UNIT 6 FIGURES OF SPEECH-I

Structure

6.0 Objectives
6.1 Introduction
6.2 Simile
6.3 Metaphor
6.3.1 Extended Metaphor
6.3.2 Mixed Metaphor
6.4 Synecdoche
6.5 Metonymy
6.6 Personification
6.7 Passage for Study: from Mulk Raj Anand: The Lost Child
6.8 Let Us Sum Up
6.9 Key Words
Answers

6.0 OBJECTIVES

In this unit, we shall discuss some major figures of speech that characterize literary
texts. Common, everyday language also presents instances of the use of these figures of
speech, but literature (being a creative manipulation of language) is marked by such uses
for producing greater effect and providing aesthetic pleasure. Some of these figures of
speech that are used as literary devices are:

• simile,
• metaphor,
• synecdoche,
• metonymy, and
• personification.

6.1 INTRODUCTION

A figure of speech is an expression that is generally not a part of common, ordinary

language, but a marked feature of literary prices. Figures of speech represent the use of
words in ways different from their ordinary, literal use, and are employed by creative
writers to produce figurative meaning, thus lending verve, vivacity and force to their
writings. In this unit we shall discuss some of the more frequently used figures of
speech.

6.2 SIMILE

A simile is an expression in which we make a comparison between two things to

present an effective word-picture, and use such words as like and as.

Example

When the white feet of the baby beat across the grass,
18 The little white feet nod like white flowers in a wind,
 They poise and run like puffs of wind that pass Figures of Speech-1
Over water where the weeds are thinned.
(From D.H. Lawrence: Baby Running Barefoot)

Glossary

beat (verb): hit (the grass)

nod: bend forward and down

poise: keep steady

puff. a short quick movement of air

weeds: wild plants growing where they are not wanted

In the above example, the baby's feet are compared to flowers bending forward and
to puffs of wind blowing over water.

Check Your Progress 1

Read the whole of the poem Baby Running Barefoot by D.H. Lawrence given
below and try to answer the questions given at the end.

When the white feet of the baby beat across the grass
The little white feet nod like white flowers in a wind,
They poise and run like puffs of wind that pass
Over water where the weeds are thinned.

And the sight of their white playing in the grass

Is winsome as a robin's song, so fluttering;
Or like two butterflies that settle on a glass
Cup for a moment, soft little wing-beats uttering.

And 1 wish that the baby would tack across here to me

Like a wind-shadow running on a pond, so she could
stand With two little bare white feet upon my knee
And 1 could feel her feet in either hand.

Cool as syringa buds in morning hours,

Or firm and silken as young peony flowers.

Glossary

'winsome: attractive in appearance

'fluttering: moving in a quick, Irregular way

tack: change its course

sy'ringa: lilac, a shrub with fragrant pale pinkish-violet, or white flowers

'peony: a plant with red, pink or white flowers

1 What is the picture that comes to your mind when you read the poem?

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Literary Devices 2 Make a list of the similes used by the poet.

3 How do the similes make the description more vivid to us?

A simile usually contains an image, that is, a word picture that we can perceive. In
the line “my words swirled around his head like summer flies” by E.B. White,
'words' are being described with the help of the image of 'summer flies‟. 'Swirling
around his head' is a visual image, but we can hear the flies as well as see them.
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Although similes are generally brief, they may be expanded.
Example

...his mind was like a vast sea cave, filled with the murmur of dark waters at flow
and the stirring of nature's great forces, lit here and there by streaks of glorious
sunshine bursting in through crevices hewn at random in its rugged sides.

(From Ashley Montague: The Oxford Guide to Writing. A Rhetoric Handbook for
College Students)

In the above passage, 'his mind' is compared to 'a vast sea cave'. The sea cave is
further described as 'filled with the murmur of dark waters at flow' and 'lit here and
there by streaks of sunshine bursting in through crevices.

Check Your Progress 2

l Read the passage again. Look up the meanings of the following words in the
dictionary:

stirring: .....................................................................................

streaks: .........................................................................................

rugged: ...................................................................................................................................................................

2 What is the picture that comes to your mind when you read about the cave?

3 In what way was 'his mind' is like the cave?

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 6.3 METAPHOR

We have already discussed metaphor in Block 1, Units 1-2. It is a figure of speech in

which we use a name or a descriptive term or phrase for an object or action to which
it is not literally applicable. Whereas in a simile there is a direct comparison, a
metaphor suggests a comparison between two things not usually thought of as
similar. We can say about a person that her absence was like a long winter. This
would be a simile, but if we say that his greeting was 'lacking in warmth', or that ‟it
was a wintry greeting' this would be a metaphor.
Other examples of metaphor:
i) The river snakes its way through the mountains.
ii) The ripe pumpkins were golden idols among the corn stalks.
iii) On their shining tracks the waiting diesel engines purred softly.
In the above examples, one thing is described as if it were something else. The river
winds through the mountains as if it were a snake, the pumpkins were golden idols,
and the diesel engines purred as if they were kittens.

6.3.1 Extended Metaphor

Once you can recognize metaphors, you will be able to appreciate their effectiveness
in language. Sometimes a writer continues a metaphor over an entire poem or any
other piece of writing. This is called an extended metaphor. Extended metaphors are
often easier to recognize because they continue over a longer stretch of writing.

Example
I remember once, as a kid, lying on my back watching clouds. Row upon row of
factory-perfect models drifted along the assembly line. There went a schooner, flag
flying — and look, a snapping toy poodle with the most absurd cut! Next came chilly
Greenland, with Labrador much too close for comfort. But the banana split was the
best one of all.
(Reprinted from The Language Arts Handbook, Alberta Correspondence School.)
Glossary
'schooner: a fast sailing ship with at least two masts
'poodle: a kind of pet dog, with thick curly hair which is often clipped into a pattern
'labrador: a dog with a broad head and chest

ba'nana 'split: a sweet dish of split banana, ice cream, etc.

In the example quoted above, the writer uses a series of metaphors to form word
pictures of various shapes of clouds floating overhead. The words may differ in
range and meaning, but they all describe clouds. We find that with the help of word
pictures the writer makes the scene vivid for us.

Check Your Progress 3

1 List the objects with which the clouds are compared in the passage given
above.

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2 i) Read the following sentence and say whether it is an example of
extended metaphor.

"His face was webbed: in fact, the wrinkles were so dense that it
seemed all expression was caught in a net."
(From Sharon R. Curtin: The Oxford Guide to Writing. A Rhetoric
Handbook for College-Students)

ii) 'Webbed' here is used in the sense of being like a spider's web of
woven threads and not in the sense of the webbed feet of a duck.
What does 'webbed face' mean?

6.3.2 Mixed Metaphor

Occasionally a writer combines two metaphors which do not normally go together. This
is called a mixed metaphor.

Example

Most of those at the gathering were friends and co-workers who had toiled in the
constituency vineyards trying to harvest votes in campaigns of yesteryears. To them,
Dalton Camp was a comrade in the trenches, sharing in victory, commiserating in
defeat, and ready when called on.

Glossary

constituency: a town or area which elects someone to represent it in parliament

'trenches: long narrow channels dug in the ground for defensive purposes

In the example quoted above, the political friends trying to gather votes are first
described as harvesters collecting grapes and then as soldiers fighting in the trenches,
though harvesters and soldiers have nothing in common. Compare this example with
the one under „extended metaphor‟ in Exercise 2(1) under Check Your Progress 3,
where an old man's face was described as a spider's web, and wrinkles as part of that
net. There the words web and net had related meanings.

You can find another example of mixed metaphor in the following:

When 1 graduate, I hope to become a well-oiled cog in the beehive of industry.

Here a “well-oiled cog”, which is associated with machinery, does not go with 'beehive'.

A very good example of mixed metaphor is to be found in Shakespeare's Hamlet

where the hero wonders:

"To be, or not to be — that is the question;

whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,

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 Literary Devices Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them”

Here the speaker begins by referring to the ‟slings and arrows' of fortune (using the
metaphor of bows and arrows) and ends by talking of “a sea of troubles" (the
metaphor of waves of the sea) — both within the same interrogative sentence,
signifying his dilemma.

Check Your Progress 4

Point out the similes and metaphors in the following passages:

i) Never seek to tell thy love

Love that never told can be;
For the gentle wind does move silently, invisibly,
(Blake: Never Seek to Tell Thy Love)

ii) As a huge stone is sometimes seen to lie

Couched on the bald top of an eminence;
Wonder to all who do the same espy,
By what means it could thither come, and whence;
So that it seems a thing endued with sense
Like a sea-beast Growled forth, that on a shelf
Of rock or sand reposeth, there to sun itself; (W.
Wordsworth: Resolution and Independence)

Glossary

couched: reclining as if on a couch (used only in literary writing)

e'spy: happen to see,

'thither: to that place (old use)

en’dued: provided (with)

re’poseth: rests (used in formal writing)

iii) The peasants came like swarms of flies and buzzed the name of God
a hundred times.
(Nissim Ezekiel: Night of the Scorpion)

iv) The battle was like the grinding of an immense and terrible machine to him.
(Stephen Crane: The Red Badge of Courage)

v) He feels like a “pestered animal”, a well-meaning cow worried

by dogs. (Stephen Crane: The Red Badge of Courage)

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 6.4 SYNECDOCHE Figures of Speech-1

Synecdoche is a figure of speech in which a part of an object refers to the whole, or the
whole to a part.

Examples

Has Mike got wheels? (meaning a car, a motorcycle or a bicycle)

Look at that skirt! (meaning a woman)
Can you spare your wallet? (meaning some money from your wallet)
He is skilled at twisting another person's arm. (coercing him by moral pressure)

Check Your Progress 5

1. Read the following poem and answer the questions given below:
Tiger! Tiger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry? 4

In what distant deeps or skies

Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire? 8

And what shoulder, and what art,

Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? And what dread feet? 12

What the hammer? What the chain?

In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? What dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp? 16

When the stars threw down their spears,

And water'd heaven with their tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee? 20

Tiger! Tiger! burning bright

In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?
(William Blake: 'Tiger') 24
i) What does the phrase 'immortal hand or eye' refer to?

ii) In what lines is God shown as almost wrestling with the Tiger while shaping it?

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Literary Devices 2 Read the following passage and answer the question given below:

Oh, when this my dust surrenders

Hand, foot, lip, to dust again,
May these loved and loving faces
Please other men!

(Walter de la Mare: Farewell)

What do 'hand', 'foot‟ and 'lip' stand for?

6.5 METONYMY
Metonymy is a figure of speech in which the name of an attribute or adjunct
is substituted for that of the thing meant.

Examples

I enjoy reading Shakespeare. (his plays)

A minister of the Crown. (the King)
Please clean the brass. (things made of brass)
My friend plays Beethoven beautifully. (his music)
The Oval Room was the source of the Watergate. (Office of the President of
U.S.A., which is oval in shape).

Check Your Progress 6

l Read the following passage and answer the question given below:

For tho‟ from out our bourne of Time and

Place The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
When I have crost the bar.
(Tennyson: Crossing the Bar)

What does 'My Pilot' refer to?

2 Read the following lines from Robert Graves' poem 'The Naked And The
Nude' and identify metonymy.

Lovers without reproach will gaze on bodies naked and ablaze;

The Hippocratic eye will see in nakedness, anatomy.

Glossary

'hippo'cratic ’eye: the eye of a doctor

a’natomy: the structure of animal and human bodies.

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 Figures of Speech-1
6.6 PERSONIFICATION

Personification is giving the human characteristics, powers or feelings to inanimate (non-

living) objects or abstract qualities. In personification, as in metaphor, a comparison is
implied. The purpose of personification, like that of metaphor, is to make the description
vivid.

Example

Busy old fool, unruly sun,

Why dost thou thus,
Through windows, and through curtains call on us?
Must to thy motion lovers' seasons run?
Saucy pedantic wretch, go chide
Late schoolboys and sour prentices,
Go tell court-huntsmen that the king will ride,
Call country ants to harvest offices,
Love, all alike, no season knows, nor clime,
Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time.

(John Donne: The Sun Rising)

Glossary

motion: movement

saucy: rude, disrespectful

pe'dantic: showing too much insistence on formal rules

wretch: a rogue (in playful expressions)

chide: scold

’prentices: apprentices, persons under an agreement to serve somebody for low wages
in order to learn that person’s skill.

In The Sun Rising, the sun is talked of as an old fool who gets up early to sneak
through windows to wake up lovers, who obviously do not like to be disturbed. He is
asked to chide other people like the schoolboys who will get late for school. The
picture we get is that of an elderly person in the family asking everybody to rush to
work. The sun might as well wake up the ants (here means peasants) in the fields so
that they may resume their work of gathering harvest, and the huntsmen to get ready
to go for a hunt with the king. The poet says that love, which is constant, is not
affected by change of season or climate, or by months, days or hours, which are
merely small bits of time.

Check Your Progress 7

What expressions does the poem use to rebuke the sun?

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 Literary Devices 6.7 PASSAGE FOR STUDY
Read this passage from the story The Lost Child by Mulk Raj Anand and answer the
questions given at the end.

The Lost Child

It was the festival of Spring. From the wintry shades of narrow lanes and alleys
emerged a gaily clad humanity, thick as a crowd of bright-coloured rabbits issuing
from a warren, and entering the flooded sea of sparkling silver sunshine outside the
city gates, sped towards the fair. Some walked, some rode on horses, others sat,
being carried in bamboo and bullock-carts. One little boy ran between his parent's
legs, brimming over with life and laughter, as the joyous, smiling morning, with its
open greetings and unashamed invitations to come away into the fields, full of
flowers and songs.

"Come, child, come," called his parents, as he lagged behind, arrested by the toys in
the shops that lined the way.

He hurried towards his parents, his feet obedient to their call, his eyes still lingering
on the receding toys. As he came to where they had stopped to wait for him, he could
not suppress the desire of his heart, even though he well knew the old, cold stare of
refusal in their eyes.

"I want that toy," he pleaded.

His father looked at him red-eyed in his familiar tyrant's way. His mother, melted by
the free spirit of the day, was tender, and giving him her finger to catch, said;

"Look, child, what is before you."

The faint disgust of the child's unfulfilled desire had hardly been quelled in the heavy,
pouting sob of a breath, "M—o—th—e-r", when the pleasure of what was before him
filled him eager eyes. They had left the dusty road on which they had walked so far to
wend its weary way circuitously to the north, and had entered a footpath in a field.

It was a flowering mustard-field, pale, pale, like melting gold, as it swept across
miles and miles of even land, a river of yellow light, ebbing and falling with each
fresh eddy of wild wind, and straying at places into broad, rich tributary streams, yet
running in a constant sunny sweep towards the distant mirage of an ocean of silver
light. Where it ended, on a side stood a dense group of low, mudwalled houses put
into relief both by the lower forms of a denser crowd of yellow-robed men and
women and by high-pitched sequence of whistling, creaking, squeaking, roaring,
humming noises that rose from it, across the groves, to the blue-throated sky like the
weird, strange sound of Siva’s mad laughter.

Check Your Progress 8

l What words and phrases in the opening paragraph suggest the festive mood
of the crowd?

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 Figures of Speech-1

2 In the first paragraph, what is the crowd of people compared to? What figure
of speech is it?

3 Give the meanings of the following expressions:

i) a gaily clad humanity

ii) lagged behind

iii) receding toys

iv) red-eyed

v) circuitously

vi) put into relief

4 The mustard field is compared to a river of yellow light. Write the

comparison in your own words.

5 The „whistling, creaking, squeaking, roaring, humming noises' are likened to

'Siva's mad laughter‟. What does this comparison suggest?

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 6 What literary device has the writer adopted in the use of words such
as 'whistling‟, 'creaking', 'squeaking‟, 'roaring' and 'humming'?

6.8 LET US SUM UP

In this unit, we have discussed how figures of speech help to make one's writing
more effective than literal or direct statements. They can add colour to language and
make it more vivid. We have seen how comparisons embodied in similes, metaphors
or personifications provide us with images or word pictures that help us to understand
the meaning better.

6.9 KEY WORDS

’figure of 'speech: an expression, e.g., a simile or metaphor, that gives variety or

force, that uses words differently from the way they are used literally.

'metaphor: the use of words to indicate something different from the literal
meaning, as in 'I'II make him eat his words.'

me'tonymy: the substitution of the name of an attribute or adjunct for that of the
thing meant. (e.g., crown for king)

per’sonifi'cation: representing something as a person

'simile: comparison of one thing to another e.g. 'He is as brave as a lion'.

sy’nechdoche: a figure of speech in which part is named, but the whole is

understood, (e.g., 200 extra hands for 200 extra workmen), or the whole is named but
a part is understood (e.g. India beats England at cricket.)

ANSWERS

Check Your Progress 1

1 A baby running on the grass and the movements of its feet.

2 i) 'The little white feet nod like white flowers in a wind.'

ii) 'They poise and run like puffs of wind that pass over water where the
weeds are thinned.'

iii) 'The sight of their white playing in the grass is winsome as a

robin's song, so fluttering.'

iv) '.... like two butterflies that settle on a glass cup for a moment, soft
little wing-beats uttering.'

v) '1 wish that the baby would tack across here to me like a
wind-shadow running on a pond.'
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 vi) '.... her feet. ...... cool as syringa buds in morning hours.' Figures of Speech-1

vii) '. .... firm and silken as young peony flowers.'

3 a) The movements of the baby's feet are like

i) flowers waving in the wind, and
ii) puffs of wind passing over water.
We can almost see the movement of flowers and the waves on the
surface of water.

b) They are attractive like

i) the fluttering of a singing robin, and
ii) the beating of the butterflies' soft little wings.
We can almost hear the sounds made by the robin and the butterflies.

c) The touch of the baby's feet on the poet's hands is

i) cool like syringa flowers in the morning, and
ii) firm and soft like young peony flowers.
We can almost feel the touch of flowers.

Check Your Progress 2

1 murmur: a soft low sound, continuous and indistinct

flow: the rise of the tide
stirring: movement
streaks: thin lines
crevices: narrow openings or cracks in rocks, etc.
rugged: rough

2 It is a vast cave. When the water rises, it fills the cave and makes a soft low
sound as it comes in. It appears as if the mighty forces of nature were moving in
the dark cave to bring about a change. At some places bright sunlight enters the
cave through the narrow openings in its sides.

3 The cave is filled with the sound of water coming in and the forces of nature
appear to be working in it. At places, sunlight enters the cave through the
crevices. In the same way, 'his mind' was full of ideas and appeared to be
working on them. Sometimes he was able to see the light in the midst of the
prevailing confusion.

Check Your Progress 3

1 A schooner, a toy poodle, Greenland, a Labrador, and a banana split.
2 i) Yes
ii) The wrinkled face of an old man.

Check Your Progress 4

i) metaphor; love is described as a gentle wind.
ii) simile; the huge rock is compared to a sea-beast.
iii) simile; the peasants repeating the name of God are compared to swarms of
flies.
iv) simile; the fighting in the battle is compared to the grinding done by
an „immense' machine.
v) metaphor; the man is described as a 'pestered animal.'

Check Your Progress 5

1 i)God, who designed the tiger's body.

ii) In lines 15 and 16. 31
Literary Devices What the anvil? What dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp†
God is shown as a blacksmith using his tools — the hammer and the anvil, and
shaping the tiger's brain.

2 The body.

Check Your Progress 6

l God
2 'the Hippocratic eye', referring to the medical people.

Check Your Progress 7

Old fool, unruly, saucy, pedantic wretch.

Check Your Progress 8

1 festival of Spring; a gaily clad humanity; bright-coloured rabbits; flooded

sea of sparkling silver sunshine; brimming over with life and laughter;
joyous, smiling; flowers and songs.

2 The crowd of 'gaily-clad‟ people coming out of 'narrow lanes and alleys'
is compared to 'bright-coloured rabbits' coming out of a warren. A simile.

3 i)people wearing bright-coloured clothes

ii) fell behind
iii) the toys left behind and getting farther off
iv) in anger
v) going round
vi) made vivid by their distinct outline in the background and
the contrast with the crowd of people.

4 The mustard field of yellow flowers is like a shining yellow river. The
movement of the plants is like the rise and fall of water under the
influence of a strong wind. At places the plants have formed separate
clusters as if the river had turned into side streams. The long stretch of
continuous plants gives the impression of a river flowing into a distant
sea of silver light, which is in fact an illusion.

5 People talking and shouting merrily in an unrestrained, almost wild, manner.

6 Onomatopoeia.

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