Blog Task #4: Extended Metaphor

Discussion Questions

Answer the following set of questions. Pay attention to the keywords in the question stem to plan your
answer, and to the grading indications of each to ensure you are meeting the requirements.

1. Define the term extended metaphor. Research an example to support your answer.
- To define the term extended metaphor, is refers to a comparison between two unlike things
that continues throughout a series of sentences in a paragraph or lines in a poem. It is often
comprised of more than one sentence and sometimes consists of a full paragraph. An example
to support my answer is Bobby Holloway says my imagination is a three-hundred-ring circus.
Currently I was in ring two hundred and ninety-nine, with elephants dancing and clowns cart
wheeling and tigers leaping through rings of fire. The time had come to step back, leave the
main tent, go buy some popcorn and a Coke, bliss out, cool down. (Dean Koontz, Seize the
Night. Bantam, 1999)

N.p., n.d. Web.

( /2 K / 2 I /1 C)

2. Locate the extended metaphor in chapter 6. Break the metaphor down into smaller symbolic units
below, and next to each symbol, suggest both the meaning of the symbol in relation to the metaphor,
as well as the pertinence to TItas life.

Symbol Textual Evidence Meaning and Connection to Titas life

Personality "Those hands had rescued her The physical change that Tita undergoes is a
from the horror and she would precursor to the mental and emotional changes
never forget it" (page 108). that will happen soon.

Freedom "She had never decided for
herself before. They could do
anything or become anything.
They could turn into birds and fly
into the air!" (page 109)
This shows that Tita is no longer bound by Mama
Elena's strict rules and traditions, like the bird that
can fly in the air with freedom, fly with no forces
or no destination just like Tita that she can leave
the kitchen and have her own freedom.

Love "her own matches were damp and By this, she means that her soul will never be
moldy" (116). nourished by love, her matches will not be lit, and
that she will be left.

Life "Each of us is born with a box of This is a comparison of Titas soul and a box of
matches inside us but we can't matches. The candle is being compared to food
strike them all by ourselves; just and music that could lit up Tita up again because
 as in the experiment, we need fire uses oxygen for being able to lit up, Tita need
oxygen and a candle to help. In music and food to heal her feeling up again.
this case, the oxygen, for
example, would come from the
breath of the person you love, the
candle could be any kind of food,
music, caress, word, or sound that
engenders the explosion that
lights one of the matches" (115)

Previlege Tita thought the miracle was Titas finger is compared to a thin cloud rising to
actually occurring when she saw the sky. This symbolized Titas privilege after she
her fingers turning into a thin can escape from Mama Elena, which mean she
cloud rising to the sky. (page 47) have the freedom to do whatever she want.

Phosphoru "Now that we have the In this passage phosphorus is being compared to
s phosphorus mixture, the next step a factor that can heals Titas pain. Dr. Johns
is to prepare experiment, he used phosphorus to open Titas
the cardboard for the matches. mind,s so that he can light up Titas feeling again.
Dissolve a pound of potassium
nitrate...Allow the matches to dry,
buried in sand."
While the strips were drying, the
doctor showed Tita an
experiment. (page 51)

( /12 K /6 I /1 C)