Literary Devices: Metaphors

A metaphor is a figure of speech that implies two objects are the same thing or have some property that is the same. A metaphor must have two parts: an object that is being described and an object or phrase that is used for the comparison. Metaphors can be used to give stronger descriptions of an object and make a sentence more enjoyable to read.

An example of a metaphor is:

The young woman is a flower in bloom.

In this example, it is known that a person is not actually a flower. But “young woman” is being compared to “a flower in bloom.” Instead of simply saying that a young woman is just coming into her own or beautiful, describing her as a blooming flower gives the reader a poetic visual of what the woman is.

Metaphors can also be a subject and verb comparison. For this, the noun is given a description by using a strong verb that is normally not something the subject is capable of doing.

An example of this type of metaphor is:

The night snuck up on the man as he walked home.

A time of day is unable to physically approach a person, but by saying it does, it gives the reader a description. In this example, the night came more rapidly than the man expected. Again, this is just a more interesting way of giving the reader a visual.