Writing a summary for a story means you retell the story using important information in very few words. That's more or less five sentences. Basically, we can simply make use of the elements of a story.
IN ORDER FOR YOU TO SUMMARIZE:
STEP 1: Read the story thoroughly. There are stories that might require you to read more than once. Make sure you very well have understood the story to make an effective summary.
STEP 2: Identify key information. It is time to jot down the WH's: who, what, where, when, why and how. These information shall make up your summary.
WHO is in the story?Talk about the relevant characters; usually the main characters.
WHAT happened in the story? This could be narrowed down by identifying the conflict or the problem in the story.
WHEN did the story happen? This is the setting that requires you to state the time the story happened.
WHERE did the story happen? This is another setting that requires you to state the place the story happened.
WHY did the story happen? This could be answered by stating why the problem or conflict happened.
HOW was the problem resolved? State how the solution was reached or if the story did not really end or reach to a resolution, you could state how it ended.
STEP 3: Retell the story. Now, retell the story in a very short version using the WH's. Remember to have five sentences more or less.
STEP 1: I have read the story and understood it, so let's go.
STEP 2: Here are the information I gathered to complete the WH's
STEP 3: Using the information in the table above, I am now ready to write a simple summary of the story.
Long time ago on a farm, the Sun and the moon lived peacefully and had two babies. When the Moon went to fetch water, she ordered the Sun never to go near them but the Sun couldn’t resist the love he felt for them. He went to kiss them and immediately they burned and turned to ashes before his very eyes. The Sun hid in the forest gravely embarrassed of his actions but he showed up as he felt pity for his wife, the Moon. They had a terrible fight which made the moon flee from the Sun; thus the endless cycle of the Sun chasing the Moon.
They are also called EMOTIONAL RESPONSE VERBS. Such verbs express action tapping into the readers’ or listeners’ emotions. Here is a list of verbs you can use to trigger an emotional response. The list also includes sample emotive statements using the past tense of the given verbs.
VERB
MEANING
SAMPLE EMOTIVE STATEMENT
BELITTLE
To put down or make someone feel as though unimportant; to imply that something is less important
The cunning and witty lady all of a sudden belittled the timid newcomer.
ATTACK
To act violently using force to whom the intention is to hurt someone
Springing from nowhere, the very determined hunter attacked the sleeping lion.
DIVULGE
To reveal or make something known
Samuel, exhausted from all his travels, divulged the details of his voyage to this young and eager explorer.
CONFIDE
To share or discuss private matters to someone you trust
Hailey confided to Michael the reason why she hurriedly left this dreaded town that night.
TIP OFF
To give a warning or a secret information
The two-faced traitor of a friend tipped off the museum guards the night of the robbery.
CAJOLE
To persuade someone to do something by flattery and the use of insincere compliments and promises
Charming Mr. Melvin cajoled the innocent-looking and secretly enamored Ms. Clark into giving him the classified document.
BARGAIN
to negotiate over the terms of a purchase, agreement, or contract
Shaking off the dust from her life’s misfortunes, Clarissa bargained her soul to the devil.
EMPOWER
To give authority or power to do something
Mr. Ranier, trustworthy and practical, empowered his very hardworking employees to do the job to the best of their abilities.
An adjective is a part of speech designed to basically describe something or someone. These adjectives are instrumental in formulating emotive statements. When these descriptive words are embedded in your statements, you trigger an emotional response. Take a look at these examples. The underlined words are the adjectives while the bolded words are the verbs.
The cunning and witty lady all of a sudden belittled the timid newcomer.
Springing from nowhere, the very determined hunter attacked the sleeping lion.
Samuel, exhausted from all his travels, divulged the details of his voyage to this young and eager explorer.
Hailey confided to Michael the reason why she hurriedly left this dreadful town that night.
The two-faced traitor of a friend tipped off the museum guards the night of the robbery.
Charming Mr. Melvin cajoled the innocent-looking and secretly enamored Ms. Clark into giving him the classified document.
Mr. Ranier, trustworthy and practical, empowered his very hardworking employees to do the job to the best of their abilities.
However, when they are used with helping verbs, they function as verbs. Let's take a look at this.
PARTICIPLE AS AN ADJECTIVE
PARTICIPLE AS A VERB
We have reached the forbidden forest.
·“Forbidden” in the sentence is an adjective which describes the forest.
I have been forbidden to enter.
·“Forbidden” in the sentence is part of the passive present perfect form of the verb, have been forbidden.
I feel threatened.
·“Threatened” in the sentence is an adjective stating what the speaker feels. Feel here is a linking verb that connects the subject to its complement.
She is threatened by my presence.
·“Threatened” in the sentence is part of the passive simple present form of the verb, is threatened.
ADVERBS
Certain types of adverbs particularly adverbs of manner and degree could be used to aid in the construction of emotive statements. They can intensify or even add emphasis to emotive verbs and adjectives.
Adverb of Manner
I am uncertain of this path he is leading, though I followedwith hesitation, I remain loyal.
“With hesitation” is an adverb of manner as it answers the question, “How did he follow?”, thus it modifies the verb followed.
Chester sat himself comfortably on the sofa and watchedexcitedly as if he’d never seen Nona on TV before.
Comfortable and excitedly are adverbs of manner which answers the question “how”, thus modifying the verb “sat” and “watched” respectively.
Adverb of Degree
I was veryfrustrated when I heard that you chose to sulk and beat yourself up because your frail ego was badlyhurt.
· "Very" is an adverb of degree which intensifies the feeling of frustration. "Badly", on the other hand, is another adverb that intensifies the feeling of being hurt.
The following adverbs can be used to express emotive language. They don’t necessarily have to be only adverbs of manner or degree.
MY BROTHER'S PECULIAR CHICKEN is a story written by Alejandro Roces. Watch the video and read with me to understand the story to it's fullest.
WHAT TO DO:
1. Read the story through the video. 2. Write down important details of the story in your notebook like the characters, setting, author and the important events that make up the story.
- You are to work by pairs during the class activity however,
your notebooks shall be individually checked to ensure you have
contributed to your team.
4. Templates for the task shall be distributed during class so be ready.
- This task shall be accomplished within the period only. So make sure you
have read the story and did the necessary things to be done before going to class.
Source:
Everyday Life in Philippine Literature, 1stEd.-malacanang.gov.ph/75520-my-brothers-peculiar-chicken-by-alejandro-r-roces
Here's how I present the ILIAD by HOMER through the retelling of EDITH HAMILTON. I divided it into parts and made TITLES for each, however it is not done yet.
WHAT TO DO:
1. Watch the video assigned to you by your leader for the task to be done during class. Refer to Google Classroom for your groupings.
2. Take note of the CHARACTERS and the important events or the HIGHLIGHTS of the story. You could use your notebook for this.
3. During class, each member will have to share the story to the group.
4. Now that your group already know every part of the ILIAD assigned to you, FIND OUT what happened after the last part of my video. Find out how the story ended.
5. Be ready for the group task and make sure you have a significant contribution to the group.
Allow me to read with you A ROSE FOR EMILY by William Faulkner. In the videos you'd also notice that I made titles for each part of the story. Such titles are only made by me for my students as they perform as task in class.
Part 1
WHEN Miss Emily Grierson died, our whole town went to her funeral: the men
through a sort of respectful affection for a fallen monument, the women mostly out of
curiosity to see the inside of her house, which no one save an old man-servant — a
combined gardener and cook — had seen in at least ten years.
It was a big, squarish frame house that had once been white, decorated with
cupolas and spires and scrolled balconies in the heavily lightsome style of the
seventies, set on what had once been our most select street. But garages and cotton
gins had encroached and obliterated even the august names of that neighborhood;
only Miss Emily’s house was left, lifting its stubborn and coquettish decay above the
cotton wagons and the gasoline pumps-an eyesore among eyesores. And now Miss
Emily had gone to join the representatives of those august names where they lay in
the cedar-bemused cemetery among the ranked and anonymous graves of Union and
Confederate soldiers who fell at the battle of Jefferson.
Alive, Miss Emily had been a tradition, a duty, and a care; a sort of hereditary
obligation upon the town, dating from that day in 1894 when Colonel Sartoris, the
mayor — he who fathered the edict that no Negro woman should appear on the
streets without an apron-remitted her taxes, the dispensation dating from the death
of her father on into perpetuity. Not that Miss Emily would have accepted charity.
Colonel Sartoris invented an involved tale to the effect that Miss Emily’s father had
loaned money to the town, which the town, as a matter of business, preferred this
way of repaying. Only a man of Colonel Sartoris’ generation and thought could have
invented it, and only a woman could have believed it.
When the next generation, with its more modern ideas, became mayors and
aldermen, this arrangement created some little dissatisfaction. On the first of the year
they mailed her a tax notice. February came, and there was no reply. They wrote her a
formal letter, asking her to call at the sheriff’s office at her convenience. A week later
the mayor wrote her himself, offering to call or to send his car for her, and received in
reply a note on paper of an archaic shape, in a thin, flowing calligraphy in faded ink, to
the effect that she no longer went out at all. The tax notice was also enclosed, without
comment.
They called a special meeting of the Board of Aldermen. A deputation waited upon
her, knocked at the door through which no visitor had passed since she ceased giving
china-painting lessons eight or ten years earlier. They were admitted by the old
Negro into a dim hall from which a stairway mounted into still more shadow. It
smelled of dust and disuse — a close, dank smell. The Negro led them into the parlor.
It was furnished in heavy, leather-covered furniture. When the Negro opened the
blinds of one window, they could see that the leather was cracked; and when they sat
down, a faint dust rose sluggishly about their thighs, spinning with slow motes in the
single sun-ray. On a tarnished gilt easel before the fireplace stood a crayon portrait of
Miss Emily’s father.
They rose when she entered — a small, fat woman in black, with a thin gold chain
descending to her waist and vanishing into her belt, leaning on an ebony cane with a
tarnished gold head. Her skeleton was small and spare; perhaps that was why what
would have been merely plumpness in another was obesity in her. She looked bloated,
like a body long submerged in motionless water, and of that pallid hue. Her eyes, lost
in the fatty ridges of her face, looked like two small pieces of coal pressed into a lump
of dough as they moved from one face to another while the visitors stated their
errand.
She did not ask them to sit. She just stood in the door and listened quietly until
the spokesman came to a stumbling halt. Then they could hear the invisible watch
ticking at the end of the gold chain.
Her voice was dry and cold. “I have no taxes in Jefferson. Colonel Sartoris
explained it to me. Perhaps one of you can gain access to the city records and satisfy
yourselves.”
“But we have. We are the city authorities, Miss Emily. Didn’t you get a notice from
the sheriff, signed by him?”
“I received a paper, yes,” Miss Emily said. “Perhaps he considers himself the
sheriff… I have no taxes in Jefferson.”
“But there is nothing on the books to show that, you see We must go by the —”
“See Colonel Sartoris. I have no taxes in Jefferson.”
“But, Miss Emily —”
“See Colonel Sartoris.” (Colonel Sartoris had been dead almost ten years.) “I have
no taxes in Jefferson. Tobe!” The Negro appeared. “Show these gentlemen out.”
Part 2
SO she vanquished them, horse and foot, just as she had vanquished their fathers
thirty years before about the smell.
That was two years after her father’s death and a short time after her sweetheart
— the one we believed would marry her — had deserted her. After her father’s death
she went out very little; after her sweetheart went away, people hardly saw her at all.
A few of the ladies had the temerity to call, but were not received, and the only sign of
life about the place was the Negro man — a young man then — going in and out with a
market basket.
“Just as if a man — any man — could keep a kitchen properly,” the ladies said; so
they were not surprised when the smell developed. It was another link between the
gross, teeming world and the high and mighty Griersons.
A neighbor, a woman, complained to the mayor, Judge Stevens, eighty years old.
“But what will you have me do about it, madam?” he said.
“Why, send her word to stop it,” the woman said. “Isn’t there a law?”
“I’m sure that won’t be necessary,” Judge Stevens said. “It’s probably just a snake
or a rat that nigger of hers killed in the yard. I’ll speak to him about it.”
The next day he received two more complaints, one from a man who came in
diffident deprecation. “We really must do something about it, Judge. I’d be the last
one in the world to bother Miss Emily, but we’ve got to do something.” That night the
Board of Aldermen met — three graybeards and one younger man, a member of the
rising generation.
“It’s simple enough,” he said. “Send her word to have her place cleaned up. Give
her a certain time to do it in, and if she don’t...”
“Dammit, sir,” Judge Stevens said, “will you accuse a lady to her face of smelling
bad?”
So the next night, after midnight, four men crossed Miss Emily’s lawn and slunk
about the house like burglars, sniffing along the base of the brickwork and at the
cellar openings while one of them performed a regular sowing motion with his hand
out of a sack slung from his shoulder. They broke open the cellar door and sprinkled
lime there, and in all the outbuildings. As they recrossed the lawn, a window that had
been dark was lighted and Miss Emily sat in it, the light behind her, and her upright
torso motionless as that of an idol. They crept quietly across the lawn and into the
shadow of the locusts that lined the street. After a week or two the smell went away.
That was when people had begun to feel really sorry for her. People in our town,
remembering how old lady Wyatt, her great-aunt, had gone completely crazy at last,
believed that the Griersons held themselves a little too high for what they really were.
None of the young men were quite good enough for Miss Emily and such. We had
long thought of them as a tableau, Miss Emily a slender figure in white in the
background, her father a spraddled silhouette in the foreground, his back to her and
clutching a horsewhip, the two of them framed by the back-flung front door. So when
she got to be thirty and was still single, we were not pleased exactly, but vindicated;
even with insanity in the family she wouldn’t have turned down all of her chances if
they had really materialized.
When her father died, it got about that the house was all that was left to her; and
in a way, people were glad. At last they could pity Miss Emily. Being left alone, and a
pauper, she had become humanized. Now she too would know the old thrill and the
old despair of a penny more or less.
The day after his death all the ladies prepared to call at the house and offer
condolence and aid, as is our custom Miss Emily met them at the door, dressed as
usual and with no trace of grief on her face. She told them that her father was not
dead. She did that for three days, with the ministers calling on her, and the doctors,
trying to persuade her to let them dispose of the body. Just as they were about to
resort to law and force, she broke down, and they buried her father quickly.
We did not say she was crazy then. We believed she had to do that. We
remembered all the young men her father had driven away, and we knew that with
nothing left, she would have to cling to that which had robbed her, as people will.
Part 3
SHE was sick for a long time. When we saw her again, her hair was cut short,
making her look like a girl, with a vague resemblance to those angels in colored
church windows — sort of tragic and serene.
The town had just let the contracts for paving the sidewalks, and in the summer
after her father’s death they began the work. The construction company came with
niggers and mules and machinery, and a foreman named Homer Barron, a Yankee — a
big, dark, ready man, with a big voice and eyes lighter than his face. The little boys
would follow in groups to hear him cuss the niggers, and the niggers singing in time
to the rise and fall of picks. Pretty soon he knew everybody in town. Whenever you
heard a lot of laughing anywhere about the square, Homer Barron would be in the
center of the group. Presently we began to see him and Miss Emily on Sunday
afternoons driving in the yellow-wheeled buggy and the matched team of bays from
the livery stable.
At first we were glad that Miss Emily would have an interest, because the ladies all
said, “Of course a Grierson would not think seriously of a Northerner, a day laborer.”
But there were still others, older people, who said that even grief could not cause a
real lady to forget noblesse oblige — without calling it noblesse oblige. They just said,
“Poor Emily. Her kinsfolk should come to her.” She had some kin in Alabama; but
years ago her father had fallen out with them over the estate of old lady Wyatt, the
crazy woman, and there was no communication between the two families. They had
not even been represented at the funeral.
And as soon as the old people said, “Poor Emily,” the whispering began. “Do you
suppose it’s really so?” they said to one another. “Of course it is. What else could…”
This behind their hands; rustling of craned silk and satin behind jalousies closed upon
the sun of Sunday afternoon as the thin, swift clop-clop-clop of the matched team
passed: “Poor Emily.”
She carried her head high enough — even when we believed that she was fallen. It
was as if she demanded more than ever the recognition of her dignity as the last
Grierson; as if it had wanted that touch of earthiness to reaffirm her imperviousness.
Like when she bought the rat poison, the arsenic. That was over a year after they had
begun to say “Poor Emily,” and while the two female cousins were visiting her.
“I want some poison,” she said to the druggist. She was over thirty then, still a
slight woman, though thinner than usual, with cold, haughty black eyes in a face the
flesh of which was strained across the temples and about the eye sockets as you
imagine a lighthouse-keeper’s face ought to look. “I want some poison,” she said.
“Yes, Miss Emily. What kind? For rats and such? I’d recom —”
“I want the best you have. I don’t care what kind.”
The druggist named several. “They’ll kill anything up to an elephant. But what you
want is —”
“Arsenic,” Miss Emily said. “Is that a good one?”
“Is . . . arsenic? Yes, ma’am. But what you want —”
“I want arsenic.”
The druggist looked down at her. She looked back at him, erect, her face like a
strained flag. “Why, of course,” the druggist said. “If that’s what you want. But the law
requires you to tell what you are going to use it for.”
Miss Emily just stared at him, her head tilted back in order to look him eye for
eye, until he looked away and went and got the arsenic and wrapped it up. The Negro
delivery boy brought her the package; the druggist didn’t come back. When she
opened the package at home there was written on the box, under the skull and bones:
“For rats.”
Part 4
SO the next day we all said, “She will kill herself”; and we said it would be the best
thing. When she had first begun to be seen with Homer Barron, we had said, “She will
marry him.” Then we said, “She will persuade him yet,” because Homer himself had
remarked — he liked men, and it was known that he drank with the younger men in
the Elks’ Club — that he was not a marrying man. Later we said, “Poor Emily” behind
the jalousies as they passed on Sunday afternoon in the glittering buggy, Miss Emily
with her head high and Homer Barron with his hat cocked and a cigar in his teeth,
reins and whip in a yellow glove.
Then some of the ladies began to say that it was a disgrace to the town and a bad
example to the young people. The men did not want to interfere, but at last the ladies
forced the Baptist minister — Miss Emily’s people were Episcopal — to call upon her.
He would never divulge what happened during that interview, but he refused to go
back again. The next Sunday they again drove about the streets, and the following day
the minister’s wife wrote to Miss Emily’s relations in Alabama.
So she had blood-kin under her roof again and we sat back to watch
developments. At first nothing happened. Then we were sure that they were to be
married. We learned that Miss Emily had been to the jeweler’s and ordered a man’s
toilet set in silver, with the letters H. B. on each piece. Two days later we learned that
she had bought a complete outfit of men’s clothing, including a nightshirt, and we
said, “They are married.” We were really glad. We were glad because the two female
cousins were even more Grierson than Miss Emily had ever been.
So we were not surprised when Homer Barron — the streets had been finished
some time since — was gone. We were a little disappointed that there was not a public
blowing-off, but we believed that he had gone on to prepare for Miss Emily’s coming,
or to give her a chance to get rid of the cousins. (By that time it was a cabal, and we
were all Miss Emily’s allies to help circumvent the cousins.) Sure enough, after
another week they departed. And, as we had expected all along, within three days
Homer Barron was back in town. A neighbor saw the Negro man admit him at the
kitchen door at dusk one evening.
And that was the last we saw of Homer Barron. And of Miss Emily for some time.
The Negro man went in and out with the market basket, but the front door remained
closed. Now and then we would see her at a window for a moment, as the men did
that night when they sprinkled the lime, but for almost six months she did not appear
on the streets. Then we knew that this was to be expected too; as if that quality of her
father which had thwarted her woman’s life so many times had been too virulent and
too furious to die.
When we next saw Miss Emily, she had grown fat and her hair was turning gray.
During the next few years it grew grayer and grayer until it attained an even pepper and-salt iron-gray, when it ceased turning. Up to the day of her death at seventy-four
it was still that vigorous iron-gray, like the hair of an active man.
From that time on her front door remained closed, save for a period of six or
seven years, when she was about forty, during which she gave lessons in china painting. She fitted up a studio in one of the downstairs rooms, where the daughters
and granddaughters of Colonel Sartoris’ contemporaries were sent to her with the
same regularity and in the same spirit that they were sent to church on Sundays with
a twenty-five-cent piece for the collection plate. Meanwhile her taxes had been
remitted.
Then the newer generation became the backbone and the spirit of the town, and
the painting pupils grew up and fell away and did not send their children to her with
boxes of color and tedious brushes and pictures cut from the ladies’ magazines. The
front door closed upon the last one and remained closed for good. When the town got
free postal delivery, Miss Emily alone refused to let them fasten the metal numbers
above her door and attach a mailbox to it. She would not listen to them.
Daily, monthly, yearly we watched the Negro grow grayer and more stooped,
going in and out with the market basket. Each December we sent her a tax notice,
which would be returned by the post office a week later, unclaimed. Now and then we
would see her in one of the downstairs windows — she had evidently shut up the top
floor of the house — like the carven torso of an idol in a niche, looking or not looking
at us, we could never tell which. Thus she passed from generation to generation —
dear, inescapable, impervious, tranquil, and perverse.
And so she died. Fell ill in the house filled with dust and shadows, with only a
doddering Negro man to wait on her. We did not even know she was sick; we had long
since given up trying to get any information from the Negro.
He talked to no one, probably not even to her, for his voice had grown harsh and
rusty, as if from disuse.
She died in one of the downstairs rooms, in a heavy walnut bed with a curtain, her
gray head propped on a pillow yellow and moldy with age and lack of sunlight.
Part V
THE negro met the first of the ladies at the front door and let them in, with their
hushed, sibilant voices and their quick, curious glances, and then he disappeared. He
walked right through the house and out the back and was not seen again.
The two female cousins came at once. They held the funeral on the second day,
with the town coming to look at Miss Emily beneath a mass of bought flowers, with
the crayon face of her father musing profoundly above the bier and the ladies sibilant
and macabre; and the very old men — some in their brushed Confederate uniforms —
on the porch and the lawn, talking of Miss Emily as if she had been a contemporary of
theirs, believing that they had danced with her and courted her perhaps, confusing
time with its mathematical progression, as the old do, to whom all the past is not a
diminishing road but, instead, a huge meadow which no winter ever quite touches,
divided from them now by the narrow bottle-neck of the most recent decade of
years.
Already we knew that there was one room in that region above stairs which no
one had seen in forty years, and which would have to be forced. They waited until
Miss Emily was decently in the ground before they opened it.
The violence of breaking down the door seemed to fill this room with pervading
dust. A thin, acrid pall as of the tomb seemed to lie everywhere upon this room
decked and furnished as for a bridal: upon the valance curtains of faded rose color,
upon the rose-shaded lights, upon the dressing table, upon the delicate array of
crystal and the man’s toilet things backed with tarnished silver, silver so tarnished
that the monogram was obscured. Among them lay a collar and tie, as if they had just
been removed, which, lifted, left upon the surface a pale crescent in the dust. Upon a
chair hung the suit, carefully folded; beneath it the two mute shoes and the discarded
socks.
The man himself lay in the bed.
For a long while we just stood there, looking down at the profound and fleshless
grin. The body had apparently once lain in the attitude of an embrace, but now the
long sleep that outlasts love, that conquers even the grimace of love, had cuckolded
him. What was left of him, rotted beneath what was left of the nightshirt, had become
inextricable from the bed in which he lay; and upon him and upon the pillow beside
him lay that even coating of the patient and biding dust.
Then we noticed that in the second pillow was the indentation of a head. One of
us lifted something from it, and leaning forward, that faint and invisible dust dry and
acrid in the nostrils, we saw a long strand of iron-gray hair.
Class Task
Watch the videos, then explain the relevance of the titles for each part to the story. Provide evidence to your claim.
1. READthoroughly the text you are supposed to paraphrase.
2. HIGHLIGHT important ideas. These ideas could somehow be an indicator of how you will see the big picture. You could also use these words and finds synonyms when you are ready to restate.
3. REARRANGE. You can do this by changing sentence structure; combine short sentences or break down long sentences.
4. RESTATE. Now you are ready to restate the idea by starting your paragraph in a different way the original paragraph is stated. You can perhaps start from the last or middle.
5. CITE. Indeed, it is just right to recognize the original source of the idea.
Here's a more complex example
Position your mouse at 5:38 of the video to lead you immediately to paraphrasing.
Check out how the paragraph below is paraphrased and used in the article below. Follow the link.
“ Despite the advent of V-chips, movie ratings and televised warnings of appropriateness for young people, American teenagers have no trouble getting access to graphic sexual presentations. And no one restricts what they hear in popular songs. The effect of abstinence-only education pales by comparison with the many graphic messages that portray sexual activity — especially unprotected sex outside of marriage — to be a part of our culture as normal and acceptable as eating a Big Mac or drinking a Coke.”
The use of figures of speech in communication is a confirmation of the notion that "Language is an art". Hence, the varied forms of figures of speech shall serve as color palette. Such language gives a streak of importance to a supposed plain and dull expression. Furthermore, it could also lessen the gravity of an already difficult situation. Therefore, figures of speech makes communication colorful and interesting. Here are some of the figures of speech there is.
Simile is an indirect comparison however, not all that uses "as" and "like" to compare are called simile. Bear in mind that it is only simile when two unlike things, persons or ideas are compare.
You are so like your father.
"You" which refers to a person is compared to another person "father" therefore this does not qualify for a figure of speech.
You tend to these plants like their father.
The attributes of care given by a father is compared to how a man takes care of the plants. They are two unlike ideas: fatherhood and gardening. Therefore this is a simile.
Furthermore, the statement "Fear not! We are protected by soldiers as brave as lions.", shows how the courage and fierceness of the soldiers is indirectly compared to that of lions.
Metaphor is direct comparison therefore it makes comparison with the absence of "as" and "like". In the statement, "He was boiling mad!", a person's anger is compared to that of a boiling pot which gives off steam, overflows and is very hot.
Thus, this means the person is very angry.
To personify a thing, an idea or even an animal is to give it an attribute - skill, personality, behavior, etc. - of a human being. In the statement, "The moon's shadow danced on the lake.", shows a picture of the moon's shadow on the surface of the lake moving in the direction the wind moves the water to.
This gives the seemingly dancing motion of the moon's shadow. A person's ability to dance is compared to how the moon's shadow moves on the surface of the lake.
Hyperbole is plainly exaggerating an event, condition or circumstance. In the statement, "I am so hungry I could eat a horse.", the speaker simply means he is very hungry but it doesn't mean he'd eat a horse.
The horse only symbolizes how huge his craving for food could be that he could eat almost anything.
Like the allusion, you could make an effective apostrophe if you are well-versed in history, culture and literature. However, this one is simpler than apostrophe because you only need to address that historically or culturally significant someone as if he/she is in front of you.
In the statement, "Not yet Rizal, not yet!", the speaker speaks to Dr. Jose Rizal, our national hero, as if he is in front of him. The statement denotes the speakers grave need for Rizal to continue his works and not die yet.
Irony usually says the opposite of what it actually means. In the statement, "Your family doctor was as kind-hearted as a wolf.", the speaker actually means the doctor was rude. That is actually sarcasm, a style mostly found in ironic statements.
A wolf does not symbolize kindness, it is wild and ruthless; therefore saying that the doctor is a kind-hearted wolf simply states the absence of kindness in the doctor.
Onomatopoeia is perhaps the easiest to recognize, that of course if you are familiar with the sounds around you. In the statement, "He went on buzzing so I left." The word "buzzing" refers to the sound bees make. The speaker expresses annoyance of such sound that made him leave but this doesn't mean there are bees in the vicinity where he was.
It means that the person he/she was in contact with kept on nagging or he may maybe yapping things the listener was not interested with, or it could be that he continuously speaks of things someone maybe tired of hearing. You can also check out 13 figures of speech I discussed in this video:
