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Analogy --
An analogy is an extended metaphor or simile:
We use similes when we compare two things which don't on first thought seem to be alike. Similes use "like" or "as" to construct the simple comparison, thus:
This can be turned into an analogy by extending and elaborating on the description of my love as if I were speaking of a pig's behavior and appearance, thus:
Not a very pretty picture of love. Like descriptions and lists, the objects you choose to compare illustrate the character of something and help the reader understand what you are trying to say about a complex topic. So you have to be careful what you choose to compare your complex topic to:
If you built an analogy on anyone of the above similes you would be illustrating a different kind of love.
The trick to analogies is to be able to extend them by speaking of one thing as if it were another. Here's an example that speaks of language as if it were clothing:
Language is a kind of clothing which people change for different occasions. For instance, when talking to a professor, a speaker usually puts on his best grammar and vocabulary. Back home, on the other hand, with friends that same speaker will start to drawl so as not to clash with the local color and use all kinds of casual slang. In one setting a person will cuss and swear like a sailor; at church; however, we watch or p's and q's. But the reverse works, as well. We speak with our clothing. Going to church, I don't wear my ratty blue jeans. I put on my suit and tie and shine my shoes and use my cleanest speech wearing it just like my Sunday best. But if I go out to the race track with my buddies, I'll dress down, cussing with my clothes, speaking my disrespect for authority with a Kiss t-shirt, their big old tongues sticking out at the cops and the word "Shitfaced" yelling at even my Mom. |
In-class exercise: Combine one of the following combinations into a non-cliche extended analogy:
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hate addiction God depression extinction creation woman man home work exuberance grief symbiosis inertia friend ignorance bliss
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Compared to
is is like is analogous to If . . . then similarly resembles |
Concrete/Specific
man with dog smoking gun a deep pool of cold water waking up in the country a blind person warfare sewing mother ocean computer something frozen a roller coaster skates or skating drowning cooking shovel puppy
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