I'm struggling with metaphors when and how to use them and examples. Please help quickly! Thanks so much!?

Question

Metaphors to use in poetry/writing...why are they needed, how many should be used and how often? Anything else I should know.....

Answer 1

Metaphors are used to make the writing more interesting and to help the stupider readers understand your point ( similes are good for this too). Not too often, but at least one in a chapter and one in a standard poem.

Answer 2

Metaphors (and similies) are often used to better illustrate an abstract concept (like emotions). It creates a more interesting piece. How many is entirely up to the work it can go from 1 extended metaphor to a series of many metaphors (like Plath's poem Metaphors). Though I think most use 1-3 in an average length poem. Poetry is not mathematics so there is no set formula of what makes a good poem.

Answer 3

Suppose a friend gives away a secret that she has promised to keep. You could say, "I feel angry and hurt by her betrayal," which is simply a literal statement of fact. Or you could say, "She stabbed me in the back," which is a metaphor that compares her disloyalty to a physical assault and compares your emotional pain to the physical pain you'd feel if a knife blade were jabbed into your flesh. Both statements express the same thing. Can you see that one of them is more vivid and interesting than the other?

A newspaper reporter could write, "Many people criticized the president's speech" or "A tidal wave of public disapproval crashed over the White House." A sportswriter could write, "He hit a home run" or "He launched a rocket over the left-field wall." In both cases, the second way of conveying the information is a metaphor. It's not literally true, but the meaning is clear and the metaphorical language makes the reader feel the experience more powerfully.

There is no rule about how many metaphors should appear in a poem or on each page of a novel or short story. But good writers know that metaphors add vitality to their work, just as good cooks know that spices add flavor to their dishes.

Answer 4

The more common meaning of metaphor is a figure of speech that is used to paint one concept with the attributes normally associated with another... Metaphors are seen as very powerful tools because they allow for the expression of abstract principles by reference to concretes. They can also be dangerous to understanding, in that people may fail to recognize the figurative nature of a metaphor, and come to take it literally."

"Writers use metaphors to explain things, to express emotion, and to make their writing more vivid and entertaining. Discovering fresh metaphors to use in your own writing also means discovering new ways to look at your subjects."

If you can come up with new and interesting ones, use them whenever you can. But making them up from scratch isn't all that easy - metaphors are the Mt Everest of figurative speech (that, by the way, is a metaphor.)

Answer 5

Metaphors are things like 'he was a pillar of society'. He wasn't literally a pillar- it's just to show his importance. Don't overuse them as you will sound idiotic. Use them if and when it feels appropriate to.