Help Me For My Sat Literature Test! How Do I Tell The Difference Between A Metaphor And A Simile?
I have mastered all of the terminology but I keep getting tripped up by methaphors and similies… I know a similie uses like and as but so does a methaphor! ahhhhh! how?!?!
Let’s first mention and dismiss what metaphor and simile have in common: both are comparisons of essentially DISsimilar things. To say Jane’s eyes are like her mother’s is NOT a simile because eyes are like other eyes, so this is not a comparison of essentially dissimilar things. Rather, it is a literal comparison while both metaphor and simile are figurative comparisons (and thus types of figurative language).
Okay, now to the essential difference between simile and metaphor. Let’s use these examples:
Life is a hound (or “Life the hound . . .” which appears in a Robert Frost poem)
Life is LIKE a hound.
The poet Johh Frederick Nims says that while both simile and metaphor compare “two terms or images,” the metaphor “seems to identify the two more wholeheartedly.” He goes on to say that metaphor, “since unqualified [by a term such as "like" or "as"], is stronger than simile; since it is more concentrated.” Thus a metaphor closely identifies the two terms with one another (life and hound in the first of the above examples) while simile signals that a comparison is going on instead of equating the two terms. In fact, “simile” is the Latin for the word “like” while “metaphor” comes from the Greek for “transfer.”
I expect others to refer you to the Wikipedia article on Metaphor, and I’ll paste its URL below. However, be forewarned that the section you can scroll down to called “Metaphor and Simile” equates the two and thus may confuse you. The SATs assume there is a difference.
Here’s something I find useful: think of the metaphor as an algebraic equation without the equal sign: AB. A simile always provides the “machinery” of that sign: A=B. That equal sign can stand for several words. The most commonly used ones in a simile are “like” and “as,” though “as if” and “than” are among the other possibilities. If you can encircle the word equivalents of an equal sign, then you have a simile. If you can’t encircle anything, then you have a metaphor.
Best wishes on your exams. We all live through them!
no metaphors don’t use like or as
metaphor=the man was an oak, strong and sturdy
simile-the man was as sturdy as an oak tree
A metaphor is when something is said to BE another thing, for example – My brother IS a pig.
Whereas a simile just compares the two, by the usage of LIKE or AS – My brother is AS greedy AS a pig, or He acts LIKE a pig
Basically, metaphors never use like or as, they simply say one things another. Both are forms of comparison though.
Metaphors represent something as BEING something else. Similes (as…..as) merely compare characteristics with something else.