Identifying Figurative Language in Short Extracts

Hello, and welcome to the first lesson in your SACE Stage 2 English Literary Studies revision course. This module builds the recognition skills that underpin close analysis: before you can explain why a writer makes a choice, you need to identify accurately what that choice is.

In this lesson, you will learn to distinguish four closely related forms of figurative language in unfamiliar passages: simile, metaphor, personification, and symbolism. The goal is not simply to memorise definitions. In an exam, techniques often overlap or appear in compressed poetic phrasing, so you need a reliable way to identify each one from its defining feature.

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Four techniques, four defining features

Figurative language asks readers to understand something beyond its literal meaning. A sentence such as “The wind argued with the windows” is not reporting a literal conversation. It uses comparison and imagination to make the weather feel forceful, perhaps even hostile.

The four techniques in this lesson all create meanings by connecting one thing to another, but they do so differently.

Technique	Defining feature	Useful question
Simile	An explicit comparison, usually using like or as	Is one thing said to be like or as another?
Metaphor	A direct, non-literal identification of one thing as another	Is one thing being described as if it is something else?
Personification	A non-human thing, animal, place, object, or abstraction is given human qualities	What specifically human action, feeling, intention, or trait has been assigned?
Symbolism	A concrete element represents a larger abstract idea or concern, usually with support from context or recurrence	Does this object, setting, colour, or image stand for an idea beyond itself?

The most important distinction is this:

• Simile, metaphor, and personification are usually identifiable in a particular phrase or sentence.
• Symbolism often requires you to consider the wider extract: what happens around the object, which ideas it is associated with, and whether it returns.

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Simile: comparison made visible

A simile compares two different things explicitly, usually with like or as. The writer keeps the two things separate but asks us to notice a particular shared quality.

“Her reply was as sharp as glass.”

Her reply is not literally glass. The comparison foregrounds glass’s sharpness, perhaps suggesting that her words are cutting or painful.

“The streetlights flickered like nervous eyes.”

The lights remain lights, but the comparison gives their flickering an uneasy, watchful quality.

Do not use a word-spotting rule alone

Although like and as are useful clues, they do not automatically make a phrase a simile.

“She looked like her mother.”

This may be a literal observation of resemblance, rather than figurative language. By contrast:

“She moved like a shadow.”

This is more likely a simile because it transfers qualities associated with a shadow, such as silence, elusiveness, or insubstantiality, to a person.

Similarly, as has many ordinary grammatical uses:

“As the rain began, the crowd left.”

Here, as means “when”; there is no comparison. In an unseen text, ask whether the phrase makes a comparison between unlike things, rather than merely checking for a particular word.

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Metaphor: comparison made direct

A metaphor makes a comparison directly. Instead of saying that something is like something else, it presents one thing in terms of another.

“The classroom was a furnace.”

The classroom is not literally a furnace. However, the metaphor imports ideas of heat, discomfort, confinement, or pressure.

“Grief is an ocean.”

The statement treats grief as an ocean, perhaps conveying its depth, force, immensity, or capacity to overwhelm. Which qualities matter will depend on the surrounding passage.

Purdue OWL defines metaphor as referring to one thing by another in order to identify similarities. That emphasis on similarity matters: a metaphor is not random decoration. Its meaning comes from the qualities readers associate with the thing being borrowed.

A metaphor does not always use the verb is:

“A wall of silence separated them.”

There is no literal wall. Silence is represented as a physical barrier, suggesting distance, refusal, or failed communication.

“His apology collapsed before it reached her.”

An apology cannot literally collapse. The verb turns the apology into something structurally weak, conveying failure and perhaps a lack of conviction.

When identifying a metaphor, name both sides of the comparison in your notes:

• What is actually being described? The classroom.
• What image is used to describe it? A furnace.
• Which qualities are transferred? Heat, discomfort, pressure.

This discipline prevents vague claims such as “the writer uses metaphor to make it interesting.”

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Personification: the human test

Personification gives a non-human entity human actions, emotions, intentions, or social behaviour. It may be an object, an aspect of nature, an animal, a place, or an abstract concept.

“The house waited at the end of the road.”

A house cannot literally wait. The verb gives it intention and patience, which may make the setting seem ominous or expectant.

“Jealousy whispered in his ear.”

Jealousy is an abstract emotion, but it is presented as a person capable of speech and persuasion. This can suggest that the emotion is intrusive and influential.

“The moon watched the travellers leave.”

The moon is assigned a human-like act of observation. Depending on context, this could make the landscape feel protective, lonely, or threatening.

Metaphor or personification?

Personification is often treated as a type of metaphor, because it makes a non-literal comparison. In an exam, though, use the more precise label personification when the defining feature is specifically a human quality assigned to something non-human.

Compare these examples:

Phrase	Best label	Why
“The city was a maze.”	Metaphor	The city is directly compared with a maze; no human trait is central.
“The city never slept.”	Personification	A city is given the human ability or habit of sleeping.
“The city swallowed the commuter.”	Personification, within a metaphorical image	The city is given an animate, predatory human or animal-like action. The most useful label is personification because that is the clearest textual choice.
“The city glittered beneath the rain.”	Usually neither	Glittering is a possible literal effect of reflected light; do not label every vivid verb as personification.

A practical test is to ask: Could the subject literally perform this action or possess this feeling? Is the quality recognisably human? If the answer is yes to the second question, personification is likely.

Be careful with animals. Animals can act, move, and make sounds, so “the dog ran” is not personification. But “the dog judged him silently” probably is, because moral judgement is a human-like mental quality in that context.

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Symbolism: an element that carries a larger idea

A symbol is a tangible element that represents an additional idea, value, concern, or state of mind. The literal object still exists in the text, but it also points beyond itself.

Purdue OWL notes that symbols often recur across a narrative and can reveal an author’s central concerns. This helps distinguish symbolism from a one-off comparison.

Consider this short invented extract:

Each morning, Mara polished the cracked mirror above the sink. By evening, it was clouded again. On the day she left, she covered it with a towel and did not look back.

The mirror is a literal household object. But its repeated appearance, its cracked condition, and Mara’s final refusal to look at it support a symbolic reading. It may represent fractured identity, self-scrutiny, or a painful past. The exact interpretation should remain tentative unless more context confirms it.

A strong symbolic claim has two parts:

1. Evidence that the element matters: repetition, unusual descriptive emphasis, position at a turning point, or links to a character’s choices.
2. A plausible abstract meaning: freedom, decay, innocence, loss, confinement, memory, hope, and so on.

Symbolism is not a dictionary lookup

A white bird can be associated with peace; a storm can be associated with turmoil; a locked door can be associated with exclusion. But associations alone do not prove symbolism. Context decides.

For example:

“A storm battered the coast all night.”

This may simply be setting or plot.

“After their argument, the storm battered the coast; by morning, the garden lay stripped bare.”

Here the storm may symbolise the destructive force of the conflict, particularly if weather repeatedly accompanies emotional upheaval in the extract.

Do not write “the storm symbolises sadness” merely because storms are unpleasant. Show how the textual details connect the storm with the character, conflict, or wider concern.

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A reliable identification routine for unseen extracts

When you meet figurative language under exam conditions, avoid guessing from a single word. Use this quick sequence.

1. Read literally first. Identify what is actually present in the scene: a person, weather, a building, an object, an emotion.
2. Locate the non-literal move. Is there an explicit comparison? A direct identification? An impossible human action? A concrete detail that seems to carry extra meaning?
3. Apply the defining feature.
   • Like/as comparison between unlike things: simile.
   • One thing described as another: metaphor.
   • Non-human thing given a human trait: personification.
   • Concrete element representing a larger idea, supported by context: symbolism.
4. Choose the most precise label. If personification is present, calling it merely “metaphor” is less exact.
5. Keep the evidence attached to the label. Underline the exact words that create the effect.

Here is how that looks with a compact passage:

The train station yawned into the grey dawn. Beneath its iron ribs, commuters drifted like ghosts, each clutching a red ticket. At the platform’s end, Leo held his ticket until the rain turned its corners soft.

• “yawned”: personification. The station is given a human action; the image may make it seem weary or cavernous.
• “like ghosts”: simile. The commuters are compared explicitly with ghosts, suggesting silence, exhaustion, anonymity, or detachment.
• “iron ribs”: metaphor. The station’s structural beams are described as ribs, making the building seem bodily and enclosing.
• the red ticket: potentially a symbol, but not automatically. If it recurs at moments when Leo chooses whether to leave, it might represent opportunity, escape, or uncertainty. In this brief extract alone, the evidence is not yet decisive.

That final distinction is valuable in SACE analysis: recognise possibilities, but only make firm claims where the text supports them.

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Common misclassifications to avoid

Calling all description a metaphor

“The cold rain fell heavily.”

This is descriptive, but it contains no clear comparison or human attribution.

Calling all vivid nature personification

“The river rushed through the valley.”

A river can literally rush in the sense of moving rapidly. You would need a more specifically human action or intention, such as “the river resented its banks,” before confidently identifying personification.

Calling an emotional comparison symbolism

“Her anger was like fire.”

This is a simile, not symbolism. It is a local comparison: anger is compared with fire for its heat, danger, and intensity.

Treating a symbol as a fixed code

“The bird symbolises freedom.”

Perhaps—but what kind of bird? Is it caged, wounded, migrating, returning, or absent? Does it recur? A bird might instead suggest vulnerability, lost innocence, surveillance, or a desire to escape. Let the particular text determine the reading.

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Building exam-ready notes

For now, your annotations can be brief but precise. Beside a technique, write the defining feature and the transferred idea:

• Simile: “like ghosts” — explicit comparison; commuters seem anonymous and drained.
• Metaphor: “iron ribs” — station becomes a body; enclosing, impersonal setting.
• Personification: “station yawned” — human weariness; dawn feels bleak.
• Symbolism: “red ticket” — possible escape/choice if repeated or linked to Leo’s decision.

Notice the word possible in the final note. Literary analysis is interpretive, but it should be controlled by evidence. Precision is more persuasive than over-labelling.

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Key takeaways

Similes and metaphors both compare unlike things, but a simile signals the comparison with words such as like or as, while a metaphor makes the comparison directly. Personification gives human characteristics to something non-human, and it is best named specifically when that humanisation is the key feature. Symbolism works on a broader level: an object, image, setting, or detail represents a larger idea, and the surrounding text must support that interpretation.

When reading an unfamiliar extract, identify the exact words, apply the defining feature, and avoid assuming that every striking image is symbolic. In the next lesson, you will extend this recognition work to techniques based on arrangement and pattern: juxtaposition, contrast, repetition, parallelism, and rhetorical questions.