Instructional Materials for Craig White's Literature Courses

Figurative language—"She's busy as a bee"; "He put up a wall when I asked him"—brings language to life, but like life it involves some risks that a writer or speaker can manage.

Figurative Language is the use of words that go beyond their ordinary meaning.  It requires you to use your imagination to figure out the author's meaning.  For example, if someone tells you that it is raining cats and dogs, you know that there are not actually cats and dogs falling from the sky.  You know it really means that it is raining very hard.
 

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