How Do Metaphors and Extended Metaphors Differ

Extended metaphors are flowers: bright and interesting. They can depict someone in with their evocative fragrances or push someone away when that fragrance is too much.

This is a short instance of an extended metaphor. It isn’t incorrect about extended metaphors, either. While exciting literary devices and cute linguistic communication fill extended metaphors, such things tin overwhelm a reader. Here is how to tackle the extended metaphor and understand its furnishings.

Extended Metaphor Definition

The extended metaphor is a rhetorical device and a figure of spoken communication. It is an elaborate grade of metaphor.

There is no exact length for an extended metaphor, the fashion there is none for a verse form or story.
To identify an extended metaphor, look for many metaphors put together.
Say a writer uses an extended metaphor to compare a tree to a person. They might compare the trunk to the torso, the leaves to the hair, branches to the artillery, and roots to the legs.

In timed tests or class, wait for extended metaphors where there are many metaphorical descriptions. The writer might be using them in an extended sequence!

Extended Metaphor Instance

Hither is how an extended metaphor might appear in a poem. This is “Sonnet 18” past William Shakespeare.

This famous sonnet compares a summertime’south day to a immature human throughout fourteen lines (three quatrains of four lines each and one couplet of two lines). This is plenty long to exist considered an extended metaphor.

In poesy, an extended metaphor might be called a “conceit.”

You can also identify this sonnet equally an extended metaphor because of the number of metaphors Shakespeare uses. Shakespeare breaks down the “young man is a summer’s 24-hour interval” metaphor into many smaller metaphors.

Crude winds do milk shake the darling buds of May,

Here, Shakespeare compares the swain’s life to a wind shaking May buds. This metaphor frames the young man’due south life every bit nether assail from changing times.

And summer’s lease hath all likewise short a date.

Shakespeare describes the young man’s longevity (his youthfulness or lifespan in full general) in terms of summer’s charter on a year. The human is like the summer flavour, which will fade.

But thy eternal summer shall not fade,

This line in the sonnet compares the swain’s legacy to eternal summer.

These iii smaller metaphors, along with the others, link together to paint a portrait of the young man. This fellow will outshine the summer because this sonnet enshrines him.

An author might use an extended metaphor for a few reasons that are not mutually exclusive.

Extended Metaphors are Artful

Considering extended metaphors contain so much imagery and clarification, they are ideal vessels for writers and poets to demonstrate their prowess with the pen. This is the case with many forms of advanced rhetorical devices such as anthropomorphism and anecdotes.

Extended Metaphors can Help the Reader Understand a Piece of work’s Themes Without Those Themes Actualization Obvious to the Reader

Literary authors can seem elusive and complex, hence why it is possible to spend whole classes and tests interpreting their stories and poems. For example, referring once more to “Sonnet 18,” Shakespeare explores the momentary nature of youth by creating an elaborate extended metaphor most a fellow and summertime.

Extended Metaphors tin Aid a Reader Empathize Something Foreign or Circuitous

For example, a science fiction writer might employ an extended metaphor to compare an conflicting civilization to an emmet colony.

Because the reader is likely familiar with ants, such an extended metaphor would aid a reader translate the alien civilization.

In an essay, a writer might apply an extended metaphor to compare the geologic record to a history book.
Because the reader is familiar with periods in history, such an extended metaphor would help a reader understand the geologic record as a history book of the Earth itself.

Extended metaphors can be practical and used in essays and factual descriptions.

Consequence of Extended Metaphor

Extended metaphors are long, which tin make them appear winding and multi-layered. The effect on y’all might be confusion or badgerer, but if you lot work at it, you can observe the
intended effects, the touch that the author wanted,
of the metaphor. More often than not speaking, a author wants the reader to engage with the metaphor at a high level. They want the reader to consider the many rich aspects of the topic. For instance, in “Sonnet xviii,” Shakespeare has a lot to say well-nigh the swain and his relationship with fourth dimension and seasons.

So how practice you lot do that?

Although it takes close reading over a period to piece together an extended metaphor, here are some ways to tackle that process.

1. Identify the individual metaphors.
   Make a short listing of the metaphors in the passage, either mental or actual.

2. Clarify those metaphors to encounter how they chronicle.
   Do they tell a story or define a process, or practice the metaphors simply draw something at length?

3. Examine the extended metaphor at the thematic level. Consider the themes of the metaphor and and then how those themes relate to the larger work (if you have a larger work to examine).

In essays and on timed tests, y’all want to explain the extended metaphor in all its parts.
Draw an extended metaphor the mode you might draw a car. Depict its features and how it works, and then describe what those pieces do altogether.


A car has an engine, brakes, and and so on, and in sum, a car moves y’all from identify to place. Also, an extended metaphor has individual metaphors, and in sum, the extended metaphor explores some kind of theme or describes something in detail.

Think of the extended metaphor like a car. Flaticon.

Importance of Extended Metaphor

If you tin identify an extended metaphor, yous can quickly plow its analysis into a thesis by arguing something nigh that extended metaphor.
Here’s an instance.

In “Sonnet eighteen,” Shakespeare uses an extended metaphor to describe the circuitous reality surrounding beauty and life. Someone can simply embody a cute summer’due south day forever if they are, ironically, entombed in the words of a poem or story.

Because extended metaphors contain and so much information, they are ideal candidates for interpretive analysis.