Analogy and Hyperbole

Analogy

An analogy explains an unfamiliar object by using a familiar one, but unlike simile and metaphor, an analogy is not a figure of speech. It is a persuasive technique mostly used in non-fiction.
Therefore, an analogy is different from a simile and a metaphor in that it requires a paragraph of explanation.
  • Simile: Life is like a garden. 
  • Metaphor: Life is a garden. 
  • Analogy: It is as if life were a garden. It is growing and changing, needing care and nurture, and ever producing a harvest of consequences. An action is like a seed. It produces a crop more than expected and later than expected. Because of our short memories, then, life seems to produce many unexpected surprises. 
In poetry, analogy is used to make a persuasive argument, or to teach.


The sun is a boiling ball of gas
Around it planets dance
The force
That holds them together
Also grasps small particles forever
Until they split
An atom like a solar system
Has a sun, the nucleus
A lightening storm in a bottle
Electrons are orbiting planets
Zinging in place
By what language are they glued in space?

Analogies can make complicated concepts easier to grasp by wider audiences. When constructing analogies, however, ensure they are accurate and not too subjective, misleading, or simplistic.
Other figures of speech include hyperbole, juxtaposition, oxymoron, and irony.

Hyperbole

Hyperbole is an extravagant statement; purposefully exaggerated for emphasis or heightened effect such as humour.


There was a small boy of Quebec
Who was buried in snow to his neck
When they said, “Are you friz?”
He replied,  “Yes, I is —
But we don’t call this cold in Quebec”

       Rudyard Kipling (1865-1882)

In hyperbole, the poet stretches the truth by a mile.



Watch the following examples of hyperbole in TV shows and music.