First of all-What is Figurative Language?
A description that is not literally true.
Why does an author use Figurative Language?
To show, convey, specify, or illustrate meaning and images in writing. The author is trying to connect with the reader.
Figurative Language is a form of what?
A form of imagery.
What is a Simile?
A comparison between two unlike things using like, as, or than.
Example: "He was dizzy, aching, and felt shaken to pieces when something went off ^LIKE^ a thunderclap just behind him.."
What is a Metaphor?
A comparison between two unlike things where it's said one thing IS something else.
Example: "Her hands ^WERE^ ice cubes on the ends of her wrists.
This compares her hands to ice cubes.
What is Personification?
Giving human-like qualities to non-human creatures or objects.
Example: "IN the cold of winter, when the ground lay frozen, [the trees] had ^SUNG^ their frosty ballads of years gone by."
The trees are giving the human quality of singing.
What is a Hyperbole?
An extreme exaggeration that usually used for humor.
Example: "Goodness, you startled me! ^I JUMPED OUT OF MY SKIN!^"
The exaggeration is that a person cannot jump out of their skin.
What is Onomatopoeia?
A word that is a sound and an auditory imagery. (Sound)
Example: Again, and again, and again [Nagaina] struck, and each time her head came with a ^WHACK^ on the matting of the veranda.
WHACK is a sound detail.
What is Alliteration?
The repetition of consonant sounds [not vowels] in a phase.
Example:
1. Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.
2. How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?
What is an Oxymoron?
When two opposing or conflicting ideas are presented together.
1. Living Dead
2. Deafening Silence
3. Small Crowd
4. Jumbo Shrimp
5. Awfully Good
To go deeper into it, "Living" is the opposite of "Dead", but combined together makes a sensible sentence.