Name______Date______Period______
SURVIVAL METAPHORS
METAPHOR: A ______comparison between ______unlike ______. It does not use ______or ______.
1. List ten events that you could survive (a car wreck, an accident, earthquake, etc.).
a. f.
b. g.
c. h.
d. i.
e. j.
2. List at least ten random nouns (a person, place or thing) such as house, beetle, milk, banana, etc.
a. f.
b. g.
c. h.
d. i.
e. f.
3. Create a metaphor by describing how a person could survive an event and compare that survival to a random noun from your list in #2 (hint: you can add to either of your lists at any time). Study the example below and note how the comparison works and also includes an explanation.
Example: After the car wreck, I was an overripe banana, covered with disgusting brown, squishy spots, but I was thankful to be alive.
Now write a metaphor.
4. Underline the two unlike things that are being compared in the passage below:
“When I was new in Oria, it was strange to watch the people flood out of their houses and workplaces and air trains all at once. It made me nervous that way they moved at the same times to the same places. So I pretended the streets were dry gulches from home, and the people were the water after rain that turned the dry beds into streams.”
From Crossed by Ally Condie
5. Harlem Hopscotch by Langston Hughes is an example of an extended metaphor, in other words the whole poem is a metaphor. The whole poem is comparing two unlike things. Read and study the poem, then explain what two things are being compared.
One foot down, then hop! It’s hot.
Good things for the ones that’s got.
Another jump, now to the left.
Everybody for hisself.
In the air, now both feet down. 5
Since you black, don’t stick around.
Food is gone, the rent is due,
Curse and cry and then jump two.
All the people out of work,
Hold for three, then twist and jerk. 10
Cross the line, they count you out.
That’s what hopping’s all about.
Both feet flat, the game is done.
They think I lost. I think I won.
What two things are being compared?