Figurative Language
Personification
- Personification: a figure of speech when human attributes are given to non-humans, such as: animals, objects, or ideas.
- "The wind screamed and all the trees could do was groan in reply."
- Neither the wind nor the trees have vocal cords, but the human vocal characteristics help portray the sounds they make during a storm.
- "The wind screamed and all the trees could do was groan in reply."
- Neither the wind nor the trees have vocal cords, but the human vocal characteristics help portray the sounds they make during a storm.
Figurative Language in "Miss Rosie"
"Miss Rosie"
by: Lucille Clifton
When I watch you wrapped up like garbage sitting, surrounded by the smell of too old potato peels or when I watch you in your old man's shoes with the little toe cut out sitting, waiting for your mind like next week's grocery I say when I watch you you wet brown bag of a woman who used to be the best looking gal in Georgia used to be called the Georgia Rose I stand up through your destruction I stand up |
Finding the Figurative Language Devices
Imagery
Sitting, surrounded by the smell of too old potato peels • The sense of smell is used in this sentence to describe the unwashed smell of Miss Rosie. Hyperbole When I watch you You wet brown bag of a woman Who used to be the best looking gal in Georgia • This is an exaggeration because it is highly unlikely that she is the “best looking gal in Georgia.” Simile Sitting, waiting for your mind like last week’s grocery • In these sentences, “mind” is compared to “grocery.” • The word like is used to link and compare “mind” with “grocery.” Metaphor When I watch you you wet brown bag of a woman • In this sentence a bag is being compared to the woman. • A wet brown bag is saggy and dingy. This suggests that the woman is beaten down and dirty. |
About the Poem
• Miss Rosie is homeless, a street person surrounded by her foul-smelling possessions.
– She is not a stranger to the narrator, who has thought long and hard about her present circumstances and how she might have been long ago before she became a familiar sight in the neighborhood.
– Now reduced to rags, this "wet brown bag of a woman," says the narrator, once was "the best looking gal in Georgia."
• The narrator "stand[s] up" for her through her "destruction."
It is easier to look beyond the Miss Rosies of the street, to ignore their presence.
• This narrator either imagines a past or knows her origins.
• What is important is that Miss Rosie is recognized by the narrator and provided with a story.
• She is important, human, and worth our attention.
– She is not a stranger to the narrator, who has thought long and hard about her present circumstances and how she might have been long ago before she became a familiar sight in the neighborhood.
– Now reduced to rags, this "wet brown bag of a woman," says the narrator, once was "the best looking gal in Georgia."
• The narrator "stand[s] up" for her through her "destruction."
It is easier to look beyond the Miss Rosies of the street, to ignore their presence.
• This narrator either imagines a past or knows her origins.
• What is important is that Miss Rosie is recognized by the narrator and provided with a story.
• She is important, human, and worth our attention.
Figurative Language in "Making a Fist"
Simile in "Velvet Shoes"
Metaphor in "O Daedalus, Fly Away Home"
Simile and Metaphor in "The Courage That My Mother Had"
"The Funeral," by Gordon Parks
Hyperbole
Hyperbole in this poem is used to express the greatness of the speaker's father. When he returns home, everything about home that was exaggerated by his youth it lessened by the reality of adulthood, except his father who "remained the same." When the speaker says, "A hundred strong men strained beneath his coffin
When they bore him to his grave," he is speaking of the figurative size of his father. This size symbolizes the greatness of his father. |
Archetype:
• Homecoming is an archetypal situation, like the biblical Prodigal Son’s return.
Archetype: the original pattern or model from which all things of the same kind are copied or on which they are based; a model or first form; prototype. |
Terms to Know:
- Simile
- Metaphor
- Personification
- Hyperbole
- Symbol
- Metaphor
- Personification
- Hyperbole
- Symbol