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Oxford Revise English Language AQA GCSE (supplement)

Figurative Language - Reading & Writing

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What is Figurative Language?

Note: not all of these activities have answers provided. If you are studying GCSE English, please work through this resource with a qualified English Tutor.

Write definitions for these language features:

  • Simile

  • Metaphor

  • Extended metaphor

  • Symbolism

  • Personification

  • Pathetic fallacy

Label these examples with the correct language feature:

(Simile, metaphor, extended metaphor, symbolism, personification, pathetic fallacy)

  • The world is a stage.

  • The dark clouds mirrored his sadness.

  • He ran like the wind.

  • The wind whispered through the trees.

  • A white dove symbolises peace.

  • Life is a journey — sometimes the road is smooth, sometimes it’s rough, but you keep going.

  • The old car coughed and groaned as it started.

  • Love is a garden — it needs care, patience, and time to grow.

  • The classroom was a zoo.

  • The crowd was as loud as thunder.

  • The sun smiled down on us.

  • Learning is climbing a mountain — every step takes effort, but the view is worth it.

  • A red rose often symbolises love.

  • The angry storm reflected her fear and anger.

  • The cheerful sun matched his happy mood.

  • His heart was a drum, beating fast with excitement.

  • Her smile was as bright as the sun.

  • A storm can symbolise trouble or danger.

Answers:

Simile

  • Her smile was as bright as the sun.

  • He ran like the wind.

  • The crowd was as loud as thunder.

Metaphor

  • The classroom was a zoo.

  • His heart was a drum, beating fast with excitement.

  • The world is a stage.

Extended Metaphor

  • Life is a journey — sometimes the road is smooth, sometimes it’s rough, but you keep going.

  • Learning is climbing a mountain — every step takes effort, but the view is worth it.

  • Love is a garden — it needs care, patience, and time to grow.

Symbolism

  • A red rose often symbolises love.

  • A white dove symbolises peace.

  • A storm can symbolise trouble or danger.

Personification

  • The wind whispered through the trees.

  • The sun smiled down on us.

  • The old car coughed and groaned as it started.

Pathetic Fallacy

  • The angry storm reflected her fear and anger.

  • The cheerful sun matched his happy mood.

  • The dark clouds mirrored his sadness.

Extract 1: The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

This extract is from a novel set in America during the Great Depression and focuses on the poverty of farmers. It describes how tractors are demolishing the farmland.

The tractors came over the roads and into the fields, great crawlers moving like insects, having the incredible strength of insects. They crawled over the ground, laying the track and rolling on it and picking it up. Diesel tractors, puttering while they stood idle; they thundered when they moved, and then settled down to a droning roar. Snub-nosed monsters, raising the dust and sticking their snouts into it, straight down the country, across the country, through fences, through dooryards, in and out of gullies in straight lines.

Extract 2: Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

A young boy, Pip, is visiting the unwelcoming home of the elderly Miss Havisham. He describes the visit years later from the perspective of his adult self.

A fire had been lately kindled in the damp old-fashioned grate, and it was more disposed to go out than to burn up, and the reluctant smoke which hung in the room seemed colder than the clearer air, like our own marsh mist. Certain wintry branches of candles on the high chimney-piece faintly lighted the chamber; or it would be more expressive to say, faintly troubled its darkness.

There is a table in the centre of the room. It was so heavily overhung with cobwebs that its form was quite undistinguishable; and, as I looked along the yellow expanse out of which I remember its seeming to grow, like a black fungus, I saw speckle-legged spiders with blotchy bodies running home to it, and running out from it, as if some circumstances of the greatest public importance had just transpired in the spider community.

Sample Answer for Extract 1

Paragraphs about figurative language:

  1. Statement (an opening - use subject terminology)

  2. Evidence (quotes)

  3. Analyse (the effects)

Label these as parts 1, 2, or 3 from above:

  • The writer creates…

  • This gives the reader the impression that…

  • Using this comparison suggests that…

  • For example…

  • The writer uses…

  • This implies that…

  • This creates a sense of…

  • The author provides…

  • This use of…

In the sample answer below, find examples of:

  • Subject terminology

  • Evidence

  • Effect

  • Further interpretation

Sample Answer:

The writer uses vivid imagery to present the tractors as destructive and inhuman. Through similes such as ‘like insects’ and metaphors like ‘snub-nosed monsters’, the tractors are shown as powerful, relentless machines. Personification is also used when the tractors are described as crawling over the fields, giving them animal-like qualities. This combination of techniques emphasises their unstoppable nature and creates a sense of fear and oppression. Symbolically, the tractors could represent the impersonal forces of banks or corporations, destroying the livelihoods of struggling farmers.

Sample Answer for Extract 2

In the sample answer below, find examples of:

  • Subject terminology

  • Evidence

  • Effect

  • Further interpretation

Sample Answer:

The writer creates a vivid impression of Miss Havisham’s house as cold, dark and unwelcoming. The fire is described as ‘disposed to go out rather than burn’, and the ‘reluctant smoke’ gives the impression that even the fire does not want to provide warmth. The metaphor of the candles as ‘wintry branches’ suggests a harsh, bleak atmosphere, while the darkness is personified as being ‘troubled’ by the candlelight, as if it resists being illuminated. This use of pathetic fallacy emphasises the gloom and makes the reader feel the room itself is hostile and oppressive, reflecting the eerie and unsettling nature of Pip’s visit.

  • Question: Why is it more helpful to include short quotes instead of long quotes?

Using Figurative Language in Your Own Writing

Descriptions & Narratives

Steps for choosing figurative language:

  1. Decide what you are creating an image for (e.g., a simile for…). Adjectives and adverbs may help.

  2. Decide what effect you want to achieve (e.g., positive, negative)

  3. Think of some imaginative comparisons

  4. Scale your comparison up or down until you have the right level. 

Choosing a Simile Example:

  1. Simile for: a fast train hurtling past

  2. Effect = speed, out of control.

  3. Imaginative comparisons: a car, a bird, a raging bull…

  4. Scale:

    1. …like a fast car. (weak)

    2. …like a big bird. (imaginative)

    3. …like  a raging bull (good).

Why is c. the best option? What does a raging bull imply?

Follow these steps to come up with your own simile: 

1.

2.

3.

4.

Arguments & Persuasive Writing

Make sure you pick language features at the right level.

Which of these metaphors would you prefer if you were arguing for access to phones during school?

  1. Phones are platforms for young people.

  2. Phones are the life-blood of young people.

  3. Phones are survival packs for young people. 

Which of these metaphors about headphones would you use:

In a piece of creative writing?

In a speech arguing for students to be allowed to wear headphones in class?

When joking with a friend?

  • Headphones are shells for listening.

  • Headphones are keys to focus for students.

  • Headphones are bridges to creativity.

  • Headphones are shields against noise.

  • Headphones are the very essence of a student’s soul.

  • Headphones are lifelines in a world of chaos. 

  • Headphones are magical portals to another dimension.

  • Headphones are hats for your ears.

Review

Key Term Definitions

Make sure you can define these language features and give examples:

  • Metaphor

  • Extended Metaphor

  • Simile

  • Symbolism

  • Figurative Language

  • Personification

  • Pathetic Fallacy

Questions

  1. What two words are typically used in similes?

  2. How is a metaphor different from a simile?

  3. Explain how the sentence "The train rocketed past" is more effective than "The train rushed past like a rocket." What technique is used here, and what is its effect?

  4. "The students swarmed into the dining hall." What technique is used in this sentence and what is its effect?

  5. "The pen resisted the urge to keep writing." What technique is used here?

  6. What is pathetic fallacy?

  7. Is the following an example of pathetic fallacy or personification, and why?
    "Time waits for no one."

Answers

  1. Like, as.

  2. It speaks of a thing as if it is something else, without using "like" or "as."

  3. The word "rocketed" already conveys the idea of speed, so "rushed" is unnecessary. The technique is metaphor.

  4. It suggests that a crowd of students moves quickly and all at once, like swarming insects. The technique is metaphor.

  5. Personification. It suggests that the pen has thoughts and feelings, like a person.

  6. A figurative language technique that gives human emotion to something non-human (usually something in the natural world).

  7. This is personification because it makes time sound like a person but does not describe it as having any human emotion.

Review Previous Lessons

Questions

  1. What is explicit information?

  2. What does infer mean?

    Answers

  1. Information that is clearly stated. The reader does not have to work it out.

  2. To work out meaning that is only hinted at, rather than explicitly stated.

Writing Task: Using Figurative Language

Choose from:

Task 1: Creative Writing

Task 2: Persuasive Writing

Task 1: Creating Your Own Figurative Language

  1. Choose a scene, object, or emotion you want to describe (e.g., a busy street, your bedroom, excitement, fear).

  2. Write:

    • 1 simile

    • 1 metaphor

    • 1 example of personification or pathetic fallacy

  3. Try to make your language imaginative but clear.

Example:

  • Scene: A rainy morning

  • Simile: ‘The rain fell like silver threads from the sky.’

  • Metaphor: ‘The street was a river of liquid glass.’

  • Pathetic fallacy: ‘The clouds frowned down on the city, sharing its gloom.’

Task 2: Persuasive Writing Challenge

Imagine you are writing a short speech or argument to convince your school to allow students a specific item or privilege (e.g., headphones, outdoor learning, longer lunch break).

  1. Choose 1–2 metaphors or similes to strengthen your argument.

  2. Explain briefly why your figurative language makes your argument more persuasive.

  3. Write a short paragraph incorporating your figurative language.

Example:
 ‘Headphones are shields against noise. They protect students from distractions and let them concentrate fully on their work. Without them, the classroom becomes a battlefield of competing sounds.’


Reading Task: Figurative Language

Find some language features in song lyrics.

Find your own example, or look at one of these:

  • Drops of Jupiter (Tell Me) - Train

  • Diamonds - Rihanna

  • Stereo Hearts - Maroon 5

  • The Sound of Silence - Simon and Garfunkel

  • Here Comes the Sun - The Beatles

  • My Way - Frank Sinatra

  • Firework - Katy Perry