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Figurative Language In To Kill A Mockingbird

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Figurative Language The novel To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, has quite a bit of figurative language, which contributes to its popularity. Examples include figures of speech, symbolism, allusions, imagery, similes, metaphors, personification and hyperboles. These elements are of my group’s interest. The first figurative language example I’d like to explain is the figure of speech. Lee uses many figures of speech throughout the book. One example which captured my interest was on when Atticus finds the flaw in Mayella’s account of the Tom Robinson case. “Somehow, Atticus had hit her hard in a way that was not clear to me, but it gave him no pleasure to do so” (188). Here, Atticus discovers the hole in Mayella’s testimony, and proves that …show more content…
Similes can do just that. “...the class was wriggling like a bucketful of Catawba worms…” (16). Here, Miss Caroline is reading the children in the classroom a long story and they, including Scout, are getting bored. This simile effectively gives you an image of how eager they are to get out of that class. Later in the book, a metaphor comes into play. “...on the days he carried the watch, Jem walked on eggs…” (61). This is a metaphor, since Jem is not literally walking on eggs, but this is used to highlight the fact that Jem was nervous about somebody finding out about the watch. Another example of figurative language is personification, which first appears in the beginning of To Kill a Mockingbird. “...The old house was the same, droopy and sick…” (15). This passage makes the house seem like something alive even though it is not. Personification is used to emphasize how old and glum the house looked. The last form of figurative language that my group covers is hyperbole. This first appears in the end of part one. “....only son stood an excellent chance of being murdered with a Confederate Army relic.”(104). Mrs. Dubose has a pistol, which in this case is a Confederate army relic. Scout is afraid for Jem having to go read to Mrs. Dubose as a

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