Simile and Metaphor: Study Guide (English Literature 2.5)

Comparison is how poems make the abstract concrete

A poet often wants to say something about an idea or feeling that cannot be pointed to: love, hope, grief, time. A common way to do it is to compare it with something solid. Two main forms are the simile and the metaphor.

• A simile uses “like” or “as” to liken two different things: “my love is like a red rose”.
• A metaphor implies similarities between two usually unrelated things without those words, often by treating one as the other: “hope is the thing with feathers”.

Both work by transfer: qualities of one thing are brought across to the other.

The two subjects

Name the parts of any comparison.

• The main subject is the thing being described or compared.
• The comparison subject is the thing it is compared with.

In “My love is like a red rose”, the main subject is love and the comparison subject is a red rose. Naming them stops you describing the wrong thing, such as writing about roses when the poem is about love.

What transfers, and who decides

Comparisons draw on associations that readers already have. A rose suggests beauty, freshness, scent, colour and also thorns and brevity. A bird suggests lightness, song, flight, smallness. But the poem does not use all of them. The context, what is happening in the text, decides which associations transfer.

To work out what transfers:

1. List the associations of the comparison subject.
2. Look at the words around the comparison. Which associations do they support?
3. Choose the traits that the context makes relevant, and say what they show about the main subject.

Where the comparison does not fit

Often the differences between the two things are as informative as the similarities. A writer may signal the difference, or the reader may notice it. Where a metaphor describes hope as a bird that “sings the tune without the words”, the lack of words is a way in which hope is unlike an ordinary bird, and that difference says something about hope.

Worked example 1: a simile in a public-domain poem

Robert Burns’s “A Red, Red Rose” (1794) begins (text as in the Project Gutenberg edition of The Golden Treasury; spelling varies between editions):

O my Luve’s like a red, red rose
That’s newly sprung in June:
O my Luve’s like the melodie
That’s sweetly play’d in tune.

Step 1: Spot the figures. There are two similes, each signalled by “like”: “my Luve’s like a red, red rose” and “my Luve’s like the melodie”.

Step 2: Name the subjects. In both, the main subject is “my Luve” (the speaker’s love, or the person he loves). The comparison subjects are a red, red rose and a melody.

Step 3: List and choose.

• Rose. Associations include beauty, colour, scent, delicacy, thorns, a short life. The context adds “newly sprung in June”: the rose has just come into bloom in the warmest month. The traits that transfer are therefore freshness, new beauty and the warmth of early summer. Thorns and brevity are not supported by the context.
• Melody. A melody suggests harmony, pleasure and, if “sweetly play’d in tune”, a performance that is correct and satisfying. The traits that transfer are harmony and sweetness.

Step 4: Say what the figures show. Together, the two similes link love to what is fresh and what is harmonious: one is seen and the other is heard. The repetition of “O my Luve’s like” is the pattern of a song, and the speaker’s love is made as pleasing and lively as June and music.

Model sentence: “By comparing ‘my Luve’ to a rose that is ‘newly sprung in June’ and to a melody ‘sweetly play’d in tune’, Burns’s speaker transfers the freshness of a flower and the harmony of music to his love, presenting it as new and perfectly pitched.”

Worked example 2: an extended metaphor in a public-domain poem

Emily Dickinson’s poem “Hope” (published 1891; text as in the Project Gutenberg edition of her Poems, in which punctuation differs from modern editions) reads:

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I ’ve heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.

Step 1: Spot the figure. “Hope is the thing with feathers” is a metaphor: it states that hope is a bird, without “like” or “as”. The bird is never named as a bird; it is “the thing with feathers”, which is a way of presenting it through one defining trait. The metaphor is extended through the whole poem.

Step 2: Name the subjects. Main subject: hope. Comparison subject: a bird (“the thing with feathers”, “the little bird”).

Step 3: Track what transfers, line by line.

Detail	What transfers from the bird to hope
“perches in the soul”	The bird settles within a person, so hope is a lodger in the self
“sings the tune without the words”	Hope is a wordless comfort, not an argument
“never stops at all”	Hope continues, like song
“sweetest in the gale is heard”	Hope is most noticeable when conditions are worst
“the little bird / That kept so many warm”	Hope is small but warming
“It asked a crumb of me”	Hope is self-sufficient and demands nothing in return

Step 4: Use the context. The weather words (“gale”, “storm”, “chillest land”, “strangest sea”, “extremity”) decide which bird-traits matter. The bird is not a pet or a pretty ornament; it is small and persistent in harsh conditions. A bird that sings in a gale suits the idea that hope survives adversity.

Step 5: Look for differences. A bird sings with a voice; hope sings “without the words”. A bird eats; hope “never … asked a crumb”. These differences mark where the metaphor stops being a literal bird and says something about hope: it is free, wordless and costs nothing.

Model sentence: “By making hope a small bird that ‘perches in the soul’ and sings ‘in the gale’, Dickinson transfers persistence and warmth to hope, and the detail that it never ‘asked a crumb’ marks where the comparison departs from a real bird to show that hope gives without demanding.”

Worked example 3: a metaphor in an original poem (written by Marlbridge)

Grief

Grief is a coat I was handed at the door
and never asked for. It is heavier wet.
Some days I forget I am wearing it
until a stranger holds a door
and I do not know where to put my arms.

Step 1: The figure. “Grief is a coat” is a metaphor with no “like” or “as”.

Step 2: Subjects. Main subject: grief. Comparison subject: a coat.

Step 3: Which traits transfer? A coat is worn, carried everywhere, warm, heavy, a thing handed over. The context selects:

• Unwanted: “handed at the door and never asked for”. Grief arrived without choice.
• Heavy and worse in bad conditions: “It is heavier wet”. A wet coat is heavier; the speaker’s grief becomes heavier in sorrow or gloom.
• Constant but forgettable: “Some days I forget I am wearing it”. Grief becomes background until something prompts it.
• Awkward to the body: “I do not know where to put my arms”. A heavy coat changes how you move.

Step 4: Say what it shows. The metaphor presents grief as something imposed, constant and physically changing, but also something one can forget for a moment. “Warm” is a trait of coats that does not transfer; the context selects the burdensome traits.

Model paragraph opening: “In ‘Grief’, the metaphor of a coat ‘handed at the door’ presents grief as an unwanted burden that the speaker carries everywhere. The details ‘heavier wet’ and ‘I do not know where to put my arms’ show a grief that changes with conditions and alters how the speaker moves through the world.”

Strong and weak statements about simile and metaphor

Weak	Why it is weak	Stronger
“The poet uses a metaphor.”	Names the device only	“The metaphor of a coat presents grief as an unwanted burden the speaker cannot put down.”
“The rose means love is beautiful.”	Skips the context; vague	“The rose ‘newly sprung in June’ transfers freshness and new beauty to the speaker’s love.”
“The bird is a symbol of hope.”	Mixes terms; no transfer shown	“The bird that sings ‘in the gale’ transfers persistence to hope.”

Checking your inference

1. Have you named both subjects? If you cannot say which is main and which is comparison, you may be analysing the wrong thing.
2. Have you used the context to choose the traits? Not every association of a rose or bird applies.
3. Have you noticed any difference? A mismatch can be as revealing as a match.
4. Have you said what the figure shows about the main subject? Naming the device is not enough.

Common misconceptions

• “A metaphor is a stronger simile.” They are different forms of comparison; neither is automatically stronger. What matters is what each transfers.
• “A comparison has one meaning.” Several traits may transfer, and context selects which ones matter.
• “The comparison subject is what the poem is about.” The poem is about the main subject. The comparison illuminates it.
• “If it does not say ‘like’ or ‘as’, it is not a comparison.” A metaphor implies the comparison without those words.
• “Everything about the comparison subject carries over.” Only what the context supports does.
• “Differences mean the figure has failed.” Differences often mark the poem’s most interesting claim.

Where this leads

Try the practice questions, then use the checklist and revision notes. The next topic, Writing a paragraph about a poem, combines this and the earlier poetry skills into a paragraph with a claim and evidence. For the word-level skills that support this topic, see The function of specific words and phrases.