’m just like them— an ordinary drone dressed in secrets and lies.” It’s from Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson

DAVID COWART says:

18/11/2019 – 01:59

life is a highway is Tom Cochrane, not Rascal Flats

↪️ Martin Cavannagh replied:

22/11/2019 – 12:54

Rascal Flatts did a cover of the song. We were deciding between the two and decided that "Rascal Flatts" sounded funnier :D

Comments are currently closed.

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• Knowledge Base
• What Is a Metaphor? | Definition & Examples

What Is a Metaphor? | Definition & Examples

Published on August 11, 2023 by Eoghan Ryan . Revised on November 6, 2023.

A metaphor is a figure of speech that implicitly compares two unrelated things, typically by stating that one thing is another (e.g., “that chef is a magician”).

Metaphors can be used to create vivid imagery, exaggerate a characteristic or action, or express a complex idea.

Metaphors are commonly used in literature, advertising, and everyday speech.

The exam was a piece of cake.

This town is a desert .

Table of contents

What is a metaphor, types of metaphor, metaphor vs. simile, metaphor vs. analogy, allegory vs. metaphor, worksheet: metaphor vs. simile, frequently asked questions.

A metaphor is a rhetorical device that makes a non-literal comparison between two unlike things. Metaphors are used to describe an object or action by stating (or implying) that it is something else (e.g., “knowledge is a butterfly”).

Metaphors typically have two parts:

• A tenor is the thing or idea that the metaphor describes (e.g., “knowledge”).
• A vehicle is the thing or idea used to describe the tenor (e.g., “a butterfly”).

Sophia was a loose cannon .

There are several different types of metaphor.

Direct metaphor

A direct metaphor compares two unrelated things by explicitly stating that one thing is another. Direct metaphors typically use a form of the verb “be” to connect two things.

Ami and Vera are two peas in a pod.

Implied metaphor

An implied metaphor compares two unlike things without explicitly naming one of them. Instead, a comparison is typically made using a non-literal verb. For example, the statement “the man erupted in anger” uses the verb “erupted” to compare a man to a volcano.

The captain barked orders at the soldiers. [i.e., the captain was like an angry dog]

Extended metaphor

An extended metaphor (also called a sustained metaphor) occurs when an initial comparison is developed or sustained over several lines or paragraphs (or stanzas, in the case of a poem).

Extended metaphors are commonly used in literature and advertising, but they’re rarely used in everyday speech.

And all the men and women merely players.

They have their exits and their entrances,

And one man in his time plays many parts,

Mixed metaphor

A mixed metaphor is a figure of speech that combines two or more metaphors, resulting in a confusing or nonsensical statement.

Mixed metaphors are usually accidental and are often perceived as unintentionally humorous. Mixing metaphors can confuse your readers and make your writing seem to lack coherence.

She’s a rising star, and with the right guidance, she’ll spread her wings.

Dead metaphor

A dead metaphor is a figure of speech that has become so familiar due to repeated use that people no longer recognize it as a metaphor. Instead, it’s understood as having a straightforward meaning.

The guest of honor sat at the head of the table .

Metaphors and similes are both rhetorical devices used for comparison. However, they have different functions:

• A metaphor makes an implicit comparison between two unlike things, usually by saying that one thing is another thing (e.g., “my body is a temple”).
• A simile makes an explicit comparison between two unlike things, typically using the words “like,” “as,” or “than” (e.g., “you’re as stubborn as a mule”).

The old man’s beard was as white as snow .

There are two main types of analogy:

• Identical relationship analogies indicate the logical relationship between two things (e.g., “‘Up’ is to ‘down’ as ‘on’ is to ‘off’”).
• Shared abstraction analogies compare two unlike things to illustrate a point.

Metaphors are sometimes confused with shared abstraction analogies, but they serve different purposes. While metaphors are primarily used to make a comparison (e.g., “John is a caveman”), shared abstraction analogies are used to make an argument or explain something.

Metaphors are sometimes confused with allegories, but they have different functions:

• A metaphor makes an implied comparison between two unlike things, typically by stating that one thing is another (e.g., “time is money”).
• An allegory illustrates abstract concepts, moral principles, or complex ideas through symbolic representation.

Allegories are typically longer than metaphors and usually take the form of a story.

You can test your knowledge of the difference between metaphors and similes with the worksheet below. Choose whether each sentence contains a metaphor or a simile.

• Practice questions
• Answers and explanations
• You sing like an angel.
• The boxer is as strong as an ox.
• Hannah is a warrior.
• Your eyes are deeper than the ocean.
• Most of the time, you’re an angel. But you’re like a demon when you’re tired.
• This sentence contains a simile because it makes a direct comparison using the word “like.”
• This sentence contains a simile because it makes a direct comparison using the word “as.”
• This sentence contains a metaphor because it makes an implicit comparison by saying that something is something else.
• This sentence contains a simile because it makes a direct comparison using the word “than.”
• This sentence contains both a metaphor (“you are an angel”) and a simile (“like a demon”).

An extended metaphor (also called a sustained metaphor ) is a metaphor that is developed over several lines or paragraphs.

The following is an example of an extended metaphor in William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet :

“But soft, what light through yonder window breaks?

It is the East, and Juliet is the sun.

Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon,

Who is already sick and pale with grief

That thou, her maid, art far more fair than she.”

A metaphor is a figure of speech that makes a non-literal comparison between two unlike things (typically by saying that something is something else).

For example, the metaphor “you are a clown” is not literal but rather used to emphasize a specific, implied quality (in this case, “foolishness”).

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26 Metaphors for Essays: Crafting Literary Masterpieces

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Welcome to the realm of literary expression, where words transcend their literal meanings. In the intricate dance of language , metaphors emerge as poetic devices, breathing life into essays. This guide delves deep into the art of crafting essays with 26 metaphors, unraveling the tapestry of creativity and linguistic elegance.

26 Metaphors for Essays

• The Essay as a Journey : Navigating through the pages is like embarking on a literary expedition, each paragraph a step forward in exploration.
• Words as Building Blocks: Just as a builder meticulously selects bricks, the writer chooses words to construct the foundation of their essay.
• Essays as Time Capsules of Thought: Imagine essays as sealed capsules, preserving and encapsulating the essence of thoughts for future revelation.
• The Pen as a Sword: In the hands of a skilled writer, the pen transforms into a mighty sword, carving narratives that leave a lasting impact.
• The Canvas of Ideas: Essays are blank canvases awaiting the strokes of creativity, each idea a vibrant color adding depth to the masterpiece.
• The Musical Composition of Sentences: Sentences harmonize like musical notes, with metaphors as the chords that create a symphony of literary brilliance.
• Metaphors as Sparks of Imagination: Like sparks that ignite a fire, metaphors fuel the flames of imagination, turning the mundane into the extraordinary.
• Weaving Metaphors in the Fabric of Expression: Writers, akin to skilled weavers, interlace metaphors into the very fabric of their expression, creating textured narratives.
• The Alchemy of Creativity in Writing: Metaphors, like alchemists’ potions, possess the transformative power to turn ordinary words into literary gold.
• Essays as Gardens of Ideas: Cultivating ideas in essays is akin to tending a garden, with each thought blooming like a unique, vibrant flower.
• The Essayist as an Architect: Just as an architect plans a structure, essayists carefully design their compositions, selecting metaphors as architectural embellishments.
• Metaphors as Bridges: In the vast landscape of ideas, metaphors act as bridges, connecting the reader to the writer’s thoughts seamlessly.
• The Essayist as a Sculptor: Sculpting words, essayists chisel away the unnecessary, revealing the masterpiece within, with metaphors adding intricate details.
• The Essay as a Puzzle: Each paragraph in an essay is a puzzle piece, and metaphors are the connectors that bring coherence to the overall picture.
• Metaphors as Light in Darkness: Just as a beam of light dispels darkness, metaphors illuminate essays, revealing hidden nuances and depths.
• Essays as Culinary Delights: Crafting an essay is like preparing a culinary masterpiece, with metaphors as the seasonings that enhance the flavor.
• The Essay as a Conversation: Essays engage in a dialogue with readers, and metaphors serve as eloquent conversationalists, making the exchange more dynamic.
• Metaphors as Windows: They open windows to new perspectives, allowing readers to view familiar concepts in refreshing and insightful ways.
• The Essay as a Symphony: Like a symphony, essays require harmony, and metaphors contribute the musicality that resonates with the reader.
• Essays as Mirrors: Reflecting thoughts and ideas, essays are mirrors that reveal the depth of the writer’s insights, with metaphors as the silver lining.
• The Essayist as a Gardener of Ideas: Just as a gardener tends to plants, essayists nurture ideas, with metaphors acting as the fertilizer that promotes growth.
• Metaphors as Spice in Writing: Essays become literary dishes, and metaphors are the spices that infuse the writing with zest and vibrancy.
• Essays as Constellations: Like stars in a constellation, each idea in an essay forms a unique pattern, with metaphors connecting them into a meaningful whole.
• The Essayist as a Tour Guide: In the journey of an essay, the writer is a guide, and metaphors are the landmarks that make the experience memorable.
• Metaphors as Puzzle Pieces: Each metaphor fits into the essay like a puzzle piece, contributing to the overall coherence and completeness.
• The Essay as a Tapestry: Woven with threads of ideas, an essay is a tapestry, and metaphors add intricate patterns that make it visually and intellectually appealing.

These metaphors provide imaginative ways to conceptualize the art of essay writing.

Words as Building Blocks

In the intricate process of crafting an essay, words serve as the foundational building blocks, carefully selected to construct a robust structure that conveys the intended message. This metaphor emphasizes the importance of precision and thoughtfulness in word choice.

When to Use:

• Formal Context: In academic or professional essays where clarity and precision are paramount.
• Informal Context: When sharing personal reflections or experiences in a blog post.

Example: Formal Context: “In scholarly endeavors, each word acts as a building block, contributing to the solid foundation of academic discourse.”

Informal Context: “As I penned down my thoughts, I realized how each word became a building block, shaping the narrative of my personal journey.”

Variations:

• Colleague Interaction: “In our collaborative report, let’s ensure every word functions as a building block for a cohesive document.”
• Friend’s Feedback: “Your storytelling is fantastic! Each word feels like a building block, constructing a vivid picture in my mind .”

Pros and Cons:

• Pros: Enhances clarity, strengthens the essay’s structure.
• Cons: Risk of overthinking word choice; may slow down the writing process.

Grammar/Usage Rule: Ensure that each word used aligns with the overall tone and purpose of the essay, maintaining consistency and coherence.

Definition: The metaphor “words as building blocks” underscores the foundational role of individual words in constructing a well-organized and impactful essay.

• Consider the connotation and nuance of each word.
• Use a diverse vocabulary to add richness to the essay.

Essays as Time Capsules of Thought

As we delve into the realm of essay writing, envisioning essays as time capsules offers a poignant perspective. Each essay becomes a vessel, encapsulating and preserving the essence of thoughts, ideas, and perspectives for future revelations.

• Formal Context: Reflecting on the historical significance or evolution of ideas.
• Informal Context: Sharing personal reflections on life experiences.

Example: Formal Context: “In academic writing, essays act as time capsules, capturing the intellectual evolution of concepts over the years.”

Informal Context: “As I penned my reflections on the past year, I realized my journal entries serve as time capsules, preserving my thoughts and emotions.”

• Mentor-Mentee Discussion: “Your thesis is a time capsule, showcasing the evolution of your research journey.”
• Friend’s Feedback: “Your travel essay reads like a time capsule, vividly preserving the essence of your adventures.”
• Pros: Adds depth and significance to the essay; offers a reflective element.
• Cons: May require a thoughtful selection of ideas for preservation.

Grammar/Usage Rule: Ensure the ideas encapsulated in the essay align with the overall theme and purpose, maintaining coherence.

Definition: The metaphor “essays as time capsules” highlights the role of essays in preserving and encapsulating thoughts and ideas for future reference.

• Clearly define the time frame or context within which the ideas are encapsulated.
• Use vivid language to enhance the time-capsule imagery.

The Pen as a Sword

In the arsenal of writing metaphors, the imagery of the pen as a sword captures the transformative power wielded by skilled writers. Every stroke becomes a strategic move, carving narratives with precision and leaving a lasting impact on readers.

• Formal Context: Emphasizing the persuasive and influential nature of academic or professional writing.
• Informal Context: Crafting compelling narratives in personal essays or storytelling.

Example: Formal Context: “In legal discourse, the pen is indeed a sword, capable of shaping and reshaping the boundaries of jurisprudence.”

Informal Context: “As I penned my travel memoir, I felt the pen transform into a sword, carving tales of adventure and exploration.”

• Colleague Collaboration: “Let’s approach this proposal as if the pen is a sword, crafting a persuasive argument.”
• Friend’s Response: “Your creative writing is a sword, cutting through ordinary narratives with a unique edge.”
• Pros: Emphasizes the impact of words; encourages powerful and persuasive writing.
• Cons: Requires a nuanced approach to avoid excessive or inappropriate use.

Grammar/Usage Rule: Ensure that the metaphor aligns with the tone and objective of the writing, maintaining professionalism and impact.

Definition: The metaphor “the pen as a sword” symbolizes the influential and transformative power of words, likening them to a weapon in the hands of a skilled writer.

• Use this metaphor judiciously to highlight key points or arguments.
• Consider the ethical implications of wielding the “pen-sword.”

The Canvas of Ideas

In the realm of essay writing, viewing essays as blank canvases awaiting strokes of creativity emphasizes the unlimited potential for expression. Each idea is a vibrant color, contributing to the masterpiece being painted with words.

• Formal Context: Encouraging creativity in academic writing, particularly in subjects where innovative ideas are valued.
• Informal Context: Expressing personal thoughts, feelings, or reflections with a creative flair.

Example: Formal Context: “In scientific research, essays serve as canvases, allowing researchers to paint groundbreaking ideas that challenge existing paradigms.”

Informal Context: “My personal essay on resilience became a canvas of ideas, each paragraph a stroke depicting my journey through challenges.”

• Mentor-Mentee Discussion: “Approach your thesis as a canvas, where each idea contributes to the overall masterpiece.”
• Friend’s Feedback: “Your essay on friendship is a vibrant canvas, portraying the beauty of companionship.”
• Pros: Fosters creativity; encourages a fresh and innovative approach to writing.
• Cons: Requires a balance to prevent excessive embellishment that might dilute the message.

Grammar/Usage Rule: Ensure that the metaphor aligns with the overall purpose of the essay, maintaining coherence and relevance.

Definition: The metaphor “the canvas of ideas” illustrates the creative and expressive nature of essays, likening them to a blank canvas waiting to be adorned.

• Encourage experimentation with ideas, allowing for a diverse and colorful essay.
• Use vivid language to enhance the imagery of the canvas.

The Musical Composition of Sentences

In the symphony of essay writing, sentences harmonize like musical notes, and metaphors act as the chords that create a melodious and captivating composition. This metaphor highlights the rhythmic flow and cadence that metaphors contribute to the overall structure of an essay.

• Formal Context: Enhancing the eloquence of academic writing, particularly in literature or humanities disciplines.
• Informal Context: Infusing storytelling with a rhythmic and musical quality, making the narrative more engaging.

Example: Formal Context: “In literary analysis, consider each sentence as a musical note, and metaphors as the chords that elevate the entire composition.”

Informal Context: “As I crafted my personal essay, I aimed for a musical composition of sentences, where metaphors acted as harmonious chords guiding the reader through the narrative.”

• Colleague Collaboration: “Let’s approach the introduction like a musical composition, where each sentence sets the tone for the entire essay.”
• Friend’s Response: “Your storytelling reads like a musical composition, with metaphors serving as delightful harmonies.”
• Pros: Enhances the rhythm and flow of writing; adds a lyrical quality to the essay.
• Cons: Requires careful consideration to maintain coherence and prevent overuse.

Grammar/Usage Rule: Ensure that the musical metaphor aligns with the overall tone and theme of the essay, creating a harmonious blend.

Definition: The metaphor “the musical composition of sentences” evokes the rhythmic and harmonious quality of well-crafted sentences in essay writing.

• Pay attention to sentence structure and variety to create a musical rhythm.
• Experiment with pacing, using metaphors strategically to enhance the cadence.

Metaphors as Sparks of Imagination

Unlocking the door to creativity, metaphors serve as sparks that ignite the flames of imagination in the essay-writing process. This metaphor emphasizes the transformative power of metaphors in turning mundane concepts into vivid and imaginative expressions.

• Formal Context: Encouraging imaginative thinking in academic or technical writing, especially in fields where creativity is valued.
• Informal Context: Adding a touch of flair to personal narratives or creative non-fiction.

Example: Formal Context: “In scientific discourse, metaphors act as sparks, igniting new perspectives and fostering innovative approaches to complex problems.”

Informal Context: “As I delved into my reflective essay, I realized how metaphors served as sparks, transforming ordinary memories into vivid and imaginative stories.”

• Mentor-Mentee Discussion: “Think of metaphors as sparks in your thesis, infusing your research with imaginative and innovative thinking.”
• Friend’s Feedback: “Your metaphors are sparks of creativity, turning a simple story into a captivating adventure.”
• Pros: Stimulates creative thinking; adds a dynamic and engaging element to writing.
• Cons: Requires a balance to prevent excessive metaphorical embellishment.

Grammar/Usage Rule: Ensure that the metaphor aligns with the context and purpose of the essay, sparking imagination without veering off-topic.

Definition: The metaphor “metaphors as sparks of imagination” emphasizes the role of metaphors in sparking creative thinking and imaginative expression in essays.

• Experiment with unexpected metaphors to surprise and engage the reader.
• Use metaphors strategically to convey abstract concepts in a concrete and imaginative manner.

Weaving Metaphors in the Fabric of Expression

Imagine the act of essay writing as a textile art, where writers weave metaphors into the very fabric of their expression. This metaphor underscores the intricate and deliberate nature of incorporating metaphors seamlessly into the narrative.

• Formal Context: Emphasizing the artistry of language in academic or professional writing, particularly in literature or arts-related subjects.
• Informal Context: Conveying personal stories with a rich tapestry of metaphors, making the narrative more engaging.

Example: Formal Context: “In art history essays, consider metaphors as threads, intricately woven into the fabric of expression, adding depth and nuance to your analysis.”

Informal Context: “As I shared my life experiences in the essay, each metaphor became a thread, weaving through the fabric of expression and creating a vivid tapestry of my journey.”

• Colleague Collaboration: “Let’s approach the conclusion like skilled weavers, weaving metaphors into the fabric of expression for a memorable ending.”
• Friend’s Response: “Your metaphors are like threads, weaving through the fabric of your storytelling, creating a colorful and captivating narrative.”
• Pros: Enhances the richness of language; creates a visually appealing and immersive experience for the reader.
• Cons: Requires careful consideration to maintain coherence and prevent metaphorical overload.

Grammar/Usage Rule: Ensure that metaphors are seamlessly integrated into the overall narrative, contributing to the fabric of expression without overshadowing the main message.

Definition: The metaphor “weaving metaphors in the fabric of expression” portrays essay writing as a deliberate and artistic process where metaphors are integral to the overall composition.

• Use metaphors strategically to emphasize key points and evoke emotions.
• Ensure the metaphorical threads align with the thematic focus of the essay.

The Alchemy of Creativity in Writing

In the enchanting world of essay writing, metaphors act as alchemists’ potions, possessing the transformative power to turn ordinary words into literary gold. This metaphor emphasizes the magical and elevating quality that metaphors bring to the craft of writing.

• Formal Context: Encouraging creative thinking and expression in academic or professional essays, especially in disciplines that value originality.
• Informal Context: Elevating personal narratives or creative non-fiction with a touch of literary alchemy.

Example: Formal Context: “In philosophical discourse, metaphors act as alchemists, transmuting abstract concepts into literary gold, making complex ideas accessible and engaging.”

Informal Context: “As I explored my emotions in the essay, metaphors worked like alchemy, turning ordinary feelings into a golden tapestry of introspection.”

• Mentor-Mentee Discussion: “Think of metaphors as your writing alchemy, transforming ordinary ideas into literary treasures in your dissertation.”
• Friend’s Feedback: “Your metaphors are like alchemy, turning everyday stories into captivating narratives with a touch of magic.”
• Pros: Elevates writing to a higher level; adds a touch of magic and allure to the narrative.
• Cons: Requires careful selection to avoid overuse and maintain authenticity.

Grammar/Usage Rule: Ensure that metaphors align with the overall tone and purpose of the essay, contributing to the alchemy of creativity without becoming distracting.

Definition: The metaphor “the alchemy of creativity in writing” illustrates the transformative power of metaphors, turning ordinary words into literary gold in the process of essay crafting.

• Experiment with unconventional metaphors to infuse a sense of magic and wonder into the writing.
• Use metaphors sparingly to maintain their enchanting impact.

Essays as Gardens of Ideas

Embark with me on the metaphorical journey where essays are likened to gardens, and ideas flourish like vibrant flowers, adding color, depth, and fragrance to the narrative. This metaphor emphasizes the nurturing aspect of essay writing, where writers carefully cultivate and present a diverse array of ideas.

• Formal Context: Encouraging a comprehensive exploration of ideas in academic writing, especially in subjects that require depth and diversity of thought.
• Informal Context: Crafting personal essays that showcase a rich tapestry of thoughts and reflections.

Example: Formal Context: “In sociological essays, think of ideas as blossoming flowers, each representing a unique perspective contributing to the overall garden of knowledge.”

Informal Context: “My reflective essay on personal growth became a garden of ideas, where each paragraph bloomed like a distinct flower, revealing a different facet of my journey.”

• Colleague Collaboration: “Let’s approach this research paper like gardeners, nurturing diverse ideas that collectively enrich the overall narrative.”
• Friend’s Response: “Your essay is like a garden of ideas, with each thought blooming into a beautiful flower, creating a captivating bouquet of storytelling.”
• Pros: Encourages a holistic exploration of ideas; adds depth and diversity to the essay.
• Cons: Requires careful organization to ensure each idea contributes cohesively to the overall narrative.

Grammar/Usage Rule: Ensure that each idea is carefully cultivated and presented, contributing meaningfully to the overarching theme of the essay.

Definition: The metaphor “essays as gardens of ideas” conveys the nurturing and diverse nature of ideas in the essay-writing process, akin to tending to a garden.

• Cultivate a variety of ideas to create a rich and engaging narrative.
• Ensure a balance between depth and breadth in exploring different perspectives.

The Essayist as an Architect

Picture the essayist as an architect, meticulously planning the structure of an essay, with metaphors acting as architectural embellishments that enhance the overall design. This metaphor underscores the importance of thoughtful composition and strategic use of metaphors in crafting compelling essays.

• Formal Context: Emphasizing the strategic organization of ideas in academic or professional essays, especially in disciplines where structure is crucial.
• Informal Context: Applying a deliberate and structured approach to storytelling in personal essays.

Example: Formal Context: “In business essays, consider each section as a blueprint, and metaphors as architectural embellishments that reinforce the solidity of your argument.”

Informal Context: “As I constructed my narrative essay, I approached it like an architect, planning the structure with metaphors as decorative elements, enhancing the overall design.”

• Mentor-Mentee Discussion: “Approach your dissertation like an architect, with each chapter as a carefully planned structure, and metaphors as essential design elements.”
• Friend’s Feedback: “Your essay is like a well-designed building, with metaphors serving as architectural details that make the storytelling more compelling.”
• Pros: Enhances the organization and coherence of the essay; adds a visual and structural dimension to the writing.
• Cons: Requires careful planning to ensure metaphors align with the overall structure and theme.

Grammar/Usage Rule: Ensure that metaphors contribute to the architectural integrity of the essay, reinforcing the structure without overshadowing the core message.

Definition: The metaphor “the essayist as an architect” paints a vivid picture of the deliberate planning and structured approach to essay writing, with metaphors as integral architectural elements.

• Plan the essay structure carefully, assigning specific roles to different sections.
• Use metaphors strategically to reinforce key points and contribute to the overall coherence.

Metaphors as Bridges

Imagine the vast landscape of ideas in an essay as a series of islands, and metaphors as bridges that seamlessly connect these intellectual realms. This metaphor highlights the role of metaphors in creating smooth transitions between different concepts, ensuring a cohesive and engaging journey for the reader.

• Formal Context: Facilitating the logical progression of ideas in academic writing, especially in essays that explore diverse topics.
• Informal Context: Connecting personal anecdotes or reflections in a way that feels natural and effortless.

Example: Formal Context: “In political science essays, think of metaphors as bridges, linking theories and real-world applications to create a cohesive and insightful narrative.”

Informal Context: “As I shared my travel experiences, metaphors acted as bridges, seamlessly connecting one destination to another, creating a fluid and captivating storytelling experience.”

• Colleague Collaboration: “Let’s treat each section of our report as an island, and use metaphors as bridges to connect the ideas, ensuring a smooth transition between concepts.”
• Friend’s Response: “Your essay feels like a journey with metaphors serving as bridges, linking different aspects of your story in a way that flows naturally.”
• Pros: Enhances the flow of ideas; ensures a seamless transition between different sections.
• Cons: Requires thoughtful selection to maintain coherence and avoid abrupt shifts.

Grammar/Usage Rule: Ensure that metaphors serve as effective bridges, guiding the reader from one idea to the next without causing confusion or disconnection.

Definition: The metaphor “metaphors as bridges” emphasizes the role of metaphors in creating connections and maintaining a smooth flow of ideas in an essay.

• Use metaphors strategically at key transition points to guide the reader through the essay.
• Ensure that each metaphorical bridge enhances the overall coherence and narrative progression.

The Essayist as a Sculptor

Envision the essayist as a sculptor, shaping words and ideas with precision, and metaphors as intricate details that add depth and nuance to the crafted piece. This metaphor emphasizes the deliberate and artistic nature of essay writing, where every word contributes to the overall composition.

• Formal Context: Emphasizing the meticulous crafting of arguments and analysis in academic essays, particularly in disciplines that value precision.
• Informal Context: Adding an artistic flair to personal essays, where the narrative is shaped with care and intention.

Example: Formal Context: “In literary analysis, view metaphors as the sculptor’s chisel, carving out layers of meaning and interpretation with precision.”

Informal Context: “As I penned my reflective essay, I approached it like a sculptor, molding my experiences with metaphors as intricate details, shaping the narrative with care.”

• Mentor-Mentee Discussion: “Consider each paragraph as a piece of marble, and metaphors as the sculptor’s tools that refine and enhance the overall structure of your thesis.”
• Friend’s Feedback: “Your essay is like a sculpture, with metaphors as the detailed carvings that make the storytelling more vivid and impactful.”
• Pros: Elevates the writing to an artistic level; adds precision and depth to the overall composition.
• Cons: Requires careful consideration to avoid excessive ornamentation.

Grammar/Usage Rule: Ensure that metaphors act as sculptor’s tools, enhancing the clarity and impact of the essay without overshadowing the main message.

Definition: The metaphor “the essayist as a sculptor” conveys the intentional and artistic approach to essay writing, where metaphors serve as tools for refinement and precision.

• Approach each paragraph with the intention of sculpting a clear and impactful narrative.
• Use metaphors sparingly to maintain the overall focus and coherence of the essay.

The Essay as a Symphony

Envision the essay as a symphony, where each paragraph contributes a unique note, and metaphors act as harmonious chords that resonate throughout the composition. This metaphor underscores the rhythmic and coordinated nature of a well-structured essay, where metaphors play a vital role in creating a harmonious narrative.

• Formal Context: Emphasizing the orchestration of ideas in academic essays, particularly in subjects that require a cohesive and interconnected argument.
• Informal Context: Crafting personal essays with a rhythmic flow, where each metaphor contributes to the overall harmony of the narrative.

Example: Formal Context: “In historical essays, metaphors function as chords, weaving through each paragraph and creating a symphony of interconnected ideas that resonate with the reader.”

Informal Context: “As I shared my life story in the essay, I aimed for a symphony of emotions, where metaphors acted as chords, adding depth and resonance to my narrative.”

• Colleague Collaboration: “Let’s approach the conclusion as the grand finale of our symphony, using metaphors as chords to create a lasting impression on our readers.”
• Friend’s Response: “Your essay reads like a symphony, with metaphors serving as harmonious chords that make the storytelling captivating and memorable.”
• Pros: Enhances the overall rhythm and coherence of the essay; creates a memorable and engaging reading experience.
• Cons: Requires careful selection to maintain thematic unity and prevent discordant notes.

Grammar/Usage Rule: Ensure that metaphors contribute to the symphonic nature of the essay, creating a cohesive and well-orchestrated composition.

Definition: The metaphor “the essay as a symphony” conveys the coordinated and rhythmic nature of a well-structured essay, where metaphors function as harmonious chords.

• Use metaphors strategically to emphasize key themes and create a sense of unity.
• Consider the pacing and placement of metaphors to enhance the overall symphonic experience.

The Essayist as a Navigator

Picture the essayist as a navigator, steering through the vast sea of ideas with precision, and metaphors as navigational tools that guide readers through the intellectual journey. This metaphor emphasizes the strategic use of metaphors to ensure clarity and coherence in the exploration of complex topics.

• Formal Context: Emphasizing the logical progression and navigation of ideas in academic essays, especially in disciplines that require a clear and structured argument.
• Informal Context: Creating personal essays where metaphors act as guiding lights, making the narrative accessible and engaging.

Example: Formal Context: “In scientific essays, metaphors function as navigational tools, guiding readers through the intricate concepts and ensuring a clear understanding of the research.”

Informal Context: “As I delved into philosophical reflections, I saw myself as a navigator, using metaphors as guiding stars to lead readers through the complexities of my thoughts.”

• Mentor-Mentee Discussion: “Treat your literature review as a navigational map, and use metaphors as tools to guide your readers through the diverse scholarly perspectives.”
• Friend’s Feedback: “Your essay is like a journey with you as the navigator, and metaphors as compass points that make the exploration both insightful and enjoyable.”
• Pros: Enhances the clarity and accessibility of complex ideas; guides readers through a well-structured intellectual journey.
• Cons: Requires thoughtful selection to avoid confusion and maintain the logical flow.

Grammar/Usage Rule: Ensure that metaphors function as effective navigational tools, aiding readers in understanding the progression of ideas in the essay.

Definition: The metaphor “the essayist as a navigator” portrays the intentional and strategic role of metaphors in guiding readers through the intellectual landscape of an essay.

• Use metaphors to introduce and connect key concepts in a way that aids understanding.
• Ensure that each metaphor aligns with the overall theme and purpose of the essay.

The Essay as a Kaleidoscope

Imagine the essay as a kaleidoscope, where ideas and perspectives shift and blend, creating a vibrant and ever-changing pattern. Metaphors, in this context, serve as the colorful elements that contribute to the kaleidoscopic richness of the narrative.

• Formal Context: Emphasizing the diversity of perspectives and ideas in academic writing, particularly in subjects that encourage varied viewpoints.
• Informal Context: Crafting personal essays with a dynamic and ever-evolving exploration of experiences and reflections.

Example: Formal Context: “In cultural studies essays, metaphors function as elements in a kaleidoscope, allowing readers to see the same topic from different angles, creating a nuanced and comprehensive understanding.”

Informal Context: “As I shared my personal journey, I envisioned my essay as a kaleidoscope, with each metaphor adding a burst of color, shaping the ever-shifting pattern of my experiences.”

• Colleague Collaboration: “Let’s approach this interdisciplinary essay as a kaleidoscope, where each section contributes a unique perspective, and metaphors act as the vibrant elements that tie everything together.”
• Friend’s Response: “Your storytelling is like a kaleidoscope, with metaphors adding diverse hues to the narrative, creating a rich and captivating tapestry.”
• Pros: Adds richness and diversity to the narrative; encourages readers to appreciate multiple facets of a topic.
• Cons: Requires careful organization to prevent the essay from becoming disjointed.

Grammar/Usage Rule: Ensure that metaphors contribute to the kaleidoscopic nature of the essay, enhancing the overall vibrancy and diversity of perspectives.

Definition: The metaphor “the essay as a kaleidoscope” portrays the dynamic and ever-changing nature of ideas and perspectives, with metaphors as key elements that contribute to the kaleidoscopic richness.

• Use metaphors strategically to explore different aspects of a topic.
• Ensure a cohesive and well-structured essay, even as perspectives shift and evolve.

The Essayist as a Gardener of Thought

Visualize the essayist as a gardener, tending to the seeds of thoughts and ideas with care, and metaphors as the nutrients that enrich the intellectual soil. This metaphor emphasizes the nurturing aspect of essay writing, where metaphors play a vital role in cultivating a fertile ground for insightful discussions.

• Formal Context: Encouraging the development and growth of ideas in academic writing, particularly in essays that require in-depth exploration.
• Informal Context: Crafting personal essays with a focus on the careful cultivation of thoughts and reflections.

Example: Formal Context: “In psychological essays, metaphors serve as nutrients for the intellectual garden, fostering the growth of theories and facilitating a deeper understanding of complex concepts.”

Informal Context: “As I explored my personal beliefs, I saw myself as a gardener of thoughts, using metaphors as nutrients to cultivate a rich and flourishing landscape of ideas.”

• Mentor-Mentee Discussion: “Approach your thesis as a garden of thoughts, and let metaphors act as the nutrients that enhance the intellectual richness of your research.”
• Friend’s Feedback: “Your essay feels like a carefully tended garden, with metaphors serving as nutrients that make the ideas flourish and bloom.”
• Pros: Fosters the growth and development of ideas; contributes to a nuanced and well-explored narrative.
• Cons: Requires thoughtful selection to ensure metaphors align with the overall theme and purpose.

Grammar/Usage Rule: Ensure that metaphors act as effective nutrients, enhancing the intellectual soil and contributing to the overall richness of the essay.

Definition: The metaphor “the essayist as a gardener of thought” conveys the intentional and nurturing approach to essay writing, where metaphors play a vital role in fostering the growth of insightful ideas.

• Use metaphors strategically to enrich the intellectual landscape of the essay.
• Ensure a balanced and well-nurtured exploration of ideas, even as metaphors contribute to their growth.

How do metaphors enhance essays?

Metaphors elevate essays by adding depth and vividness, making abstract concepts relatable and engaging.

• Use metaphors when you want to evoke emotions and create a lasting impression.
• Employ metaphors in descriptive and narrative writing to paint vivid pictures for your readers.

Example: “Incorporating metaphors in your essay enhances the overall reading experience, transforming abstract concepts into tangible images that resonate with your audience.”

Tip: “Experiment with various metaphors to find the ones that best convey your intended message. Consider the emotions and images each metaphor evokes.”

Can I use metaphors in academic essays?

Absolutely! Thoughtful use of metaphors can enhance the clarity and impact of academic writing.

• Introduce metaphors sparingly in academic essays to emphasize key points.
• Ensure that the metaphor aligns with the formal tone of academic writing and enhances understanding.

Example: “While maintaining academic rigor, strategic use of metaphors can elucidate complex theories and captivate the reader’s attention in your research paper.”

Tip: “Avoid clichéd metaphors in academic writing. Instead, opt for metaphors that bring fresh perspectives to your subject matter.”

Are clichéd metaphors a red flag?

While clichés should be used sparingly, a well-placed familiar metaphor can effectively convey ideas.

How to choose the right metaphor?

Consider your message and audience; choose metaphors that resonate and enhance your intended meaning.

Can metaphors be humorous in essays?

Certainly! Humorous metaphors inject personality into your writing, making it more enjoyable for readers.

Do metaphors work in technical writing?

Yes, when used judiciously. Metaphors can simplify complex ideas, aiding understanding in technical writing.

In conclusion, the arsenal of metaphors is a potent tool for crafting essays that linger in the minds of readers. This guide has unveiled the artistry of metaphorical expression, encouraging writers to embrace creativity and wield metaphors with finesse. As you embark on your essay-writing journey, remember the transformative power of metaphors in shaping literary masterpieces.

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Definition of Metaphor

A metaphor is a figure of speech that makes a comparison between two non-similar things. As a literary device, metaphor creates implicit comparisons without the express use of “like” or “as.” Metaphor is a means of asserting that two things are identical in comparison rather than just similar. This is useful in literature for using specific images or concepts to state abstract truths.

For example, one of the most famous metaphors in literature is featured in this line from William Shakespeare ’s  Romeo and Juliet : What light through yonder window breaks? It is the East, and Juliet, the sun! In this metaphor, Juliet is compared to the sun. In fact, this figure of speech claims that Juliet is the sun. Of course, the reader understands that Romeo does not believe that Juliet is literally the sun. Instead, the comparison demonstrates the idea that Romeo equates Juliet with the beauty , awe, and life-giving force of the sun. To Romeo, symbolically, Juliet and the sun are the same.

Common Examples of Metaphor

There are many common examples of metaphors in everyday conversation and writing. Here are some well-known uses of this figure of speech:

• Laughter is the best medicine.
• She is just a late bloomer.
• Is there a black sheep in your family?
• His heart of stone surprised me.
• I smell success in this building.
• He’s buried in a sea of paperwork.
• There is a weight on my shoulder.
• Time is money.
• No man is an island.
• That actor is a tall drink of water.
• Age is a state of mind.
• Last night I slept the sleep of the dead .
• The new parents had stars in their eyes.
• The criminal has blood on his hands.
• There is a garden in her face.
• Our family is a patchwork quilt.
• She has been living in a bubble.
• Your argument is a slippery slope.
• We found it under a blanket of sand.
• I’m pleased to meet your better half.

Examples of Metaphor in Movie Lines

Some of the most well-known lines in movies feature metaphors. Here are some memorable movie lines that showcase metaphor as an effective device:

• A Dream is a wish your heart makes. (Walt Disney’s Cinderella )
• The rain on my car is a baptism. ( Say Anything )
• Life is pain, highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something. ( The Princess Bride )
• Fasten your seat-belts; it’s going to be a bumpy night. ( All About Eve )
• Life is a cabaret, old chum. ( Cabaret )
• Say ‘hello’ to my little friend. ( Scarface )
• It was beauty killed the beast. ( King Kong )
• Hell is a teenage girl. ( Jennifer’s Body )
• You sit on a throne of lies. ( Elf )
• I drink your milkshake. ( There Will Be Blood )

Famous Examples of Metaphor

Metaphor is also found in many famous examples of poetry, prose , drama , lyrics , and even clever quotations. Here are some famous examples of metaphor:

• Your heart is my piñata. (Chuck Palahniuk)
• Life is a highway. (Tom Cochrane)
• For woman is yin, the darkness within, where untempered passions lie. (Amy Tan)
• Love is a battlefield. (Pat Benatar)
• Each friend represents a world in us. (Anais Nin)
• You are sunlight and I moon. ( Miss Saigon )
• If music be the food of love, play on (William Shakespeare)
• Adults are just obsolete children and the hell with them. (Dr. Seuss)
• Time is a drug. Too much of it kills you. (Terry Pratchet)
• hope is the thing with feathers   ( Emily Dickinson )

Difference Between Metaphor and Simile

It can be difficult in some instances to distinguish between metaphor and simile as literary devices . Both are figures of speech designed to create comparisons. In fact, simile is a subset of metaphor. However, they are distinguished by the presence of one of two words: “like” and “as.” Metaphors create direct comparisons without using either of these words. Similes feature either like or as in making a comparison.

A good example to distinguish between these two literary devices comes from the movie adaptation of the novel Forrest Gump by Winston Groom. One of the movie’s themes is based on a comparison between life and a box of chocolates. The main character , Forrest Gump, quotes his mother: “Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re going to get.” In this case, the comparison between life and a box of chocolates is a simile due to the presence of the word like.

In a different scene, the audience hears Forrest’s mother say: “Life is a box of chocolates, Forrest. You never know what you’re going to get.” This comparison is a metaphor due to the absence of the word like (or as). Both quotes feature comparative figures of speech. However, the uses of metaphor and simile create subtle differences in the meaning of comparing life to a box of chocolates.

Additional: Difference Between Metaphor, Allegory, and Simile

As far as the difference between an allegory and metaphor is concerned, both seem to belong to the same group of figures of speech. The reason is that both mean comparison. However, an allegory presents a long or sustained comparison that may comprise a full story , having allegorical characters and situations. It could be a story within a story such as the Allegory of Cave . Conversely, a metaphor is just a word or a phrase showing an implied comparison, while a simile is almost near in meanings as it shows the same thing with the use of the word ‘like’ or ‘as.’

Writing Metaphor

Overall, as a literary device, metaphor functions as a means of creating a direct comparison between two seemingly different things. This is effective for readers in that metaphor can create an association between two dissimilar entities or ideas that, as a result of the metaphor, illuminate each other and deepen the meaning of both. Metaphor is an essential figure of speech for writers of both poetry and prose.

It’s important that writers construct proper metaphors so that the comparative meaning is not lost for the reader. In fact, metaphors are dependent on the understandable combination of a principal term and a secondary term. The principal term conveys the concrete or literal entity, and the secondary term is used figuratively to add meaning. For example, in the metaphor “the car was a lemon,” the principal term is “car” and the secondary term is “lemon.” The use of lemon adds figurative meaning for the car.

Here are some ways that writers benefit from incorporating metaphor into their work:

Create Imagery

Metaphors allow writers to create imagery for readers that is limited by description alone . In other words, an effective metaphor eliminates the need for excessive explanation or description on the part of the writer. Instead, by implicitly comparing two different things, an image is created for the reader to allow for greater meaning and understanding. This imagery is a powerful result of using metaphor as a literary device.

Evoke Thought and Emotion

When writers utilize metaphor as a literary device, it often causes the reader to think about the “logic” or truth in such a comparison. These thoughts, in turn, may evoke emotion in the reader with a successful metaphor through the realization that the comparison is valid. This is especially effective in poetry as a means of portraying truths in a lyrical yet concise manner.

Using Metaphor in a Sentence

• The wolf’s eyes were onyx in the dark.
• Is it your room? Serious it’s a hot furnace!
• Zain is a chicken, scared all the time.
• I hate it here. This place is a zoo.
• Sofi’s bed was a marshmallow. So soft!

Examples of Metaphor in Literature

Metaphor is a very effective literary device. Here are some examples of metaphor and how it adds to the significance of well-known literary works:

Example 1: Fire and Ice by Robert Frost

Some say the world will end in fire, Some say in ice. From what I’ve tasted of desire I hold with those who favor fire. But if it had to perish twice, I think I know enough of hate To say that for destruction ice Is also great And would suffice.

In this poem , Frost compares end-of-world destructive forces to both fire and ice . These are metaphors that serve as figures of speech in the sense that the poet does not literally mean that the world will end because of fire and ice. Instead, fire represents destructive forces associated with desire, such as power , jealousy, and anger. Similarly, ice represents destructive forces associated with hate, such as prejudice, hostility, and isolation. These metaphors are an effective literary device in that it causes the reader to consider that desire and hatred are as destructive as fire and ice.

Example 2: Dreams by Langston Hughes

Hold fast to dreams For if dreams die Life is a broken-winged bird That cannot fly. Hold fast to dreams For when dreams go Life is a barren field Frozen with snow .

In this poem, Hughes utilizes metaphor to compare life to a broken-winged bird and a barren field as consequences to the loss of dreams. In the first stanza , Hughes claims that if dreams die then life is a “broken-winged bird that cannot fly.” This is significant use of metaphor in that it characterizes life without dreams as something fragile that has been irreparably harmed. The metaphor creates an image for the reader of a bird that is wounded, grounded, and unable to reach its purpose or potential. If life is this bird, then, without dreams, it is also wounded, grounded, and thwarted in purpose.

Hughes utilizes the second metaphor in the second stanza for life without dreams. In this case, when dreams go, life is a “barren field frozen with snow.” This metaphor creates a comparison between life and an empty, frozen wasteland. Therefore, due to Hughes’s use of metaphor as a literary device in this poem, life becomes death and a burial ground without dreams.

Example 3: since feeling is first by E.E. Cummings

we are for eachother: then laugh, leaning back in my arms for life’s not a paragraph And death i think is no parenthesis

In this poem, Cummings uses metaphor in a clever way to compare life and death to the constraints of a writing formality and punctuation . In fact, it is a negative comparison in the sense that the poet states life is “not” a paragraph and death is “no” parenthesis. The use of metaphor as a literary device in this work is both poetic and self-reflexive with significance. The metaphors for life and death are poetic because the poet is showcasing that life and death are concepts too monumental to be “contained” in writing or “enclosed” by punctuation (paragraph and parenthesis). Yet, the metaphors are also self-reflexive in that the comparisons of life and death are simultaneously “contained” in and “enclosed” by the poem itself.

Synonyms of Metaphor

Although no words could be used interchangeably for a metaphor, some could be near in meanings such as trope , image, allegory, parable , symbol , simile, and emblem. There are various other tropes, too, but almost every other trope has its own definition, meaning, and examples. Therefore, they could not be used interchangeably when there is a question of distinct clarification of meanings.

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What Is a Metaphor? Definition, Meaning, and Examples

Krystal N. Craiker

Rhetorical devices enhance writing in many different ways, from creating images to emphasizing important ideas. One of the most common—and most powerful—devices is metaphor.

What is a metaphor and why should you use them in your writing? Today, we’re diving deep into this literary device. We’ll cover the definition of metaphor, the different types of metaphor, and how it differs from other figurative language . We’ll also look at several metaphor examples from literature and other sources.

What Is a Metaphor?

Why should i use metaphors in my writing, what are the different types of metaphors, how do you identify a metaphor, what are some examples of metaphors.

A metaphor is a type of figure of speech that compares one thing to another unlike thing.

It’s a direct comparison between two things that may not appear similar at all. Metaphors directly state that one thing is another.

Metaphors are an example of figurative language because they aren’t meant to be taken literally. For example, Pat Benatar’s hit song, "Love is a Battlefield" is a metaphor. Clearly, love is not a literal battlefield. There are no actual soldiers or weapons. When she compares love to a battlefield, she means that you have to fight for love and you might get hurt in the process.

There are many literary devices that compare things. We’ll cover the difference between metaphor and several other types of rhetorical devices later in the article. For now, know that metaphors do not use like or as to make the comparison.

Metaphors can serve many functions in writing. They’re a powerful tool for enhancing your work, whether you’re writing fiction, nonfiction, speeches, or essays . We use metaphors all the time in our everyday speech, but the deliberate use of metaphors can enhance your writing.

Metaphors can evoke emotion and create vivid images in your readers’ minds. They are useful for explaining abstract, intangible concepts in a way that’s easy to understand. Metaphors provide emphasis on important ideas and can leave a lasting impact on readers.

One of the most famous metaphor examples in literature comes from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet .

"What light through yonder window break? It is the East, and Juliet, the sun."

Imagine if Romeo had said, "Is that the very beautiful Juliet in the window? She’s so gorgeous and my whole world revolves around her."

Less impactful, right? It just doesn’t hit the same way. Through metaphor, we can feel how Romeo feels about Juliet. Juliet isn’t literally the sun, but she is that important to him. He doesn’t just tell the audience how much he loves her; he shows us. Love is an abstract concept, but the metaphor makes it almost tangible.

This is what makes metaphor such a powerful tool for writers. We can bring the audience into the world we’ve created in new, impactful ways.

There are several types of metaphors that you may encounter. Some metaphors are explicit. It’s easy to see the comparison in these. In our Romeo example, he is directly calling Juliet the sun. It’s not hard to figure out what he means. If you say, "He was a prince" about a love interest who is not, in fact, royalty, we know that you mean he was charming, handsome, and polite.

What Is an Implied Metaphor?

An implied metaphor , on the other hand, has more nuance in the comparison. An implied metaphor compares two unlike things without directly mentioning one of them. For example, you might say, "their love blossomed." This metaphor compares love to a flower, but it doesn’t actually say it’s a flower.

Extended Metaphors

An extended metaphor is exactly what it sounds like: a long metaphor! Instead of just one line and one comparison, the metaphor extends throughout a longer piece of writing. Some poems are entirely extended metaphors. Extended metaphors can also take place over a paragraph or more in literature. Writers may also return to the extended metaphor throughout an entire work, referencing it many times as the story progresses.

What Is a Dead Metaphor?

You probably use dead metaphors all the time without realizing it!

A dead metaphor is a metaphor that has become so common, the imagery it evokes has been lost. Many of these dead metaphors are common figures of speech in our language, often becoming idioms or even clichés.

One example of a dead metaphor is describing someone as a "laughing stock." We know it means that someone is completely humiliated and isn't taken seriously at all. It comes from the times when courts punished people by placing their hands and arms in stocks. People would come up to ridicule them, throw things on them, and otherwise harass them to punish them for a crime. Dead metaphors are also called historical metaphors because they often have historic roots.

Mixed Metaphors

Mixed metaphors are when two or more metaphors are strung together, often in a way that is nonsensical. A mixed metaphor uses incongruous comparisons, which can hinder meaning. Here’s an example of a mixed metaphor:

"She was a beacon of strength, sailing forth to climb the mountain of success."

First, she is compared to a beacon, then she sails like a boat and climbs a mountain. Beacons don’t sail or climb. Sailing and climbing a mountain are not at all related. The mixed metaphor becomes more and more confusing.

Scholars and writers disagree on whether we should use mixed metaphors at all. There’s no hard and fast rule, but it’s always a good idea to ask yourself if there is a simpler, more cohesive way to make a comparison.

Identifying metaphors can be tricky because there are several other types of figurative language that are similar. Let’s look at a few of these so we can understand the difference between metaphors and other comparative literary devices .

What’s the Difference Between a Metaphor and a Simile?

Metaphors and similes are very similar. They both compare two unlike things, and they serve many of the same functions in our writing. The key difference is that similes use "like" or "as" to show the comparison.

A famous example of a simile is from the movie Forrest Gump . Forrest says, "Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re going to get." He uses "like" to compare life to a box of chocolates.

If we turned that quote into a metaphor, it would say, "life is a box of chocolates." The comparison is more direct without like or as .

What’s the Difference Between a Metaphor and an Analogy?

Analogies and metaphors are easy to confuse, especially because many analogies use metaphors! The difference lies in their function. The goal of an analogy is to explain a concept. Metaphors are used more poetically to create vivid imagery or emphasize an idea.

Here’s an example of an analogy: "He’s a warrior in the boardroom, fighting stodgy board members with graphs and slideshows the way a soldier fights with guns and bombs."

There’s a metaphor in there because he is compared to a warrior. But then the comparison is explained, creating an analogy.

Can an Expression Be Both an Idiom and a Metaphor?

Some metaphors, especially dead metaphors, become idioms. An idiom is a figure of speech that doesn’t make literal sense but it becomes an understood part of the language.

"This town has gone to the dogs" and "I have a green thumb" are both examples of idioms. An example of a metaphor that is also an idiom is, "I’m an open book."

Overused idioms and dead metaphors can become clichés. Check out ProWritingAid’s Clichés Report to look for these exhausted figures of speech. Then you can try to freshen them up with a new, creative metaphor.

Sign up for a free account and try it for yourself.

Is a Metaphor the Same as a Symbol?

Symbolism is a commonly used literary device . It serves many of the same functions as metaphors, such as evoking emotion or illustrating an abstract idea. However, a metaphor compares two unlike things, while a symbol represents one specific thing, usually a theme or other intangible concept.

In Beauty and the Beast , the wilting rose symbolizes the Beast’s fading chance at redemption. It is not comparing two things, so it is not a metaphor. However, the Beast himself is a metaphor for the cruel, selfish parts of the Prince's personality. The story compares these undesirable traits to a vicious monster.

You can find metaphor examples in books, movies, songs, and even everyday conversations. We’ve curated a few examples of metaphors below.

What Are Some Good Examples of Sentences with Metaphors?

Metaphors aren’t only found in the classics. Here are a few examples.

• This office is a prison.
• Her smile was a warm blanket on a snowy day.
• I’m drowning in housework.
• You’re on thin ice, buddy!
• Rivers flowed down her face in sorrow.

Pay attention to phrases you hear in the real world. How many of them are metaphors?

What are Examples of Metaphors in Literature?

You can find examples of metaphors in just about any piece of fiction and in most poems. Here are a few of our favorite metaphor examples from literature.

"All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players"—William Shakespeare, As You Like It

"My thoughts are stars I cannot fathom into constellations."—John Green, The Fault in Our Stars

"He was a poison snake, and I was another, and on such terms we pleased ourselves."—Madeline Miller, Circe

"I am the master of my fate / I am the captain of my soul."—William Wordsworth, "Invictus"

What are some of your favorite metaphor examples? Do you use metaphors in your writing? Let us know in the comment section.

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Krystal N. Craiker is the Writing Pirate, an indie romance author and blog manager at ProWritingAid. She sails the seven internet seas, breaking tropes and bending genres. She has a background in anthropology and education, which brings fresh perspectives to her romance novels. When she’s not daydreaming about her next book or article, you can find her cooking gourmet gluten-free cuisine, laughing at memes, and playing board games. Krystal lives in Dallas, Texas with her husband, child, and basset hound.

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Using Metaphors in Academic Writing

Have you ever wanted to translate formidable, and sometimes tedious, academic content into one that is easily comprehensible and captivating? Academics are often told that the language of science is formal, precise and descriptive with no space for the abstract. However, using metaphors in your academic writing could be helpful if used to explain complex scientific concepts. Just remember not to be cautious and exercise restraint when using different types of metaphors or it could make your academic writing seem unprofessional.

What is a metaphor?

A metaphor is defined as a figure of speech in which a word or phrase denoting one kind of object or idea is used in place of another to suggest a likeness or analogy between them. (Merriam-Webster, 2022). Derived from the Greek word ‘metapherein,’ which means ‘to transfer,’ metaphors transfer the meaning of one word to another to encourage a feeling. For example, by writing ‘ All the world’s a stage,’ Shakespeare creates a powerful imagery of ideas through transference. By bringing life to words, metaphors add value to writing and are a great addition to a writer’s toolkit.

Difference between similes and metaphors and analogies

When you’re writing in English, you should know the difference between similes and metaphors and analogies. While these are similar in terms of purpose, i.e., comparing two things, they are different in how they are used. A simile is explicit about the comparison, while a metaphor simply points to the similarities between two things, and an analogy seeks to use comparisons to explain a concept.

This could be confusing, however, there are simple ways to detect the differences between similes and metaphors and analogies. You can identify a simile by looking for the use of words ‘like’ , ‘as’, for example, ‘Life is like a box of chocolates.’ On the other hand, metaphors are more rhetorical and not so literal, for example, ‘The news was music to her ears.’ An analogy is more complex and seeks to point out the similarity in two things to explain a point, for example, ‘Finding the right dress is like finding a needle in a haystack.’

Types of metaphors

There are several different types of metaphors in the English language, here are some of the most common variations.

• Standard metaphor: A standard metaphor directly compares two unrelated items. For instance, by drawing a link between things and feelings, we’ve been able to convey the importance of laughter in this example of a metaphor: Laughter is the best medicine.
• Implied metaphor: This type of metaphor implies comparison without mentioning one of the things being compared. Take this example, where the coach’s voice is implied to be as loud as thunder: “Don’t give up!” thundered the coach from the side lines.
• Visual metaphor: This type of metaphor compares abstract objects or ideas that are difficult to imagine to a visual image that is easily identifiable; providing the former with a pictorial identity. This type of metaphor is most widely used in advertisements. For example, for the phrase ‘ The Earth is melting’ , the visual metaphor used to signal global warming is a melting ice cream.
• Extended metaphor: This type of metaphor extends the comparison throughout an article, document, or stanza. For example, when poet Emily Dickinson wrote “Hope” is the thing with feathers, she used feathers as a metaphor to compare hope to a bird with wings.
• Grammatical metaphors : Also known as nominalization, this type of metaphor rewrites verbs or adjectives as nouns. It’s most commonly used in academic and scientific texts as a way to separate spoken and written language, remove personal pronouns, and write in a concise manner. For instance, ‘ Millions of men, women and children starved to death in the 1943 Bengal Famine as a direct result of Churchill’s policies.’ This can be rephrased as ‘British policies led to the 1943 Bengal Famine, impacting the country’s people and politics for decades.’

Using metaphors in academic writing

Scholars pride themselves on creating research papers that are factually correct and precise, and metaphors may be perceived to detract from this. However, using metaphors may be a great way to explain scientific and technical concepts to readers, who may not know as much about the subject. While metaphors can add to formal academic writing and make it more engaging, it’s important to find a balance. Here are some tips to keep in mind when using metaphors in academic writing:

• Don’t use metaphors as the foundation of your academic content, use them instead to support your argument and drive home a point.
• Choose your metaphors carefully taking into account your primary audience; using figures of speech specific to any one region can introduce confusion instead of clarity.
• Use metaphors wisely and only when needed so not to distract the reader. They should flow naturally and enhance the content rather than detract from the point.

Metaphors are a nifty way to create engaging content even for academic writers. Greek philosopher Aristotle once wrote, “The greatest thing by far is to be a master of metaphor; it is the one thing that cannot be learnt from others.” So get ready to wield that pen and reach for the stars!

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• Literary Terms

When & How to Write a Metaphor

• Definition & Examples
• When & How to Write a Metaphor

How to Write a Metaphor

A. avoid clichés.

Very often, you’ll write metaphors without realizing it. Since certain metaphors are very common, many of them have become  clichéd , or overused.

Normal Sentence:

My day was emotionally jolting.

With Cliché Metaphor:

My day was an emotional roller-coaster .

Here and there, clichés are harmless, but they can start to add up and become repetitive and unoriginal if you use too many of them. Don’t worry about this as long as you use the clichés sparingly.

Here are a few more examples of metaphors that have become clichés:

• Ticking time bomb
• Tip of the iceberg
• Slippery slope
• Going the extra mile
• Icy personality
• Turning in one’s grave
• About to explode (from anger)

B. Tips on Forming Creative Metaphors

The real trick, though, is to write original metaphors that really stick in the reader’s mind, and there’s no hard-and-fast rule for accomplishing this. It takes a lot of creativity to write a good metaphor!

One way to practice is to start with the phrase “life is…and I am…” By starting with one metaphor (for life) and extending it to yourself, you can practice thinking systematically about the meanings of your metaphors, while at the same time working on your creative skills.

Life is a canvas, and I am a painter.

Life is a canvas, and I am the paint.

Life is an hourglass, and I am a single grain of sand.

Life is an hourglass, and I am about to turn it over once more.

Life is a classroom, and I am sitting in the front row.

Life is a classroom, and I am sitting in the back row.

Notice how different these statements are, and how different they all are from a cliché.

C. Avoid mixed metaphors

This is an important point for using metaphors in your writing – once you’ve decided on a metaphor, you have to see it through  for it to have the strongest effect. Don’t just forget about it and pick up a new metaphor immediately! Too many different metaphors in your writing can make it confusing or too over the top.

A mixed metaphor combines one or more metaphors in a sentence in a way that doesn’t really make sense. For example, imagine if you tried to encourage your staff to excel with a project by saying “let’s get back out on the court and hit this one out of the park!” You’d be combining a basketball metaphor with a baseball metaphor—really, you should say “let’s get back out on the field and hit this one out of the park!”

Here’s an example of a triple mixed metaphor:

Mr. Speaker, I smell a rat. I see him floating in the air. But mark me, sir, I will nip him in the bud.   ( Garner’s Modern American Usage , Bryan A. Garner)

First, we have the common metaphor “I smell a rat,” to describe a person committing a betrayal. But then Garner uses an unrelated metaphor to describe him as “floating,” finally concluding with a metaphor that refers to plants.

When to Use Metaphor

Strictly speaking, metaphors should be used only in creative writing since they rely on figurative language (not literal meaning) and are therefore untrue statements. Metaphors are also often vague and may sound too colloquial for formal work. Sometimes a subtle metaphor will slip into  formal work(especially in the form of common phrases and clichés). This is OK now and then, but it’s best to avoid it if possible.

For example, if you were writing a paper on Abraham Lincoln, it would sound pretty strange to say he had a “heart of gold.” First of all, it’s a cliché. Second, it’s not literally true. And third, it doesn’t really tell you much about Lincoln. So, it’s better to say something more specific and concrete, like “For Lincoln, compassion was one of the most important moral virtues.”

There is a rhetorical device though (that people often confuse with metaphor), that you’ll see in formal writing all the time. This is simile . Similes explicitly state that two things are alike, rather than simply equating them as a metaphor does. This can be a very useful way to explain complex ideas:

With Simile:

“The magnetosphere works like a big tinted window, protecting the earth from the sun’s harmful rays while still letting some light and heat pass through.”

With Metaphor:

“The magnetosphere is a big tinted window…”

Using metaphor, in this case, makes the sentence untrue. But the simile is a helpful tool for clarifying the writer’s point.

None of this, of course, applies to creative writing. In creative writing, metaphors are extremely effective – as long as you don’t mix them!

List of Terms

• Alliteration
• Amplification
• Anachronism
• Anthropomorphism
• Antonomasia
• APA Citation
• Aposiopesis
• Autobiography
• Bildungsroman
• Characterization
• Circumlocution
• Cliffhanger
• Comic Relief
• Connotation
• Deus ex machina
• Deuteragonist
• Doppelganger
• Double Entendre
• Dramatic irony
• Equivocation
• Extended Metaphor
• Figures of Speech
• Flash-forward
• Foreshadowing
• Intertextuality
• Juxtaposition
• Literary Device
• Malapropism
• Onomatopoeia
• Parallelism
• Pathetic Fallacy
• Personification
• Point of View
• Polysyndeton
• Protagonist
• Red Herring
• Rhetorical Device
• Rhetorical Question
• Science Fiction
• Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
• Synesthesia
• Turning Point
• Understatement
• Urban Legend
• Verisimilitude
• Essay Guide
• Cite This Website

Metaphors and Analogies: How to Use Them in Your Academic Life

Certain Experiences in life can't be captured in simple words. Especially if you are a writer trying to connect with your audience, you will need special threads to evoke exact feelings.

There are many literary devices to spark the readers' imagination, and analogies and metaphors are one of that magical arsenal. They enrich your text and give it the exact depth it will need to increase your readers' heartbeat.

Taking a particular characteristic and associating it with the other not only enriches your text's linguistic quality but gives the reader a correct pathway to deeper layers of a writer's psyche.

In this article, we are going to take a good look at the difference between analogy and metaphor and how to use them in your academic writing, and you will find some of the most powerful examples for each. Learn more about this and other vital linguistic tools on our essay writer service website.

What are Metaphors: Understanding the Concept

Let's discuss the metaphors definition. Metaphors are a figure of speech that compares two unrelated concepts or ideas to create a deeper and more profound meaning. They are a powerful tool in academic writing to express abstract concepts using different analogies, which can improve the reader's understanding of complex topics. Metaphors enable writers to paint vivid pictures in the reader's mind by comparing something familiar with an abstract concept that is harder to grasp.

The following are some of the most famous metaphors and their meanings:

• The world is your oyster - the world is full of opportunities just waiting for you to grab them
• Time is money - time is a valuable commodity that must be spent wisely
• A heart of stone - someone who is emotionally cold and unfeeling

Analogies Meaning: Mastering the Essence

Analogies, on the other hand, are a comparison of two concepts or ideas that have some similarity in their features. They are used to clarify complex ideas or to make a new concept more relatable by comparing it to something that is already familiar.

Analogies are often followed by an explanation of how the two concepts are similar, which helps the reader to understand and make connections between seemingly disparate ideas. For example, in academic writing, if you were explaining the function of a cell membrane, you might use an analogy, such as comparing it to a security gate that regulates what enters and exits a building.

Check out these famous analogies examples:

• Knowledge is like a garden: if it is not cultivated, it cannot be harvested.
• Teaching a child without education is like building a house without a foundation.
• A good friend is like a four-leaf clover; hard to find and lucky to have.

Benefits of Metaphors and Analogies in Writing

Chances are you are wondering why we use analogies and metaphors in academic writing anyway?

The reason why metaphors are beneficial to writers, especially in the academic field, is that they offer an effective approach to clarifying intricate concepts and enriching comprehension by linking them to more familiar ideas. Through the use of relatable frames of reference, these figures of speech help authors communicate complicated notions in an appealing and comprehensible way.

Additionally, analogies and metaphors are a way of artistic expression. They bring creativity and imagination to your writing, making it engaging and memorable for your readers. Beautiful words connect with readers on a deeper emotional level, allowing them to better retain and appreciate the information being presented. Such linguistic devices allow readers to open doors for imagination and create visual images in their minds, creating a more individualized experience.

However, one must be mindful not to plagiarize famous analogies and always use original ideas or appropriately cite sources when necessary. Overall, metaphors and analogies add depth and beauty to write-ups, making them memorable for years to come.

Understanding the Difference Between Analogy and Metaphor

While metaphors and analogies serve the similar purpose of clarifying otherwise complex ideas, they are not quite the same. Follow the article and learn how they differ from each other.

One way to differentiate between analogies and metaphors is through the use of 'as' and 'like.' Analogies make an explicit comparison using these words, while metaphors imply a comparison without any overt indication.

There is an obvious difference between their structure. An analogy has two parts; the primary subject, which is unfamiliar, and a secondary subject which is familiar to the reader. For example, 'Life is like a box of chocolates.' The two subjects are compared, highlighting their similarities in order to explain an entire concept.

On the other hand, a metaphor describes an object or idea by referring to something else that is not literally applicable but shares some common features. For example, 'He drowned in a sea of grief.'

The structural difference also defines the difference in their usage. Analogies are often used in academic writing where hard concepts need to be aligned with an easier and more familiar concept. This assists the reader in comprehending complex ideas more effortlessly. Metaphors, on the other hand, are more often used in creative writing or literature. They bring depth and nuance to language, allowing for abstract ideas to be communicated in a more engaging and imaginative way.

Keep reading and discover examples of metaphors and analogies in both academic and creative writing. While you are at it, our expert writers are ready to provide custom essays and papers which incorporate these literary devices in a seamless and effective way.

Using Famous Analogies Can Raise Plagiarism Concerns!

To avoid the trouble, use our online plagiarism checker and be sure that your work is original before submitting it.

Analogies and Metaphors Examples

There were a few analogies and metaphors examples mentioned along the way, but let's explore a few more to truly understand their power. Below you will find the list of metaphors and analogies, and you will never mistake one for the other again.

• Love is like a rose, beautiful but with thorns.
• The human body is like a machine, with many intricate parts working together in harmony.
• The structure of an atom is similar to a miniature solar system, with electrons orbiting around the nucleus.
• A computer's motherboard is like a city's central system, coordinating and communicating all functions.
• The brain is like a muscle that needs constant exercise to function at its best.
• Studying for exams is like training for a marathon; it requires endurance and preparation.
• Explaining a complex scientific concept is like explaining a foreign language to someone who doesn't speak it.
• A successful team is like a well-oiled machine, with each member playing a crucial role.
• Learning a new skill is like planting a seed; it requires nurturing and patience to see growth.
• Navigating through life is like sailing a ship with unpredictable currents and changing winds.
• Life is a journey with many twists and turns along the way
• The world's a stage, and we are all mere players.
• Her eyes were pools of sorrow, reflecting the pain she felt.
• Time is a thief, stealing away moments we can never recapture.
• Love is a flame, burning brightly but at risk of being extinguished.
• His words were daggers piercing through my heart.
• She had a heart of stone, unable to feel empathy or compassion.
• The city was a jungle, teeming with life and activity.
• Hope is a beacon, guiding us through the darkest of times.
• His anger was a volcano, ready to erupt at any moment.

How to Use Metaphors and Analogies in Writing: Helpful Tips

If you want your readers to have a memorable and engaging experience, you should give them some level of autonomy within your own text. Metaphors and analogies are powerful tools to let your audience do their personal interpretation and logical conclusion while still guiding them in the right direction.

First, learn about your audience and their level of familiarity with the topic you're writing about. Incorporate metaphors and analogies with familiar references. Remember, literary devices should cleverly explain complex concepts. To achieve the goal, remain coherent with the theme of the paper. But be careful not to overuse metaphors or analogies, as too much of a good thing can make your writing feel overloaded.

Use figurative language to evoke visual imagery and breathe life into your paper. Multiple metaphors can turn your paper into a movie. Visualizing ideas will help readers better understand and retain the information.

In conclusion, anytime is a great time to extend your text's impact by adding a well-chosen metaphor or analogy. But perfection is on the border of good and bad, so keep in mind to remain coherent with the theme and not overuse any literary device.

Metaphors: Unveiling Their Cultural Significance

Metaphors are not limited to just academic writing but can also be found in various forms of culture, such as art, music, film, and television. Metaphors have been a popular element in creative expression for centuries and continue to play a significant role in modern-day culture. For instance, metaphors can help artists convey complex emotions through their music or paintings.

Metaphors are often like time capsules, reflecting the cultural and societal values of a particular era. They shelter the prevailing beliefs, ideals, and philosophies of their time - from the pharaohs of ancient Egypt to modern-day pop culture.

Metaphors often frame our perception of the world and can shape our understanding of our surroundings. Certain words can take on new meanings when used metaphorically in certain cultural contexts and can assimilate to the phenomenon it is often compared to.

Here you can find a list of literature and poems with metaphors:

• William Shakespeare loved using metaphors, and here's one from his infamous Macbeth: 'It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.'
• Victor Hugo offers a timeless metaphor in Les Misérables: 'She is a rose, delicate and beautiful, but with thorns to protect her.'
• Robert Frost reminds us of his genius in the poem The Road Not Traveled: 'The road less traveled.'

Movies also contain a wide range of English metaphors:

• A famous metaphor from Toy Story: 'There's a snake in my boot!'
• A metaphor from the famous movie Silver Lining Playbook: 'Life is a game, and true love is a trophy.'
• An all-encompassing and iconic metaphor from the movie Star Wars: 'Fear is the path to the dark side.'

Don't forget about famous songs with beautiful metaphors!

• Bob Dylan's Blowin' in the Wind uses a powerful metaphor when he asks: 'How many roads must a man walk down?'
• A metaphor from Johnny Cash's song Ring of Fire: 'Love is a burning thing, and it makes a fiery ring.'
• Bonnie Tyler's famous lyrics from Total Eclipse of the Heart make a great metaphor: 'Love is a mystery, everyone must stand alone.'

Keep reading the article to find out how to write an essay with the effective use of metaphors in academic writing.

Exploring Types of Metaphors

There is a wide variety of metaphors used in academic writing, literature, music, and film. Different types of metaphors can be used to convey different meanings and create a specific impact or evoke a vivid image.

Some common types of metaphors include similes / simple metaphors, implicit metaphors, explicit metaphors, extended metaphors, mixed metaphors, and dead metaphors. Let's take a closer look at some of these types.

Simple metaphors or similes highlight the similarity between two things using 'like' or 'as.' For example, 'Her eyes were as bright as the stars.'

Implicit metaphors do not make a direct comparison. Instead, they imply the similarity between the two concepts. An example of an implicit metaphor is 'Her words cut deep,' where the similarity between words and a knife is implied. Good metaphors are often implicit since they require the reader to use their own understanding and imagination to understand the comparison being made.

Explicit metaphors are straightforward, making a clear comparison between two things. For instance, 'He is a shining star.'

An extended metaphor, on the other hand, stretches the comparison throughout an entire literary work or section of a text. This type of metaphor allows the writer to create a more complex and elaborate comparison, enhancing the reader's understanding of the subject.

Mixed metaphors combine two or more unrelated metaphors, often leading to confusion and lack of clarity. If you are not an expert on the subject, try to avoid using confusing literary devices.

Dead metaphors are another danger. These are metaphors that have been overused to the extent that they have lost their original impact, becoming clichés and not being able to evoke original visual images.

In academic writing, metaphors create a powerful impact on the reader, adding color and depth to everyday language. However, they need to be well-placed and intentional. Using an inappropriate or irrelevant metaphor may confuse readers and distract them from the main message. If you want to avoid trouble, pay for essay writing service that can help you use metaphors effectively in your academic writing.

Exploring Types of Analogies

Like metaphors, analogies are divided into several categories. Some of the common types include literal analogies, figurative analogies, descriptive analogies, causal analogies, and false/dubious analogies. In academic writing, analogies are useful for explaining complex ideas or phenomena in a way that is easy to understand.

Literal analogies are direct comparisons of two things with similar characteristics or features. For instance, 'The brain is like a computer.'

Figurative analogies, on the other hand, compare two unrelated things to highlight a particular characteristic. For example, 'The mind is a garden that needs to be tended.'

Descriptive analogies focus on the detailed similarities between two things, even if they are not immediately apparent. For example, 'The relationship between a supervisor and an employee is like that of a coach and a player, where the coach guides the player to perform at their best.'

Causal analogies are used to explain the relationship between a cause and an effect. For instance, 'The increase in global temperatures is like a fever caused by environmental pollution.'

Finally, false/dubious analogies are comparisons that suggest a similarity between two things that actually have little in common. For example, 'Getting a college degree is like winning the lottery.'

If you are trying to explain a foreign concept to an audience that may not be familiar with it, analogies can help create a bridge and make the concept more relatable. However, coming up with a perfect analogy takes a lot of time. If you are looking for ways on how to write an essay fast , explore our blog and learn even more.

If you want your academic papers to stand out and be engaging for the reader, using metaphors and analogies can be a powerful tool. Now that you know the difference between analogy and metaphor, you can use them wisely to create a bridge between complex ideas and your audience.

Explore our blog for more information on different writing techniques, and check out our essay writing service for more help on crafting the perfect papers.

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Metaphor – Definition & Examples In Academic Writing

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In the realm of academic writing , clarity and precision are key, but occasionally a straightforward sentence just isn’t enough. This is where metaphors come in, serving as powerful tools to illuminate complex ideas. Far from mere decorative flourishes, they simplify, clarify, and deepen academic arguments, as demonstrated in this article with examples. Furthermore, we will explore the utility and appropriateness of employing these figures of speech in various academic disciplines.

Inhaltsverzeichnis

• 1 Metaphor in a nutshell
• 2 Definition: Metaphor
• 3 Metaphor examples
• 5 Metaphor synonyms
• 6 Simile and analogy
• 7 Metaphors in academic writing
• 8 How to come up with a metaphor
• 9 What does “metaphorically” mean?

Metaphor in a nutshell

What is a metaphor? It’s a way of describing something by saying it is something else.  You can consider it to be a comparison with an image. For example, when you say, “Life is a roller coaster”, you’re using a metaphor. This is because a roller coaster visualizes the ups and downs and turns of life physically. You don’t mean that life is literally a roller coaster, but you’re suggesting that life has ups and downs, twists and turns, just like a roller coaster ride. So, it helps us understand one thing by comparing it to another thing that we’re already familiar with. It’s like a shortcut for explaining what something is like, making it easier to understand or more interesting to think about.

Definition: Metaphor

The definitions of metaphor often describe it as a figure of speech where one thing is elaborated on as if it were something else, helping to create more vivid imagery in our minds. In simpler terms, the meaning of a metaphor is to explain one thing by directly comparing it to something else, even though the two things are not usually alike. For the comparison, you choose a picture that you use to explain and illustrate the characteristics of the issue you are explaining. Using figurative language, we can convey complex ideas in an easy-to-understand manner by illuminating the characteristics of one thing through the familiar aspects of another. They are found in folk or field songs, films, popular songs, and even presidential speeches.

• Eyes are the windows to the soul.
• This is the icing on the cake.
• She’s going through a rollercoaster of emotions.
• He’s got the stench of failure.
• The world is a stage.

The term “metaphor” has its roots in the Greek language, originating from the word “metaphora”, which itself is derived from the verb ”metapherein”.

• “meta-“ means “across” or “beyond”
• “pherein” means “to carry”

When putting these parts together, “metapherein” literally translates to “carry across” or “transfer”. This etymological background provides insight into the core function: to carry the qualities or meaning of one concept or object across to another. In essence, it serves as a linguistic bridge that links two unrelated things, allowing us to understand one in terms of the other.

Metaphor examples

They are pervasive in both everyday speech and specialized fields, illustrating concepts with clarity and nuance. Understanding a few examples can illuminate their utility and versatility.

Everyday examples

Time is money.

• It suggests that time, like money, is a valuable resource that should not be wasted.
• Love is a battlefield.
• Popularized by the Pat Benatar song, here it is implied that love involves struggle, conflict, and occasional casualties.

He is a couch potato.

• A couch potato refers to a person who constantly sits on the sofa and never leaves the house. Essentially, a very lazy person.

Literary examples

The road not taken.

• Robert Frost’s poem uses a diverging road to symbolize the choices we make in life.

Moby Dick as nature’s fury.

• In Herman Melville’s novel, the white whale serves as a figure of speech for uncontrollable natural forces against which humans struggle.

Pup culture examples

The Force in Star Wars.

• The Force serves various forms of energy, power, and morality, blending spiritual and physical concepts.

The Matrix.

• In the film, the Matrix serves as confining illusions or societal norms that people live by but may not be aware of.

Academic examples

The mind is a computer.

• In cognitive science, this helps explain the complex mental processes using the familiar framework of computer operations.

Economic landscape.

• Economists describe the state of an economy as a “landscape” to imply its diverse and multifaceted nature.

Cells as factories.

• Cells are frequently compared to factories to help explain how they produce proteins and other essential molecules.

There are many types of metaphors, each serving a unique purpose in communication and understanding. Here are some common types, explained succinctly.

Simple or direct metaphor

In a simple or direct metaphor, one thing is directly equated with another.

• Time is a thief.
• His eyes were icy pools.

Extended metaphor

An extended metaphor is also called a sustained metaphor. It is not just used once but is extended across a passage, a poem, or even an entire work. Here, the initial comparison between two unlike things is stretched and elaborated upon, allowing for multiple attributes or facets of the metaphorical concept to be explored. In the following, there will be two examples of sustained metaphors from famous works.

Roald Dahl’s “Matilda”:

The parents looked upon Matilda in particular as nothing more than a scab. A scab is something you have to put up with until the time comes when you can pick it off and flick it away.

William Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet”:

But, soft! What light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Juliet is the sun. Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon, Who is already sick and pale with grief…

These famous metaphor examples illustrate how a figure of speech can be extended throughout more verses and sentences, but also across a whole book.

Implied metaphor

Rather than stating the figure of speech directly, an implied metaphor suggests the comparison.

• She blossomed in college.
• The CEO navigated through the meeting.
• John bolted from the room.

Mixed metaphor

A mixed metaphor combines elements of multiple, unrelated metaphors, often creating a confusing or humorous effect. However, without wanting to be funny, using a mixed metaphor may appear awkward or even sabotage your argument.

The test is easy, it’s not rocket surgery.

• “It’s not rocket science” + “It’s not brain surgery”

We’ll burn that bridge when we get to it.

• “We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it” + “Don’t burn your bridges”

You’re sailing close to thin ice.

• “You’re sailing too close to the wind” + “You’re on thin ice”

Dead metaphor

These have been used so much that their original impact has been lost, and they are understood as literal expressions. Using these may bore your reader. You should rather take a familiar metaphor and change it unconventionally to create something new and funny.

• Body of an essay.
• Heart of gold.
• Falling in love.

Metaphor synonyms

While it’s a specific term in literary and rhetorical analysis with few exact synonyms , several terms capture aspects of metaphorical language or operate in similar ways. Some of these include:

• Figure of speech

Note: While these terms are related and may overlap in some contexts, they are not strictly synonymous with “metaphor”, which has its distinct definition and usage.

Simile and analogy

While figures of speech are powerful tools for conveying abstract ideas through comparison, not all comparisons or symbolic expressions qualify as metaphors. Understanding what doesn’t count as one can clarify their unique role in language and thought.

Metaphor vs. simile

Both are figures of speech used to make comparisons. They both serve to elucidate ideas, evoke emotions, and provide new perspectives on subjects.

To understand the difference between metaphors and similes, we will list them. The primary difference lies in the way the comparison is made. A metaphor is an explicit comparison without using “like” or “as” and equates two unlike things for rhetorical effect. A simile uses “like” or “as” to make obvious comparisons and acknowledges their inherent differences even as it highlights certain similarities. The comparisons in similes make them easier to differentiate.

• Her smile is like sunshine.
• He’s as busy as a bee.
• The night sky was as dark as coal.

Metaphor vs. analogy

Both metaphors and analogies aim to clarify or explain one thing by comparing it to another. They are both used to shed light on complex or abstract concepts by relating them to something more concrete or familiar.

An analogy is generally more elaborated, often using a set structure to make the comparison more explicit (e.g., “A is to B as C is to D”). Analogies don’t need to imply that the two compared things are identical in all aspects. They rather highlight a specific relationship or aspect that the things share. Metaphors , on the other hand, make a more sweeping, implicit assertion that one thing is another, engaging the imagination more deeply to fill in the gaps.

• Just as a sword is the weapon of a warrior, a pen is the weapon of a writer.
• Life is like a game of chess.
• The heart is to the body as the engine is to a car.

Metaphors in academic writing

The use of metaphors in academic writing is a topic that warrants careful consideration. While they are commonly associated with creative or literary expression, they also find a home in academic essays . However, their appropriateness can vary depending on the context, the subject, and the academic discipline in question.

Is it appropriate to use them?

The appropriateness of metaphors in academic writing largely depends on the context:

• Clarity and precision: If it serves to clarify a complex idea or concept, then it can be a valuable tool. However, if it introduces ambiguity or misinterpretation, it’s best avoided.
• Audience: Understanding the expectations of your academic audience is crucial. Some disciplines are more accepting of metaphorical language than others.
• Purpose: They can be persuasive, but should not sensationalize or replace rigorous analysis.
• Balance: A well-placed figure of speech can illuminate an idea, but overuse can lead to a lack of clarity or can make the work seem less rigorous.

In summary, while figures of speech can be employed effectively in various academic papers, like dissertations , their use should be carefully considered. Always aim for clarity and ensure that it enhances, not clouds, the primary message of your work.

Are they used in academic writing?

Yes, they are indeed used in academic writing, but their frequency and application can differ significantly across disciplines. In fields like literature, philosophy, and some social sciences, metaphors can be instrumental in conveying complex ideas succinctly and vividly. They can add nuance to analyses and can make the material more engaging for the reader.

In contrast, scientific and technical fields tend to prioritize direct, unambiguous language to convey data and findings in their research papers . Here, the use of figures of speech is generally less common and can sometimes be viewed as imprecise or subjective.

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How to come up with a metaphor

Creating a figure of speech involves both a keen sense of observation and a bit of creative thinking. Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to create a well-crafted metaphor.

• Identify the subject Begin by determining the idea, emotion, or object you want to describe. This will be used for comparison. For instance, if you’re trying to describe love’s complexities, “love” is your subject.
• Understand the characteristics List out the properties, attributes, or feelings associated with your subject. If your subject is “love”, you might think about attributes like “complicated”, “intense”, “unpredictable”, or “comforting”.
• Find a comparison Think of another object or situation that shares some of those characteristics but is different in essence. For “love”, you might choose “a maze”, which is also complicated and unpredictable.
• Eliminate “like” or “as” Remember, this kind of figure of speech makes a direct comparison without using “like” or “as” (those would make it a simile). So instead of saying “Love is like a maze”, you say “Love is a maze”.
• Test for clarity and resonance Ask yourself if it effectively highlights the attributes you want to focus on. Does it add depth to the reader’s understanding of the subject? If the answer is yes, you’ve probably got a strong metaphor.
• Refine and expand (optional) You can further enhance it by adding details or extending it. In the example, you might say, “Love is a maze, full of twists and turns where you can find both treasure and trapdoors.”
• Contextualize Make sure it fits perfectly within the context you’re using it.
• Get feedback Every so often, what is clear to you may not be so for others. It can be helpful to ask a friend or colleague for their opinion.
• Revise as needed Based on feedback and further reflection, make any necessary adjustments.

What does “metaphorically” mean?

The term “metaphorically” refers to the figurative, rather than the literal, interpretation of a word, phrase, or situation. When something is described as happening “metaphorically”, it means that the description is symbolic and not to be understood as actually taking place in a physical or factual manner.

If someone says, “My heart broke when I heard the news”, they are speaking metaphorically. Their heart did not literally break into pieces. This simply says that they felt deep emotional pain or disappointment, which is conveyed more vividly through the metaphor.

Using “metaphorically” allows the speaker or writer to emphasize a point or emotion through imaginative or symbolic language. It offers a nuanced way to express feelings, ideas, or conditions that might be too subtle or complex to describe directly.

What is an example of a metaphor?

An example of a metaphor is: “Time is a thief”.

This suggests that time takes away moments and opportunities, much like a thief would, even though time doesn’t actually “steal” anything.

What is the simple meaning of a metaphor?

A metaphor is a figure of speech that describes one thing as being something else, to highlight a similarity between the two. For example, saying “Life is a journey” means that life, like a journey, has ups and downs, destinations, and challenges. It helps us understand one thing by comparing it directly to another.

What are ten examples of metaphors?

Here are ten commonly used metaphors:

• She is a rock.
• His words were a dagger to my heart.
• Life is a roller coaster.
• The classroom was a zoo.
• My mind is a prison.
• The company is a well-oiled machine.
• Her eyes are stars.

What makes a good metaphor?

It should be clear, insightful, and evocative. It should create an immediate understanding of a complex idea by comparing it to something more familiar or tangible. They add depth and emotional resonance without causing confusion, and they should be relevant to the context in which they are used.

What is an example of a simile and metaphor in a poem?

Simile example: “My love is like a red, red rose” from Robert Burns’ poem “A Red, Red Rose”. This simile compares love to a red rose, using the word “like”.

Metaphor example: “Hope is the thing with feathers” from Emily Dickinson’s poem. This describes hope as a bird to symbolize its uplifting and enduring qualities.

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• Writing Tips

Figurative Language – Definition and Examples

3-minute read

• 13th April 2023

In this article, you’ll learn about figurative language: what it is, how to use it, and lots of examples to inspire your everyday speech and descriptive writing .

What is Figurative Language?

Figurative language is language that uses words or expressions with a meaning that is different from the literal interpretation. It is often used to create imagery, evoke emotion, or emphasize a point in a way that literal language cannot. Think of it as painting a picture with words in the minds of your audience – for example, “She was as light as a feather while dancing.”

5 Types of Figurative Language

Below, we’ll look at five types of figurative language – metaphor, idiom, simile, hyperbole, and personification – that you can use in an essay, poem , speech, or conversation.

A metaphor is a figure of speech that compares two things by stating that one thing is another, without using “like” or “as.” Metaphors are used to create imagery, evoke emotions, and help readers or listeners to understand an idea or concept in a new and interesting way.

Here are some examples of metaphors:

An idiom is a phrase or expression that has a figurative meaning that is different from the literal meaning of the words. Idioms are often used in informal or conversational language to add color or humor.

Here are some examples of idioms:

If you want to include idioms in your everyday speech or writing, make sure you fully understand the figurative meaning before using them. If used incorrectly, they can cause confusion for your audience.

A simile is a figure of speech that compares two things using “like” or “as.” They are a great writing technique to create vivid imagery and a memorable comparison.

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Here are some examples of similes:

Hyperbole is a figure of speech that involves exaggeration for emphasis or effect. It is mostly used to emphasize a point in a funny or memorable way. Hyperbole is great to use in everyday language or writing, but it’s important to use it in moderation – otherwise, it can come across as insincere or unbelievable.

Here are some examples of hyperbole:

Personification

Personification is a figure of speech in which an inanimate object or animal is given human-like qualities or characteristics. This technique is mostly used in poetry or descriptive writing to create vivid imagery.

Here are some examples of personification:

Figurative language is a great addition to your everyday speech and is frequently used in literature and poetry. It can add depth and richness to language, making it more interesting and expressive. However, it can also be confusing if the reader or listener does not understand the intended meaning of the figurative language. Therefore, it is important to have a basic understanding of figurative language in order to fully appreciate and understand written and spoken communication.

Interested in learning more about how use descriptive language and vivid imagery? Check out our Writing Tips blog to learn more.

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Figures of Speech 101: How To Use Metaphors

Metaphors can be helpful in understanding complex situations. They can also be fun to use in everyday language. Moreover, they can help you add depth to your writing!

Whether you want to improve your writing to write effectively or better your English in general, you’ll need to be comfortable with using metaphors. So we’ve written this article to help you understand metaphors and how to use them.

Keep reading for a better understanding of using metaphors!

What Is a Metaphor?

A metaphor is a figure of speech that uses one thing to represent another. You can use metaphors to make a point more clearly, to add emotion to a situation, or to make an idea more relatable.

A metaphor is different from a simile, which uses the words “like” or “as” to compare two things. Metaphors are often used in poetry and literature to create vivid imagery and add depth to the meaning of a text.

An example of a metaphor is "asleep at the wheel." This phrase describes someone who is not paying attention or is not in control. It's a way of saying someone is not doing their job correctly.

Another example of a common metaphor is "the elephant in the room." This phrase describes a situation where something obviously needs to be addressed, but no one wants to talk about it.

Examples of Metaphors

She has a heart of stone.” This means that she is not very kind.

“He is a bear with a sore head.” This means that he is in a bad mood.

“She is a ray of sunshine.” This means that she is very happy and cheerful.

“He is a fish out of water.” This means that he is not comfortable in a new situation.

“She is an angel.” This means that she is very kind and sweet.

“She is the cat’s meow.” This means that she is very fashionable.

“He is a lion among men.” This means that he is very brave.

“He is a bull in a china shop.” This means that he is not very careful.

Types of Metaphors

Here are four types of metaphors:

The standard metaphor: A standard metaphor is a phrase or expression that uses a word or phrase from one context to describe something in another. For example, in the sentence, “The stock market is a roller coaster ride,” the phrase “roller coaster” is used to describe the ups and downs of the market. This is an example of a standard metaphor because it uses a word or phrase from one context (roller coasters) to describe something in another context (the stock market). Standard metaphors are common and can be found in everyday conversation, literature, and other art forms. They are often used to make something more relatable or interesting to the reader or viewer. Standard metaphors are also commonly used in rhetoric and advertising. They can be used to make a point or to persuade people to take some kind of action. For example, an advertisement for an insurance company might use the following metaphor: “Life is full of unexpected twists and turns. You never know when something bad might happen. That’s why it’s important to be prepared.” This metaphor is used to persuade people to purchase insurance from the company. It tries to make the idea of purchasing insurance seem like a “necessary precaution” by comparing it to being prepared for unforeseen events.

An implied metaphor: An implied metaphor is a metaphor that is implied through some aspects of a story. For example, if you were writing a story about a man who was afraid of spiders and you included the line “He shrank back as the hairy creature scuttled towards him,” you would be implying a metaphor about a man who is afraid of change. The hairy creature would represent change, and the man would shrink away from it. Implied metaphors are often more subtle than other forms, but they still serve the same purpose of connecting two seemingly unrelated things. They are a great way to add depth and meaning to your writing.

Visual metaphors: A visual metaphor is a comparison between two visually similar things. For example, in the famous movie "The Matrix,” the concept of "red pill, blue pill" (reality vs. illusion) is a visual metaphor. Another favorite visual metaphor is "a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.” There are many more examples of visual metaphors, such as "apple of my eye,” "elephant in the room,” and "pig in a poke" (you get the point). Visual metaphors are an effective way of expressing ideas and feelings creatively and memorably.

Extended metaphors: An extended metaphor is a literary device in which a comparison is made between two or more things wherein the comparison is drawn out over a longer period. Extended metaphors often take the form of a story and are often used in literature and poetry. They can also be found in speeches, sermons, and other forms of rhetoric. An extended metaphor is different from a simple one, which is a direct comparison between two things made without elaboration. Extended metaphors are often used to help the reader or listener better understand a complex idea or to create a sense of drama or suspense in a story. They can also be used to create a sense of irony or humor. Examples of extended metaphors can be found in the works of Shakespeare, who frequently used this device. One example is in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, in which the character of Mercutio uses an extended metaphor to compare the heat of the summer to the heat of passion. This allows him to create a humorous comparison between the two and a sense of dramatic irony, since Mercutio dies shortly after making this speech despite his apparent immunity to the heat of summer (as he says in the speech).

Why Should You Use Metaphors?

Using metaphors in your writing can help you explain complex ideas in a clear and relatable way. In addition, they allow you to get creative and add a new layer of meaning to your work.

Using metaphors can help you stand out from the crowd and capture your readers’ attention. If you’re looking for a way to spice up your writing and add depth, metaphors are great in your toolbox!

How To Write a Good Metaphor

There are many ways to write a good metaphor, but one way is to use an everyday object familiar to the reader. For example, you could compare a person’s personality to a box of chocolates because you never know what you’ll get.

The key to writing a good metaphor is to ensure that both concepts are clearly defined. This will help the reader understand what you are trying to say. It is also essential to use language that is easy to understand so that everyone can follow your point.

How Often Should You Use Metaphors in Writing?

Metaphors can strengthen your writing if used sparingly and are relevant and appropriate to the topic.

You don’t want to overdo it or use metaphors that don’t fit your writing or the topic at hand. Metaphors are great literary devices, but they’re best used when they’re not overused or overdone.

If you’re using many metaphors, consider cutting some of them out to strengthen your point. If your metaphors aren’t relevant to the topic, consider using another word or just keeping it straightforward.

What Is a Mixed Metaphor?

A mixed metaphor is when a person tries to describe something by combining two metaphors that don’t go together.

For example, “the business was a ship of fools, run by a captain who didn’t know how to steer.”

Using mixed metaphors is a prevalent mistake among English learners. The key to avoiding this mistake is remembering that each metaphor is a stand-alone idea. So if you’re trying to describe something, pick just one metaphor.

If you struggle to come up with one, try to think of a simpler way to describe it. Mixed metaphors are a common mistake, but they’re also easy to avoid!

The Conclusion on Using Metaphors

Metaphors are helpful in explaining something the audience may not understand otherwise. But don't overuse metaphors. Otherwise, they'll lose the meaning of the metaphor and its purpose. On the other hand, if used correctly, metaphors can be a great way to engage your audience and make your message stick. We hope you’ve enjoyed our introduction to using metaphors! Feel free to share this article with a fellow English student!

Works Cited:

How to improve your writing. Rephrasely. (n.d.). Retrieved November 23, 2022, from https://rephrasely.com/blog/how-to-improve-your-writing

20 important questions to consider when writing an essay. Rephrasely. (n.d.). Retrieved November 23, 2022, from https://rephrasely.com/blog/20-important-questions-to-consider-when-writing-an-essay

Merriam-Webster. (n.d.). Metaphor definition & meaning. Merriam-Webster. Retrieved November 23, 2022, from https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/metaphor

YouTube. (2016, September 19). Types of metaphors. YouTube. Retrieved November 23, 2022, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCr8DTswjVg

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How to Develop a Personalized Metaphor for Your Applications

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How to Get the Perfect Hook for Your College Essay→

Developing a Theme for Your Application

When you’re applying to competitive colleges, you need something that sets you apart from other applicants. This might be a special skill, an interesting characteristic, a unique experience, or even a circumstance beyond your control. One way to express this is through a personal metaphor in your essay. If you can come up with a defining metaphor that manifests throughout your application, you’ll be able to express your character more clearly and give colleges a better sense of who you are. This can tie your personal qualities and accomplishments together in a way that is more likely to resonate with admissions committees. Read on to learn how you can come up with a personalized metaphor for your essays that will set you apart.

How Can You Use a Metaphor in Your Essays

A metaphor is a comparison between two unlike things, tying something—an experience, a person, a thing, a place—to something else. At first glance, the comparison might seem unrelated but when the two ideas are juxtaposed, a new meaning emerges. Unlike a simile, your description doesn’t use “like” or “as,” so the comparison is more implicit. You might also use an analogy, which is similar to a metaphor in some respects. An analogy is another type of comparison, but instead of demonstrating how two things are completely similar, it highlights how two particular characteristics of those things are comparable, and often does use “like” or “as”. “I’m as tired as the day is long” is an example of an analogy, because rather than totally comparing oneself to the day, the speaker is focusing on one particular characteristic in each thing being compared—being tired and the length of the day.

In a metaphor, the comparison becomes a symbol to represent a larger experience or circumstance. Metaphors are commonly used as literary devices. For instance, Shakespeare wrote in As You Like It : “All the world’s a stage / And all the men and women merely players.” This is a quintessential example of a double metaphor, in which the stage represents the world, and players represent all the people—the implicit idea being that life is really a performance.

A metaphor can be a strong device to use in your college essays, but you’ll need to keep a few important considerations in mind. You’ll need to choose something unique to stand out, and describe it well. Use imagery and other rhetorical devices to frame your metaphor. Be descriptive. Also remember that admissions committees read many, many essays. While your experience doesn’t have to be completely unique, the way you describe it does. And you certainly don’t want to write an essay with overused clichés. Colleges have seen hundreds of essays describe how winning a sports game is like conquering life obstacles. Don’t be that person!

Consistency and cohesiveness are also important here. Choose something and stick to it. Don’t try to pack too much into a single thought, because then the metaphor might become too much of a leap. “I’m like bird, because I’m quick on my feet, adventurous, and like to sing” has too many elements. Try to focus on a particular thing—such as an adventurous spirit—and draw it out with examples, anecdotes, and imagery.

Thinking About our Pre-College Experiences Through the Lens of a Metaphor

You don’t have to climb Mount Everest to develop a meaningful metaphor. Colleges care more about how you describe and frame your experiences than the experiences themselves. However, you’re probably not going to find much inspiration from the Sunday you spent watching TV on the couch, so you should make an effort to seek out experiences that inspire you. To start, try pursuing something off the beaten path that interests you over the summer. For example, you might volunteer in another country, take on a unique internship, or gain experience in a profession you plan on pursuing. You might, then, use an aspect of the experience—say, animals you encountered in the wilderness—to highlight the new experiences and adventures you seek out in life: “Seeing a lion on a safari in Africa made me nervous at first, but I soon realized the fear came more from the unknown than the threat the lion posed to me.”

Or, on the flip side of this example, if you’ve had a particular struggle, is there a way to paint a metaphorical picture about it?

Making Your College Application Cohesive

Don’t stretch to hard to fit everything into the metaphor you choose, and don’t try to pack too much into it. You don’t want to make admissions committees have to work to understand what you’re trying to convey. For example, “Working with my teammates to defeat the rival school in football taught me collaboration conquers all” is a bit of a reach, not to mention cliché.

To help you come up with something that defines you and your experiences, make a list of your best qualities and what defines you as a student. Additionally, ask friends, family members, and teachers what they think of when they think about you. Then, make a list of extracurricular activities or other interests you’ve pursued, and try to determine the qualities from the first list each activity brings out. Select one that best exemplifies your personal experiences to write about in your essay. It’s also a good idea to think about particular experiences and anecdotes to illustrate the activity. Also think about imagery you associate with the activity. Does playing piano make you feel peaceful? What other images are associated with peace? Perhaps it transports you to a beach or some other calm setting. Is there a particular time when this feeling was exemplified during a performance or recital?

If you have a particular passion, describe why you love it and what you’ve done to hone and pursue it. Show colleges why it’s meaningful to you. Maybe you’re a writer and have participated in writing programs, contest, and clubs like the school newspaper. Is there an image that comes to mind that illustrates how you’ve made writing your focus?

If you can think of a literal object that works well with your talents and experiences, then great. You could also use a single event or activity to show who you are more generally. For example, you might use debate club to show how you feel like a small-time version of a Supreme Court judge. “One time, when I argued the merits of the public-school system, I pictured myself in a real courtroom, presiding over a trial that would determine the fate of Americans.”

Remember that consistency is key. In Well-Rounded or Specialized? , we explain how it is important to demonstrate passion for a particular specialty or area. Having that passion will help you develop your metaphor, because you will naturally have a theme to exemplify.

Final Thoughts on the Admissions Metaphor

A metaphor is an impressive way to capture the attention of the admissions committee. Remember, you want them to sit up and take notice, so you need to draw them in right away.

Also keep in mind that it’s not just about what you say, but how you say it. While having a solid academic record is important, you need to demonstrate that you are unique. That doesn’t mean you have to have had a unique experience. You might have a particularly insightful or interesting way of describing or looking at something—and that makes you unique! Plus, being able to describe the events of your life or your goals for the future through the frame of a metaphor is one way of showing that you are capable of thinking of general trends and patterns in life in a creative way.

Want help with your college essays to improve your admissions chances? Sign up for your free CollegeVine account and get access to our essay guides and courses. You can also get your essay peer-reviewed and improve your own writing skills by reviewing other students’ essays.

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College Nut

College Essays with Metaphors: A Guide to Crafting Powerful Personal Statements

What are college essays.

College essays are a crucial part of the application process, which can be the deciding factor in determining whether you get into your dream school. They are an opportunity for you to showcase your writing skills, creativity, and personality, all while convincing admissions officers that you are a good fit for their institution.

Why are Metaphors Important in College Essays?

Metaphors are a type of figure of speech that compares two things that may seem unrelated, but share common characteristics or traits. They add depth and meaning to your writing and allow you to express abstract or complex ideas in a more relatable and engaging way.

Using metaphors in your college essays can help you stand out from other applicants, as they demonstrate your ability to think critically, use language creatively, and connect seemingly disparate ideas. They can also make your essay more memorable and impactful, as they provide a unique perspective and show your personality and values.

An Example of a Metaphor in a College Essay

Imagine you are writing an essay about your passion for environmental activism. You could write: “I’ve always been drawn to the ocean like a moth to a flame. Its vastness and mystery have always fascinated me, but with every beach cleanup and marine life rescue, I feel like I’m slowly putting out the fire that threatens to consume it.” This metaphor compares the ocean to a flame and implies that the author is working to protect it from destruction.

How to Use Metaphors in College Essays

Using metaphors effectively in your college essays requires careful thought and planning. Here are some tips to help you incorporate metaphors into your writing:

Start with a brainstorming session: Think about the qualities, experiences, and emotions that define you and your story. Consider different objects or concepts that could represent these ideas, such as a rollercoaster, a puzzle, or a tree.

Choose a metaphor that fits your story: Once you have a list of potential metaphors, choose one that best represents your story and message. Make sure it is appropriate to the tone and topic of your essay.

Use the metaphor throughout your essay: Once you have chosen a metaphor, use it consistently throughout your essay to reinforce your message and create a cohesive narrative.

Don’t force it: While metaphors can be powerful tools, don’t force them into your essay if they don’t fit naturally. Use them sparingly and only where they add value to your writing.

Common Mistakes to Avoid When Using Metaphors in College Essays

While metaphors can add depth and meaning to your writing, they can also backfire if not used correctly. Here are some common mistakes to avoid when using metaphors in your college essays:

Overusing clichés: While some metaphors are universally understood, using clichéd or overused metaphors can make your writing seem unoriginal and uninspired.

Being too abstract: While metaphors can be used to express abstract ideas, if they are too obscure or disconnected from your message, they can confuse readers and detract from your point.

Stretching the metaphor too far: While it’s important to use metaphors consistently throughout your essay, stretching them too far or using them inappropriately can undermine your credibility and make your writing seem contrived.

In conclusion, metaphors are powerful tools that can help you express complex ideas and create a more engaging and memorable college essay. By following the tips outlined above and avoiding common mistakes, you can use metaphors to showcase your unique perspective and stand out from other applicants.

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10 The Building Metaphor

Building the House

Writing an essay is a lot like building a house. In fact, it really IS building a house. As essay is a metaphor for a certain kind of mental construction. The steps are essential and must be engaged thoroughly, methodically, and without rushing through to the end.

Procrastination is a killer. Taking short cuts will diminish the quality of the final product. And the strength of each step is largely dependent on the strength of the ones before it. Also, each choice will contribute to the strength and/or weaknesses of the steps that come after.

An essay, like a house, is an integrated, interdependent set of complementary technologies meant to produce reliable results if followed properly. There is room for creativity and individual expression, but only after the basic elements of building the structure are secure:

Land Prep (Research & Free Writing)

The first step in the construction process is getting the land ready. This includes clearing the area, digging trenches and making sure utilities are installed. In essay writing, this is the research process. This is when we brainstorm, free write, and gather research on topics of interest as we lay the groundwork for what comes next: our thesis.  

The Footings & Foundation (Thesis)

Building a good foundation requires a lot more than digging a hole and pouring some concrete into forms. It must be tailored to its site like a custom suit, taking into account soil conditions, water tables, even the quality of the backfill. And it is the very structure upon which the rest of the house is built. Absolutely nothing that comes next will matter if the foundation isn’t solid. Similarly, your thesis is the foundation of your essay. Like the foundation, it needs to be as specific for the particular project as possible; and also like the foundation, it will lay the groundwork for absolutely everything that comes next.

Framing (Pattern of Development)

In the framing step, the “bones” of the home start to come together. Framing includes the floor joists, subfloors, and studs that form the walls and roof trusses. Here is where the very shape of the house begins to take shape. In writing, this is the pattern of development. It is where you decide how your body paragraphs are going to flow one to the next. This larger pattern will determine what spaces are for what functions in the house. In the essay, this is where we decide the larger pattern and shape our essay will take. Thus determining the purpose of the various parts.

Plumbing & Electrical (Paragraphs)

Once the home is framed, subcontractors will start installing the home’s major systems, including plumbing pipes, electrical wiring and heating and cooling ducts. These are the systems that move air, water and electricity through the home and make everything flow. In an essay, these are your sentences and paragraphs. If these are not constructed properly, much wasted energy will be spent trying to extract the big ideas from an essay. Conversely, when they are built correctly, ideas can flow freely throughout the various elements of the essay and are delivered to the reader with efficiency and clarity.

Interior &  Exterior  Finishes (Transitions, Introduction & Conclusion)

In this step, most of the home’s interior features will be added. This includes doors, baseboards, casings, window sills, kitchen counters, etc.  Driveways, walkways, patios and final grading to direct water away from home will all be completed. Landscaping and exterior decorating happen during this step too. In essay writing, this is where we focus on things like writing strong introductions and conclusions and smooth transitions. These are the things that make it easier for a reader to enter and move through the space. The first things noticed and thus, often, the most important as far as creating first and last impressions.

Final Inspection & Walkthrough (Formatting & Editing) 

Once construction is complete, a final inspection will be conducted by a local building official. Before you move in, you’ll want to do a final walkthrough with your builder to identify a list items that need to be repaired for the job to be considered complete. In essay writing, this is where we do our editing and formatting. Remember there are various levels of editing. Some may require a good deal of reworking of the material and others involve smaller issues like punctuation and syntax errors. Similarly, formatting issues can run the gamut from major to minor as well. Don’t skimp on this step. Just like with building house, why bother taking the time to develop all of the other stages correctly just to cut corners on the installation of light sockets and door knobs.? Get another set of eyes on it. That’s where the inspectors (writing tutors) come in.

Final Thoughts 

Remember that writing is a process . We keep saying this but that is for a reason: it’s true. When we realize the importance of each of the steps in the quality and coherence of the final product, it helps us to not get lost in the seemingly endless details of the process. We are working towards building something meaningful and lasting. A structure that can house our ideas (and the relevant, reliable and authoritative ideas of others) in a well-crafted, engaging, and leak-proof domicile to which all who are curious and willing may enter to explore.

Also, the process is one that we must engage thoroughly over time as we move towards building more solid foundations for our ideas and our thinking. It is AFTER the designs and blueprints have been finalized and your permits have been filed and approved that construction (writing) actually BEGINS on the project. Research, outlining, editing, and revision are as essential to the process as the writing itself. Skipping steps here inevitably will compromise the quality of the final product.

The process matters because you matter. Because we matter. And our ideas deserve the best built delivery systems we can manage. Be patient with yourself but do not shy away from the disciplined side of writing. Success awaits on the other side.

The Writing Process Copyright © 2020 by Andrew Gurevich is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Definition of metaphor

Did you know.

What is metaphor ?

"You're a peach!" We've all heard the expression, and it's a good example of what we call metaphor . A metaphor is a figure of speech in which a word or phrase denoting one kind of object or action is used in place of another to suggest a likeness or analogy between them: the person being addressed in "you're a peach" is being equated with a peach, with the suggestion being that the person is pleasing or delightful in the way that a peach is pleasing and delightful. A metaphor is an implied comparison, as in "the silk of the singer's voice," in contrast to the explicit comparison of the simile , which uses like or as , as in "a voice smooth like silk."

When we use metaphor, we make a leap beyond rational, ho-hum comparison to an identification or fusion of two objects, resulting in a new entity that has characteristics of both: the voice isn't like silk; it is silk. Many critics regard the making of metaphors as a system of thought antedating or bypassing logic. Metaphor is the fundamental language of poetry, although it is common on all levels and in all kinds of language.

Lots of common words we use every day were originally vivid images, although they exist now as dead metaphors whose original aptness has been lost. The word daisy , for example, comes from an Old English word meaning "day's eye." The ray-like appearance of the daisy, which opens and closes with the sun, is reminiscent of an eye that opens in the morning and closes at night. The expression time flies is also metaphorical, with time being identified with a bird.

In poetry a metaphor may perform varied functions, from noting simple similarity between things to evoking a broad set of associations; it may exist as a minor element, or it may be the central concept and controlling image of the poem. The metaphor of an iron horse for a train, for example, is the elaborate central concept of one of Emily Dickinson's poems—though neither iron horse nor train appears in the poem, the first and final stanzas of which are:

I like to see it lap the Miles— And lick the Valleys up— And stop to feed itself at Tanks— And then—prodigious step

And neigh like Boanerges— Then—prompter than a Star Stop—docile and omnipotent At it's own stable door—

A mixed metaphor is the linking of two or more elements that don't go together logically. It happens when the writer or speaker isn't being sensitive to the literal meaning of the words or to the falseness of the comparison being used. A mixed metaphor is often two metaphors sloppily mashed together as in, "the ball is in the court of public opinion," which joins "the ball is in your court" to "the court of public opinion."

A mixed metaphor may also be used with great effectiveness, however, as in Hamlet's speech:

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune Or to take arms against a sea of troubles

For strictly correct completion of the metaphor, sea should be replaced by a word like host . By using "sea of troubles," however, Shakespeare evokes the overwhelming nature of Hamlet's troubles.

Simile vs. Metaphor

Many people have trouble distinguishing between simile and metaphor . A glance at their Latin and Greek roots offers a simple way of telling these two closely-related figures of speech apart. Simile comes from the Latin word similis (meaning “similar, like”), which seems fitting, since the comparison indicated by a simile will typically contain the words as or like . Metaphor , on the other hand, comes from the Greek word metapherein (“to transfer”), which is also fitting, since a metaphor is used in place of something. “My love is like a red, red rose” is a simile , and “love is a rose” is a metaphor .

Examples of metaphor in a Sentence

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'metaphor.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Word History

Middle English methaphor , from Middle French or Latin; Middle French metaphore , from Latin metaphora , from Greek, from metapherein to transfer, from meta- + pherein to bear — more at bear

15th century, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Phrases Containing metaphor

• dead metaphor
• mixed metaphor

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Cite this Entry

“Metaphor.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary , Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/metaphor. Accessed 14 Apr. 2024.

Kids Definition

Kids definition of metaphor, more from merriam-webster on metaphor.

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Britannica.com: Encyclopedia article about metaphor

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Extended Metaphor

Extended Metaphor Definition

What is an extended metaphor? Here’s a quick and simple definition:

An extended metaphor is a metaphor that unfolds across multiple lines or even paragraphs of a text, making use of multiple interrelated metaphors within an overarching one. So while "life is a highway" is a simple metaphor, it becomes an extended metaphor when you say: "Life is a highway that takes us through green pastures, vast deserts, and rocky mountains. Sometimes your car breaks down or you run out of gas, and sometimes you get lost. Friends are the roadmaps that help you get where you're going." Now you've spread the idea of "life = highway" across multiple sentences and related ideas, and created an extended metaphor.

Some additional key details about extended metaphors:

• Extended metaphors are distinguished from regular metaphors by their complexity (or how many different metaphors they contain) as well as their length. Extended metaphors can span an entire story or poem, or just a few clauses of the same sentence.
• As in a regular metaphor, the comparisons created in an extended metaphor are not meant to be taken literally. For instance, nobody is suggesting that life is literally a highway when they use that common metaphor. Rather, extended metaphors are figurative —they create meaning beyond the literal meanings of their words.
• The terms "conceit" and "extended metaphor" can be used interchangeably, though "conceit" is also sometimes used in an even more specialized way than "extended metaphor" is.

Extended Metaphor Pronunciation

Here's how to pronounce extended metaphor: ex- tend -id met -uh-fore

Extended Metaphors in Depth

All metaphors can be broken down into two elements: a tenor and a vehicle.

• The tenor is the thing a metaphor describes.
• The vehicle is the thing to which the tenor is compared.

For instance, in the metaphor " Life is a highway ," life is the tenor because it's the thing being described, while "highway" is the vehicle because it's the thing life is being compared to. The metaphor operates by borrowing key attributes from the vehicle and attributing them to the tenor. The "Life is a highway" metaphor takes the attributes of a highway—including its association with journeys, adventures, speed, and the fact that we all travel them side-by-side—and connects them to life.

The Structure of Extended Metaphors

Extended metaphors have a main tenor and vehicle that make up the overarching or primary metaphor, but they also make use of other tenors and vehicles as the metaphor becomes more elaborate. Let's continue to use the example from above:

Life is a highway that takes us through green pastures, vast deserts, and rocky mountains. Sometimes your car breaks down or you run out of gas, and sometimes you get lost. Friends are the roadmaps that help you get where you're going.

Within the overarching metaphor of "life is a highway," several other metaphors make up the extended metaphor, and each one has its own tenor and vehicle : the various stages of life are like the varied landscapes of a large country; the challenges of life are like car troubles ; friends are like road maps .

Extended Metaphor and Related Terms

People often use the term extended metaphor to refer to things that aren't actually extended metaphors. Here are a couple things that people often—and understandably—confuse for extended metaphors:

• Recurring metaphors: An extended metaphor is not just a single metaphor that repeats throughout a text. For instance, in Shakespeare's Othello , the image of a monster is used several times throughout the book as a metaphor for jealousy. The repeated use of the same metaphor in multiple places throughout a text does not make it an example of an extended metaphor; an extended metaphor must contain different tenors and vehicles, that together fit into the metaphor of the overarching tenor and vehicle.
• Symbolism: Symbolism is a literary device in which a writer uses one thing—usually a physical object or phenomenon—to represent something more abstract. A famous example of a symbol in literature occurs in To Kill a Mockingbird , when Atticus tells his children Jem and Scout that it's a sin to kill a mockingbird because mockingbirds cause no harm to anyone; they just sing. Because of these traits, mockingbirds in the novel symbolize innocence and beauty, while killing a mockingbird symbolizes an act of senseless cruelty. Although it might seem like this constitutes an extended metaphor, it doesn't. The main reason is that the story about the mockingbird is supposed to be literally true—it's not a figurative use of language to illustrate or describe something else. Furthermore, in stories that use symbolism, writers don't clearly state what a symbol represents, whereas in metaphor they typically do, making it clear that the use of language is actually figurative.
• Allegories: An allegory is a story in which essentially every character and event have symbolic meanings. The main difference between an allegory and an extended metaphor is that, in allegories, writers don't clearly state what each character or event represents, whereas in a metaphor they typically would, making it clear that the use of language is figurative. Also, metaphors state or imply that one thing is another thing, while in allegories (as with symbolism more generally), one thing might stand for another thing, but it isn't said to actually be that other thing.

Extended Metaphor and Conceit

Conceit is a term that is similar to extended metaphor. In fact, conceit is often used as a synonym for metaphor—and to use it in that way is perfectly correct. However, conceit also has another, slightly more complicated definition. Here's a quick run-down of the two different ways the terms can be used:

• Conceit can be a synonym for extended metaphor: Most often, conceit is used interchangeably with extended metaphor to describe any metaphor or analogy that spans a longer passage in a work of literature.
• Conceit can refer to a particularly fanciful or even strained extended metaphor: However, for some people (and literary critics in particular) the word conceit carries the connotation of a fanciful or elaborate extended metaphor in which an unlikely, far-fetched, or strained comparison is made between two things. The term is most often used to refer to such metaphors in Renaissance literature and the poetry of the 17th century (such as "metaphysical poetry"). To learn more about this definition, take a look at our entry on conceit .

Extended Metaphor Examples

The following examples of extended metaphors are taken from literature, music, and speeches, showing just how prevalent extended metaphors are in all sorts of writing.

Extended Metaphor in Frost's "The Road Not Taken"

Robert Frost's famous poem is an example of an extended metaphor in which the tenor (or the thing being spoken about) is never stated explicitly—but it's clear that the poet is using the road less traveled as a metaphor for leading an unconventional way of life. The entire poem, then, is an extended metaphor.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth; Then took the other, as just as fair, And having perhaps the better claim, Because it was grassy and wanted wear; Though as for that the passing there Had worn them really about the same, And both that morning equally lay In leaves no step had trodden black. Oh, I kept the first for another day! Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back. I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.

Extended Metaphor in As You Like It

This passage, spoken by the character Jaques in Shakespeare's As You Like It , has become rather famous for its initial metaphor of "All the world's a stage." But not as many people know that the famous line is just the beginning of an extended metaphor, which contains several metaphors within it, using the language of scenes, actors, and parts. Over all, the lines develop an extended metaphor of remarkable breadth.

JAQUES: All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances, And one man in his time plays many parts, His acts being seven ages. At first, the infant, Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.... ...Last scene of all, That ends this strange eventful history, Is second childishness and mere oblivion, Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

To analyze just one part of this extended metaphor, in the final sentence Jaques speaks of the "last scene of all," referencing death—when each of us "plays the part" of someone who has regressed to a childlike state, having lost everything: teeth, vision, taste, and, finally, life.

Extended Metaphor in Romeo and Juliet

Romeo delivers this monologue in Act 2, Scene 2 of Romeo and Juliet , after sneaking into Juliet's garden and catching a glimpse of her on her balcony. Romeo compares Juliet to a radiant sun, and then extends the metaphor by entreating her to "kill the envious moon."

But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Juliet is the sun. Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon, Who is already sick and pale with grief, That thou her maid art far more fair than she: Be not her maid, since she is envious; Her vestal livery is but sick and green And none but fools do wear it; cast it off.

The moon is used here as a symbol of virginity, so when Romeo states that Juliet is the moon's maid, he means that she's still a virgin, and when he entreats her to "kill the moon" and "cast off" its vestal livery (a garment worn by virgins), he's suggesting that she should part with her virginity. The metaphor of the sun (Juliet) killing the moon (her virginity) works because the sun can be said to "kill the moon" each day—in the sense that its bright light drowns out the light of the moon in the sky, making it invisible.

Extended Metaphor in Katy Perry's "Firework"

In "Firework," Perry uses an extended metaphor to compare a firework to an inner "spark" of resilience which, in the context of the song, stands in opposition to the dreary experience of life and the difficulty of communicating with others. Here's an excerpt of the lyrics that captures the extended metaphor in action:

Do you know that there's still a chance for you? 'Cause there's a spark in you You just gotta ignite the light And let it shine Just own the night Like the Fourth of July 'Cause baby, you're a firework C'mon, show 'em what you're worth Make 'em go "Aah, aah, aah" As you shoot across the sky Baby, you're a firework C'mon, let your colors burst Make 'em go, "Aah, aah, aah" You're gonna leave them all in awe, awe, awe

Extended Metaphor in Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" Speech

The following quote from Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech is a clear example of extended metaphor, as MLK builds upon the initial metaphor of "cashing a check" in each successive sentence:

In a sense we’ve come to our nation’s capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the “unalienable Rights” of “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note, insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked "insufficient funds." But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. And so, we've come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.

Why Do Writers Use Extended Metaphors?

Writers use extended metaphors for many of the same reasons they use metaphors in general:

• To explain or describe an abstract concept in vivid and memorable terms.
• To help the reader make a new, insightful connection between two different entities that might not have seemed related.
• To help communicate personal or imaginary experiences in terms to which readers can relate.
• To lead the reader to surprising and important discoveries by connecting different spheres of experience and language. The figurative meaning that metaphors create can help a reader to see the world or a concept in a new way.

Other Helpful Extended Metaphor Resources

• The Wikipedia Page on Extended Metaphor : An in-depth explanation of metaphor, its history, and how it relates to other figures of speech.
• The Dictionary Definition of Metaphor : A basic definition and etymology of the term—it comes from the Greek metaphora, meaning "a transfer."
• Extended Metaphors on YouTube : A video of Jaques' famous "seven ages" monologue, as delivered by Kevin Kline, in Kenneth Branagh's As You Like It .
• The Road Not Taken aloud : Audio of Robert Frost's poem "The Road Not Taken."

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Essays on Metaphor

A metaphor essay notes that a metaphor is a figure of speech, defined by the use of words and expressions in a figurative sense. Metaphor essays highlight that it often uses analogy, similarity, and comparison. Essays on metaphor explain that metaphor is used in text to describe something using the characteristics of something else. It is usually included to provide a pore poetic, artistic and sensual explanation of something, rather than a literal one. Essays specify that writers use metaphors to emphasize something, to distinguish the described object, make it memorable. Our metaphor essay samples will tell you everything there is to know about metaphors – just check some of our best essay samples below.

The Famished Road by Ben Okri is a book that must always be discussed by referring to its title because the road serves as the book's primary symbol. There was a waterway at the start. The waterway turned into a road, and the road split off to reach the entire...

Words: 1214

Birches employs the metaphor of a boy swimming in the birches. This is a metaphor for being a teenager. The metaphor compares the youthful excitement that many individuals disregard in their youth and wish they had done when they are older. The individual ends up struggling with the burdens of...

Themes in Equus There are several themes that have been developed in the play Equus, most importantly the theme of religion and worship. Peter Shaffer doesn't stop to develop this theme from the beginning to the end of the play. Moreover, he makes use of different devices to build the theme...

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A box of chocolate or a bowl of cherries is a life symbol that my response would attempt to explore objectively in my interpretation. The solution attempts to explore life in two broad viewpoints in line with its position in today's culture. It's either leaning towards a chocolate box or...

Words: 2960

The novel called Germinal by Zola was first published in French on March 1885. It created a very significant mark in the french tradition among other great novels like Ladies Delight, Nana, L’ Assommoir, La Bete Humaine and The Belly of Paris. Its original copy was 591 pages but was...

Words: 1068

Judy Brady's dramatic irony has been included in I Want a Wife (1971) as the writer needs a wife to accompany her to college. The writer is a woman, but the reader might first think that she was a male. It is also ironic that a woman should accompany her...

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Writing about Writing: An Extended Metaphor Assignment

• Resources & Preparation
• Instructional Plan
• Related Resources

Useful at key points in a term, such as the beginning or end of the term, this lesson asks students to reflect on their writing process, and helps the teacher learn more about students' habits and techniques as writers. Students begin by reading and analyzing the poem "The Writer" by Richard Wilbur, particularly discussing the use of extended metaphor. Students then reflect on their own writing habits, compare themselves as writers to the writer in the poem, and brainstorm possible metaphors for themselves as writers. Finally, students complete one of several recommended projects to extend the metaphor describing themselves as writers. Throughout the process, students share their work in small groups.

Featured Resources

"The Writer" by Richard Wilbur : Analysis of this poem sets the stage for students' work with extended metaphor.

Writing Habits Journal Questions : Use these questions to help students reflect on their own habits as writers.

Writing Metaphor Assignment : This assignment offers several projects that students can choose to extend a metaphor describing themselves as writers, including creating a scrapbook, designing a CD cover, writing a paper, or writing a short story.

From Theory to Practice

This project asks students to think deeply about their writing and how they work as writers. This process of deep reflection helps students improve as writers. Dawn Swartzendruber-Putnam explains:

"Reflection is a form of metacognition-thinking about thinking. It means looking back with new eyes in order to discover-in this case, looking back on writing. As Pianko states, ‘The ability to reflect on what is begin written seems to be the essence of the difference between able and not so able writers from their initial writing experience onward' (qtd. in Yancey 4)" (88).

Rather than reflecting on a single piece of writing, this activity asks students to analyze the trends and patterns in their own writing. By exploring their work, they identify the habits that work well and those that need rethought.

Further Reading

Common Core Standards

This resource has been aligned to the Common Core State Standards for states in which they have been adopted. If a state does not appear in the drop-down, CCSS alignments are forthcoming.

State Standards

This lesson has been aligned to standards in the following states. If a state does not appear in the drop-down, standard alignments are not currently available for that state.

NCTE/IRA National Standards for the English Language Arts

• 3. Students apply a wide range of strategies to comprehend, interpret, evaluate, and appreciate texts. They draw on their prior experience, their interactions with other readers and writers, their knowledge of word meaning and of other texts, their word identification strategies, and their understanding of textual features (e.g., sound-letter correspondence, sentence structure, context, graphics).
• 4. Students adjust their use of spoken, written, and visual language (e.g., conventions, style, vocabulary) to communicate effectively with a variety of audiences and for different purposes.
• 5. Students employ a wide range of strategies as they write and use different writing process elements appropriately to communicate with different audiences for a variety of purposes.
• 11. Students participate as knowledgeable, reflective, creative, and critical members of a variety of literacy communities.
• 12. Students use spoken, written, and visual language to accomplish their own purposes (e.g., for learning, enjoyment, persuasion, and the exchange of information).
• Writing Habits Journal Questions
• Writing Metaphor Assignment
• Writing Metaphor Rubric
• "The Writer" by Richard Wilbur

Preparation

• Make copies of the Writing Habits Journal Questions , Writing Metaphor Assignment , and Writing Metaphor Rubric . If the poem is not available in your class text, either make an overhead or copies of "The Writer" by Richard Wilbur .
• Decide how to position this activity in your curriculum. Students may compose multimodal projects, polished papers, informal papers, or even journal entries. The Writing Metaphor Assignment lists a range of options for more formal projects. To narrow the focus, you might choose only a few of the options rather than giving out the entire list. Just keep in mind that the important goal is for students to discover more about themselves as writers and to share their discoveries with others in the classroom writing community.
• Review the Writing Habits Journal Questions , and decide whether to use the entire sheet or a shortened version. If you narrow the list, it's important for the full activity for students to consider questions 6, 9, and 10 at a minimum.
• Acrostic Poems
• Letter Generator
• Plot Diagram
• Literary Elements Map
• ReadWriteThink Printing Press
• Be sure to test the student materials on your computers to familiarize yourself with the tools and ensure that you have the Flash plug-in installed. You can download the plug-in from the technical support page.

Student Objectives

Students will

• analyze a poem, in particular paying attention to metaphor.
• reflect on their writing process.
• build community by sharing their writing habits with others.
• compose a text based on a metaphor they have chosen for themselves as writers.

Session One

• Pass out copies of "The Writer" by Richard Wilbur , and introduce the poem to the class.
• Read through the poem completely one time.
• Ask students to share any immediate reactions.
• Read through the poem more slowly, pausing to define any unfamiliar words for the class. Because they are important to the poem's imagery be sure that students understand the meaning of the key words that relate to nautical imagery—prow, gunwale, cargo, and passage.
• Who is the speaker? Who is telling the story in this poem?
• Where is the speaker when the events in the poem take place?
• Which parts are from the present, and which are from memories?
• What are the speaker's emotions?
• How do the speaker's feelings influence the message?
• What is the speaker talking about?
• What is the message in the poem?
• What is the speaker trying to communicate?
• Read through the poem again, asking students to listen for comparisons in the poem (e.g., places where one object is compared to another).
• Have students share their observations, recording their comments on the board or on white paper.
• What words and ideas in the poem have to do with ships and boats?
• How do the words that describe sounds in the poem work (e.g., "commotion," "stillness," "silent")? What comparisons do they suggest?
• How is the starling in the poem a comparison?
• Read through the list, and ask students to identify comparisons that relate to the subject of the poem.
• Once the list has been narrowed, ask students to discuss how accurate the comparisons are and what they tell readers about the speaker and the subject of the poem. Introduce the concept of metaphors, using this simple explanation or the information in OWL's Using Metaphors in Creative Writing .
• To ensure connections between the poem and the writing activities that students will complete, ask them to explain what the poem communicates about writers and writing in general, as well as in the particular situation that the poem describes.
• Pass out copies of the Writing Habits Journal Questions , and ask students to answer the questions for homework. Read through the questions as a group, and make any adjustments or add any suggestions. If desired, students can create their informal outlines (for question 6 on the journal questions handout) using the ReadWriteThink Notetaker .
• If time allows, provide answers to the questions based on your own writing experience, or discuss one of the questions as a class.

Session Two

• Arrange students in small groups, and ask them to share their answers to the Writing Habits Journal Questions with one another.
• Ask groups to choose answers to three questions to share with the rest of the class.
• Monitor student progress, and provide feedback and support as they discuss their writing processes.
• Once the groups are ready, gather the class and work through the questions one-by-one. Students can share any observations in general, and groups should be prepared to share the answers that they have chosen.
• After sharing their responses, focus the class's attention on noticing the many varied ways that writers work while at the same time listening for practices that many writers use. Have students recall stories and details from the class discussion that show variety as well as those that demonstrate similarities.
• Return discussion to "The Writer" by Richard Wilbur . Based on the class discussion, ask students to compare themselves as writers to the writer in the poem. Encourage students to point to details in the poem and to connect to specific information about their own writing.
• Pass out the Writing Metaphor Assignment (or the options that you have chosen), and read through the assignment with the class. Be sure to draw clear connections to the poem that the class has explored in the previous session. Students might also find OWL's  Using Metaphors in Creative Writing helpful as they begin thinking about creating metaphors for themselves as writers.
• Ask students to review the responses that they wrote to the Writing Habits Journal Questions and brainstorm a list of possible metaphors that they can use to describe themselves as writers. Encourage students to identify at least three to five ideas.
• Once students have a list of possibilities, have them freewrite on connections for each possible metaphor. Remind students to use their journal responses as a resource as they work.
• With ten to fifteen minutes left in the class, arrange students in small groups, and have them share their metaphors with one another. Students can provide feedback and support.
• For homework, ask students to write a brief description (in their journals or on a separate piece of paper) of the metaphor they have chosen and the project that they will complete.

Sessions Three to Five

• Either collect students' descriptions of their plans for the project or ask them to share their ideas with the class or in small groups. Provide feedback as appropriate.
• Pass out the Writing Metaphor Rubric and discuss the criteria for the projects. You may add criteria depending on the projects that students choose.
• If students have not done so earlier, you might have them create their more complete outlines of their general composing process, using the ReadWriteThink Notetaker .
• Answer any questions that students have about the project; then, have students spend the period working on their assignment.
• Acrostic Poems : Gather students working on acrostics. Ensure that they understand the format, and then work through an example metaphor using the tool.
• Letter Generator : Discuss the difference between business and friendly letters with students who choose to write a letter to the class about their process. Using the online tool, review the parts of a letter (e.g., salutation, greeting). Use the tool to work through the process of publishing a letter.
• Plot Diagram and Literary Elements Map : Review literary elements with students who choose to write a short story or silent movie script. You can use the Elements of Fiction Overview to shape the discussion. Demonstrate the two tools, and discuss how students can use the tools to gather ideas for the projects and plan their structure.
• ReadWriteThink Printing Press : Demonstrate the Printing Press for students completing the tabloid exposé option. Students can use the newspaper layouts to publish their pieces.
• Be sure to demonstrate PowerPoint as well, if students can use the software for the projects they have chosen.
• As students work, encourage sharing and feedback. Cultivate a writing workshop atmosphere, where students share drafts and solve problems together.
• At the end of the fifth session, ask students to submit their projects for your review. Alternatively, ask students to share their metaphor projects with the class or small groups during an optional sixth session.
• If students complete this activity early in a term, retain a copy. At the end of the term, pass the copies back out and ask students to revisit their metaphors, focusing on how they would revise or change their metaphors based on the experience over the course of the term. Students might submit revised projects as a final examination.
• Have students explore Modern American Poetry: Richard Wilbur to learn more about the poet. This University of Illinois site includes a brief biography and background information on Wilbur as well as the poet's commentary on his poems. The site also includes a transcript of a 1995 interview.

Student Assessment / Reflections

Observe students for their participation during the exploration and discussion of their writing process and their metaphors. In class discussions and conferences, watch for evidence that students are able to describe specific details about their writing and prompt them to reflect on why they write as they do. Monitor students’ progress and process as they work on their writing metaphor projects. For formal assessment, use the Writing Metaphor Rubric .

• Calendar Activities
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Students focus on the figurative language in Heaney's poem, "Digging," and discuss the speaker's attitude, and how metaphor, simile, and image contribute to the poem.

Useful for a wide variety of reading and writing activities, this outlining tool allows students to organize up to five levels of information.

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Berkeley’s People’s Park Is a Metaphor That Has Outlived Its Use

Symbols are meant to represent abstractions, not replace them..

Dashka Slater 19 hours ago

People's Park in 1970. Robert Altman/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty

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This essay was originally published on Dashka Slater’s Substack, A Sigh of Relief , which you can sign up for here . 

I was homeless when I started college at the University of California, Berkeley. First-year students weren’t guaranteed housing in those days, and I’d been unable to secure a spot in either the dorms or the student-run housing co-ops. Over the summer, I’d applied for rooms in dozens of shared houses and apartments listed at the University Housing Office, but nobody wanted to rent a room to a 17-year-old freshman. And so, as my first day of college approached, I was couch-surfing, spreading out my sleeping bag in the living rooms of the daughters of my mom’s friends and acquaintances, most of them much older than me and visibly unenthusiastic about my presence.

Finally, I was desperate enough to respond to an ad for a room that had been posed on the bulletin board of one of Berkeley’s co-op supermarkets. The room, in a rambling wood-shingled North Berkeley house, was lovely, but it came with a catch. The residents were the remaining members of a 1960s commune that had dwindled nearly to extinction. I would only be allowed to stay if I eventually agreed to join a “group marriage” with people several decades older than me.

Yes, that means exactly what you think it does.

I successfully dodged this commitment for a couple of months, dutifully appearing for the occasional communal dinners but skedaddling as soon as I’d cleared my plate. But my lack of interest in even talking to the other people in the commune, much less, er, marrying them, didn’t go unnoticed. At the beginning of November, I came home from school to find a note taped to my door telling me I needed to move out. In what felt like a miracle, the same day I was kicked out of the commune, I finally landed a spot in a student co-op.

It is for this reason, perhaps, that I’ve followed UC Berkeley’s 55-year quest to build student housing on the site of People’s Park with particular interest. To this day, 10 percent of Cal students are homeless, with the university providing housing for only 23 percent. Yet despite my firsthand experience of the housing crisis, as a student I dutifully adopted the position of my fellow campus leftists: People’s Park was a sacred site, an ecotopian symbol, a legacy of student activism that must continue in its current state for evermore.

Ken Swofford, 69, rested by his tent at People’s Park, where the University of California is determined to build housing for 1,100 students and 100 unhoused and low-income people.

The story of People’s Park started in 1969. The university had razed the homes on the 2.8-acre property years before with the intention of using the land for student housing, but then had left it as a vacant eyesore. When students and local residents decided to turn the lot into a kind of community garden, the university responded by fencing it off. On May 15, inspired by student body president-elect Dan Siegel, who urged the crowd to “go down and take the park,” 3,000 protesters marched toward the park. Law enforcement turned out en masse to stop them. As the Bancroft Library writes :

The confrontation quickly turned violent with demonstrators throwing bottles and rocks, setting cars alight, and smashing fire hydrants open. Law enforcement first responded with tear gas, and then with shotguns loaded with rock salt, birdshot, and buckshot.

Police arrest a student during unrest that followed the closure of “People’s Park” in June 1969.

In the ensuing riot, a bystander, James Rector, was killed by police, another was blinded, and many more were wounded. Gov. Ronald Reagan declared a “state of extreme emergency” and dispatched 2,700 members of the National Guard to enforce a curfew and a ban on public gatherings.

And thus, a symbol was born.

“The Park is a symbol to those who support it of freedom and the struggle for freedom…To some, the Park is an eyesore to the community. To others, it is an oasis where one can freely express themselves,” park activist Ron Jacobs  wrote in 1981.

I was a student around the same time those words were written, and my job as a lobbyist for the leftist student government required me to pretend that I saw People’s Park as Jacobs described it—as a holy space, a symbol of Freedom and Community and Sticking It To The Man.

In reality, what I saw at People’s Park were fights, drug use, dog and human shit, and people who were either drunk, high, experiencing a psychotic episode, or some combination of the three. At night, I avoided walking anywhere near it, for the same reasons I avoided any place with an abundance of unlit greenery and groups of inebriated men.

But even as the park itself deteriorated, the  story of the park flourished. During the 1990s, I covered the battles over the park as a reporter, once spending an entire weekend at a kind of collective therapy session for activists, residents, and police who had participated in the ritualized battles over the park for decades. Those battles only served to cement People’s Park as a place where symbolism existed independently of experience, sometimes with tragic results.

As the Los Angeles Times recall ed recently :

In the early 1990s, a machete-wielding activist infuriated by the university’s construction of volleyball courts at the park was shot and killed by police after she broke into the campus residence of then-Chancellor Chang-Lin Tien. Police said they found a note in the teenager’s bag. It read: “We are willing to die for this piece of land. Are you?”

And so it has continued up until the present moment. “It’s not the land only, it’s the history. You are taking part of Berkeley history,”  a demonstrator explained last month during yet another round of pro-park protests.

But by then, the gulf between symbol and reality had become impossible to bridge. In early January, the university made  a surprise attack during the dead of night and quickly erected a double-high wall of shipping containers around the park’s periphery before bulldozing the lot completely. There was literally no land left to defend. Only the history. The symbol.

Workers erect a wall of shipping containers around People’s Park on January 4, 2024. (Brontë Wittpenn/San Francisco Chronicle via AP)

Still, the story wasn’t finished. Earlier this month, the dispute went before the California Supreme Court . Two community groups—Make UC A Good Neighbor and The People’s Park Historic District Advocacy Group —had sued the university  to block its plans to build housing for some 1,100 students and 100-plus formerly unhoused and very-low-income people, while keeping 60 percent of the lot as publicly accessible open space and erecting a memorial to commemorate the park’s history. The groups argued that the university should have assessed the noise the students would generate and considered alternative sites.

These arguments, which prevailed in a lower court, seem unlikely to stop the project now —not since last year, when the state legislature preemptively passed a state law saying universities don’t have to do either of the above when building student housing.

What’s interesting to me, at this point, is why some of the campus radicals I went to college with are  still fighting this fight . Surely advocates for the homeless must see that housing 1,200 people will do more to address local homelessness than allowing a couple dozen people to camp in the park. And if they don’t  see that, why not?

In January, four of the founders of People’s Park  wrote in The Nation that the park has spent the past 50 years as “a site of the unhoused, the deranged, and the forlorn.” But they were still not willing to consider the park a failure.

“People’s Park, at its best, was an expression of the utopian yearnings of a generation that sought to make a better world,” they wrote, arguing that if only the university had acted differently, it would have lived up to those ambitions.

A drone view of the stage at Peoples Park.

In my mind, at least, People’s Park is an expression of something else entirely. Rather than utopian yearnings, it represents the way symbols can be separated from their actual significance. No matter how beautiful the dream of People’s Park was, the reality was quite different—and has been for decades. Yet the discourse remains unchanged and untouched year after year. This is what symbols do. They can persist long after their meaning has left the building. Just ask The Cross.

It happens with astonishing regularity. Think of all the times when an individual offender has been used to symbolize Crime Writ Large, as when  Richard Allen Davis , who killed 12-year-old Polly Klaas in the early 1990s, was used by California politicians to pass the horrific three strikes law  that drastically increased the amount of time people served in prison. ( About one-third of California prisoners today are serving sentences extended by that law.) And consider how historical figures have become stand-ins for political ideals, and how wounded we often feel when we learn of their flaws. Does Thomas Jefferson embody America’s virtues or its vices? What about Abraham Lincoln ? John Muir ?

Consider how the right has used trans kids as symbols of the Breakdown of Society, or all the political mileage both the left and the right can get by simply mentioning the acronym DEI. Think about the way US realtors responded to the “racial reckoning” of 2020 by removing the phrase “Master Bedroom” from its lexicon, rather than actually tackling housing discrimination and predatory lending. Guns, flags, cars, abortion, marriage, Israel, Palestine—when a word alone is enough to conjure an entire political discourse, you know that the stark simplicity of the symbol has eclipsed the messy complexity of reality.

We are, by nature, symbolic thinkers. It’s part of what makes us human. But symbols are there to  represent  abstractions, not to replace them. Too often, we waste our time arguing about the symbols themselves, rather than working for the ideals they’re supposed to represent. Real change can only happen when we see things as they are—complicated, concrete, and contradictory.

Was People’s Park a glorious triumph or an abysmal failure? In symbolic terms, it must be one or the other. Only when we remove the weight of symbolism can we see it as it really was: a little of both, and a lot of neither.

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