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Metaphor

A figure of speech in which you say something is something else. You compare the qualities of two things within this.

1. The moon is a balloon

The moon is a balloon, rising into the sky.

  • In this phrase, you are comparing the motion of the moon rising in the sky to the motion of a balloon as it rises.
  • When balloons rise into the sky, they usually move quite gently and steadily upwards.

When the moon rises, it seems to move gently and steadily upwards. In this metaphor, it is the motion of both objects that we are looking at. Both objects move gently and smoothly upwards.

**2. Anger flooding **

Anger flooded into her brain.

  • In this phrase, you are comparing the feeling of her sudden feeling of immense anger and the motion of water quickly flooding into an area and covering everything.
  • In this metaphor, we get the image of anger covering up all the good feelings and good sense in the brain. The anger takes over, possibly causing damage to the girl’s life or relationships with other people

3. Sea of nameless faces

I was lost in a sea of nameless faces.

  • In this phrase, you are comparing the image of the sea (which is full of water molecules) to a huge crowd (which is full of people he doesn’t recognise).
  • In this image, there are so many people’s faces that it’s the only thing we can see. Just like when we look at the sea and only see water, in this metaphor we can only see faces in the crowd.

4. Curtain of fog

'The curtain of fog'.

  • In this example, you create the image of the fog falling down on the area as if it is a curtain being dropped over the place.
  • This could also suggest that the fog is thick and difficult to see through.

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