Symbolism
IDEAS FOR IMPROVING YOUR WRITING
SIMILE A figure of speech indicating a resemblance of one thing to another using like or as. eg: He peered like a hawk. She is as skinny as a rake.
METAPHOR A figure of speech which is applied to something which it is not. eg: The camel is the ship of the desert.
Metaphoric VERB eg: She has blossomed into a lovely woman. She was firmly rooted to the spot and would not budge.
PERSONIFICATION A kind of metaphor whereby the qualities of a person are referred to inanimate objects describing an object as if it were a person. eg: houses yawn, shake off the blankets of darkness or the clouds danced across the sky.
ALLITERATION The repetition of a consonant sound in a line of poetry- used as a decorative device. eg. fresh fruit farm or tiny tots toiled
ONOMATOPOEIA The imitation of natural sounds. eg: The soda fizzes.
HYPERBOLE A figure of speech in which exaggeration is used for emphasis or comic effect eg: until the seas run dry
ALLEGORY A metaphor or simile extended into a narrative, normally of a fairly simple kind in which one set of abstract values, historical events, or moral principles is represented by more familiar and more concrete sets of characters or things eg: Animal Farm
PARADOX A statement that seems self contradictory or absurd, but that is capable of intellectual resolution into good sense. eg: "Which came first, the chicken or the egg?"
ANALOGIES An analogy is essentially a comparison of two things or situations. If an analogy is simply to illustrate something, to make it clearer, it is usually acceptable. Example: A university lecturer is explaining to trainee doctors the view that merely creating the symptoms of illness, while not getting to the cause of the problem, will not prevent the recurrence of the problem. To illustrate the point he says, "If you have weeds growing in your lawn, the long-term answer to the problem is not simply to mow the lawn. Mowing the lawn will make the observable weeds disappear, but because you have failed to deal with the roots, they will grow again."