Blog #7 - Benjamin Cavallaro - Period 5 - 11/16/20 - Freshman 2021
Aim: How are metaphors used by writers to send meaning to readers?
Do Now:
Complete the following:
Love is .
For the do now we had to fill in the blank above by creating our own metaphors about love. This introduces the concept of using metaphors in everyday life to describe abstract concepts that are continued later in the lesson. For this activity I wrote “Love is the warmth against life’s cold. After we all wrote something for the do now some classmates shared their responses with the rest of the class. For example, one of my classmates said that they wrote “Love is blind.”
Notes:
Metaphor: The distinct comparison where one thing or idea substitutes for another.
It’s a figure of speech that develops a comparison which is different from a simile.
Note: It often uses the form of the verb, “To Be.” (is, am, are, was, were, will be, being, been, could, should, would, has, have, having, had, may, might, must)
i.e. we do not use “like” or “as” to develop comparison in a metaphor.
It actually makes an implicit or hidden comparison and not an explicit one
The first thing we went over in our notes was what a metaphor is. The notes also included the image above which shows a few examples of common metaphors, that you may not even realize are metaphors, like “Less is More.” We also watched this video that gave examples of metaphors in a poem. In addition, the video says that metaphors are used because it’s a way to build connections between two things, or to see something from a different point of view.
Remember!!!
An extended metaphor is developed over several lines or throughout a poem. If it helps to have an example, consider Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken”, Langston Hughes’ “Mother to Son”, or see below:
For the next part of the notes we learned about extended metaphors, a metaphor which is developed over the course of several lines with multifaceted comparisons between the two concepts present in it. The notes give a few popular examples of extended metaphors. Additionally, there is an image containing a smaller extended metaphor that compares life to an hourglass. The metaphor says that like an hourglass your time in life is always running out but you never really know exactly when it will be over.
After the notes the class spirit read an article titled “Poetry for Everyday Life.” The article was about how we use metaphors in everyday conversations as well as different parts of life. The article also talks about how our use of metaphors reflects the way our brain thinks. After reading the article our class had a discussion on what it meant. We said that it was human instinct to use metaphors and other types of comparisons since we can’t truly understand some concepts in their purest form. For example, we will never really be able to understand the vastness of the universe so we use tools like metaphors to describe it.
Discussion:
Hope is the Thing with Feathers (By Emily Dickinson)
“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 chilliest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.”
Next we spirit read this poem, “Hope is the Thing With Feathers.” After we had a discussion on the meaning of the poem. We said that the poem compares hope to a bird, ever present and resilient as well as kind no matter what despite its sometimes small presence.
Our final task of the day is group work with our team. We first independently read two poems with similar metaphors, “Mother to Son,” and “The Rose that Grew from Concrete.” After reading the poems we worked together to answer questions involving identifying the extended metaphor and message of both poems and how they were similar. We came to the conclusion that both poems were about pushing through life and flourishing despite its hardships. “Mother to Son” does this with an extended metaphor comparing life to a staircase, one that “ain't... no crystal stair.” It’s not easy and elegant, rather is it rough and undecorated filled with splinters and tacks. But it is still possible to climb, and facing the challenges of the stair allows you to grow and rise higher up. On the other hand “The Rose that Grew from Concrete” compares life and it’s hardships to cold uninhabitable concrete. It then uses a beautiful rose somehow still flourishing from a small crack in the concrete as a metaphor for how we manage to flourish despite life’s challenges.
Reflection:
This lesson gave me a new appreciation for metaphors as a method of expression, for not just poets but everyone. The article we read was especially insightful, I never realized how much we relied on metaphors and other types of comparisons until now. If you think about it there are so many, even fundamental, concepts that we can’t really describe without metaphors. For example, if I were to ask someone to describe the color red without using its name or some sort of metaphor we simply couldn’t. There are some things we just can’t understand in their simplest form, which is why we use metaphors. They’re not only a tool for expression but also a tool for understanding. Additionally, I did learn a bit about the versatility of metaphors for expression. This is shown by the two poems we read at the end of the lesson. They have very similar themes but they are portrayed in vastly different ways. Looking at metaphors like this give us a viewpoint into so many different ways of thinking and viewing the world. In conclusion, this lesson taught me that poetry is a medium that allows us to see into the uniqueness of the minds of others, as well as understand the world around us.
No comments:
Post a Comment