SEMINAR 2 Metaphor, epithet, simile, personification, metonymy, synecdoche,

antonomasia and allegory

I. Read the examples of figurative language and identify the stylistic devices that
are most clearly being used. Choose the best answer.

1. She was as distant as a remote tropical island, uncivilized, unspoiled. a)

metaphor b) personification c) simile d) allegory

2. Let your eyes drink up that milkshake sky. a) metonymy b) personification

c) simile d) epithet

3. The sorry engine wheezed its death cough. a) personification b) allegory

c) metaphor d) synecdoche

4. The library has been very helpful to the students this morning. a) metaphor
b) synecdoche c) epithet d) metonymy

5. “I’m a myth. I’m Beowulf. I’m Grendel”. (K.Rove) a) metaphor b)

personification c) metonymy d) antonomasia

6. If we don’t fill out the forms properly, the suits will be after us shortly. a)
synecdoche b) allegory c) personification d) metaphor

7. The book was an addiction – I couldn’t put it down. a) personification b)

metaphor c) metonymy d) allegory

8. The pen is mightier than a sword. a) personification b) metonymy c)

metaphor d) synecdoche

9. “I told you we could count on Mr. Old-Time Rock and Roll”. a) metaphor b)
epithet c) antonomasia d) personification

10. Most pianos have pretty good manners but Stephan can make them
sound rude. a) epithet b) metonymy c) personification d) synecdoche

II. Discuss the structure and semantics of epithets in the following examples
and identify their function.

Useful Language

to reveal emotions of the person, who is described/ talks…

to emphasize /to reinforce/ to underline …

to enhance aesthetic/ emotional/ intellectual appeal

to give a sense of astonishment/ anger/ beauty to be used

to arouse emotions

to intensify a mood …

to create/ to produce a comic/ sarcastic/ dramatic effect

1. He also had unreasonably pretty tawny eyes, mahogany-coloured hair, and

a particularly nice nose. (G.Carriger) Notes: ______ to emphasize
___________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
_ 2. He has that unmistakable tall lanky "rangy" loose-jointed graceful close-
cropped formidably clean American look. (Murdoch) Notes: ____ to
emphasize _____________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
_ 3. Across the ditch Doll was having an entirely different reaction. With all his
heart and soul, furiously, jealously, vindictively, he was hoping Queen would
not win. (Jones) Notes: _________ to arouse emotions

________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
_ 4. I looked away, embarrassed – for I’d heard it too, a hint of his annoying
knowit-all tone. (Donna Tartt) Notes: _____ to give a sense of anger to be
used

____________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
_ 5. He's a proud, haughty, consequential, turned-nosed peacock. (Dickens)
Notes: _____ to create sarcastic effect

____________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
_ 6. And she still has that look, that don’t-you-touch-me look that women who
were beautiful carry with them to the grave. (Baldwin) Notes: ______ to reveal
emotions of the person, who is described
___________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
_ 7. His cotton candy words did not appeal to her taste. Notes: ______ to
enhance emotional appeal

___________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
_ 8. The detective listened to her tales with a wooden face. Notes: ______ to
create/ to produce a sarcastic effect
___________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
_ 9. Fulvia’s mouthful-of-sour-grapes expression is startled right off her face,
but she recovers. (S.Collins. Mockingjay) Notes: _____ to reveal emotions of
the person, who is described ___________________________

III. a) Complete the following examples of simile using expressions from the
box

1. The menu was rather less than a panorama, indeed, it was as repetitious
as ___ a snore _______________________. (Nash)

2. The topic of the Younger Generation spread through the company like a yawn.
__________________________. (Waugh)

3. She was obstinate as ___ a mule ________________, always had been,

from a child. (Galsworthy)

4. Children! Breakfast is just as good as any other meal and I won't have you
gobbling like __ wolves ___________. (Wilder)

5. The light had faded to an industrial gray, and the breeze was as ___ heavy
as teakettle steam ________________ . (Donna Tartt)

6. The Dorset Hotel was built in the early eighteen hundreds and my room,
like ______ many an elderly lady_______________________, looks its best
in subdued light. (Braine)

7. It was an unforgettable face, and a tragic face. Its sorrow welled out of it as
purely, naturally and unstoppably as ___ water out of a woodland spring
__________________. (Fowles)

8. Indian summer is like __a woman ___________________. Ripe, hotly

passionate, but fickle, she comes and goes as she pleases so that one is
never sure whether she will come at all nor for how long she will stay.
(Metalious)

9. You're like _____ the East______________________, Dinny. One loves it

at first sight or not at all and one never knows it any better. (Galsworthy)

10.He felt like ____ an old book _______________: spine defective, covers
dull, slight foxing, fly missing, rather shaken copy. (Braine)

b) What type of simile do the following examples illustrate?

1. There are in every large chicken-yard a number of old and indignant hens
who resemble Mrs. Bogart and when they are served at Sunday noon dinner,
as fricasseed chicken with thick dumplings, they keep up the resemblance.
(Lewis) Developed

2. His voice was harsh and grating but powerful, reminding Lloyd of both a
machine gun and a barking dog. (Follett) Simple

IV. Indicate examples of metonymy and synecdoche, state the type of

relations between the object named and the object implied, which they
represent, pay attention to the degree of their originality.

1. He went about her room, after his introduction, looking at her pictures, her
bronzes and clays, asking after the creator of this, the painter of that, where a
third thing came from. (Dreiser) Notes:
_________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________

2. She wanted to have a lot of children, and she was glad that things were that
way, that the Church approved. Then the little girl died. Nancy broke with
Rome the day her baby died. It was a secret break, but no Catholic breaks
with Rome casually. (O'Hara) Notes:
_________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________

3. She saw around her, clustered about the white tables, multitudes of
violently red lips, powdered cheeks, cold, hard eyes, self-possessed arrogant
laces, and insolent bosoms. (Bennett) Notes:
_________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________

4. The man looked a rather old forty-five, for he was already going grey.
(Prichard) Notes:
_________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________

5. "Some remarkable pictures in this room, gentlemen. A Holbein, two Van

Dycks and if I am not mistaken, a Velasquez. I am interested in pictures."
(Christie) Notes:
_________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________

6. For several days he took an hour after his work to make inquiry taking with
him some examples of his pen and inks. (Dreiser) Notes:
_________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________

7. There you are at your tricks again. The rest of them do earn their bread;
you live on my charity. (E. Bronte) Notes:
_________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________

8. I crossed a high toll bridge and negotiated a no man's land and came to
the place where the Stars and Stripes stood shoulder to shoulder with the
Union Jack. (Steinbeck) Notes:
_________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________

9. He made his way through the perfume and conversation. (I. Shaw) Notes:
___________

10.Up the Square, from the corner of King Street, passed a woman in a new
bonnet with pink strings, and a new blue dress that sloped at the shoulders
and grew to a vast circumference at the hem. Through the silent sunlit solitude
of the Square this bonnet and this dress floated northwards in search of
romance. (Bennett) Notes: ________________

V. Analyse the following cases of antonomasia. State the type of meaning

employed and implied; indicate what additional information is created by the
use of antonomasia.

1. A stout middle-aged man, with enormous owl-eyed spectacles, was sitting...

on the edge of a great table. I turned to him. “Don't ask me,” said Mr. Owl
Eyes washing his hands of the whole matter. (Fitzgerald)

2. When I eventually met Mr. Right I had no idea that his first name was
Always. (R. Rudner)

3. When Omar P. Quill died, his solicitors referred to him always as O.P.Q.
Each reference to O.P.Q. made Roger think of his grandfather as the middle
of the alphabet. (Markey)

4. Now let me introduce you - that's Mr. What’s-his-name, you remember him,
don't you? And over there in the corner, that's the Major, and there's Mr.
Whatd’you-call-him, and that's an American. (Waugh)

5. Kate kept him because she knew he would do anything in the world if he
were paid to do it or was afraid not to do it. She had no illusions about him. In
her business Joes were necessary. (Steinbeck)
 6. Since Edward is famously uxorious, and I am famously fertile, George’s
inheritance of the throne has become a most unlikely event and he is the
Duke of Disappointment. (Ph. Gregory)

7. The next speaker was a tall gloomy man, Sir Something Somebody.
(Priestley)

8. The answer to this question can be given only by Mr. Know-it-all.

Activity 7 Here is the poem comprising conventional (commonplace) similes in

the English language. Fill in the gaps using common sense and imagination.
What other stylistic devices and expressive means are used in the poem?

As wet as a ______-as dry as a ______; As live as a _____-as dead as a

_____; As plump as _____a -as crafty as a _____; As strong as a _____-as
weak as a _____;

bird fish stone bone cat lily pike partridge drum horse coal flint rat mole air
bear lead time feather weather

As hard as a ___stone__-as soft as a _____; As white as a _____-as black as

_____; As plain as a _____-as rough as a _____; As tight as a _____-as free
as the _____; As heavy as _____-as light as a _____; As steady as _____-
uncertain as _____;

As ___hot__ as an oven-as ___cold__ as a frog; As _____ as a lark-as _____

as a dog; As _____ as a tiger-as _____ as a dove; As _____ as a poker-as
_____ as a glove; As _____ as a bat-as _____ as a post; As _____ as a
cucumber-as _____ as toast; As _____ as a flounder - as _____ as a ball; As
_____ as a hammer - as _____ as an awl; As _____ as glass - as _____ as
gristle; As _____ as a pin - as _____ as a whistle; As _____ as a rose -
as_____ as a box. O. Nash

hot savage gay cold mild sick stiff limp warm neat blind red clean tough deaf
cool flat round blunt sharp brittle square