THE Comparation is figure of speech used to describe elements through characteristics of other elements, establishing a link between their qualities. For this, she uses some expressions that explain the analogy made.
It is very common to use comparison in our daily lives, but it is also quite common in literature, in music and even in the visual arts.
Read too: Literal sense and figurative sense - the use of connotation and denotation in the construction of meanings
Comparison Examples
The comparison is done by creating a analogy between two terms based on similarities. This analogy must have a connector that indicates the parallel that takes place between the two elements. Look:
"She was quick done a train."
"I expected you to be curious like a cat."
“Such as a machine, it worked a lot.”
There are numerous examples of comparisons in the arts:
"dressed me like if I were like a kind of saint” (Chico Buarque)
“My heart fell in life / such as a star wounded / by a hunter's arrow” (Cecília Meireles)
“The cashew tree, when it loses its leaf, looks dead; it has no flower, no shade; cry some sweet tears
like the honey of its fruits." (José de Alencar)
Comparison and Metaphor
THE metaphor is another figure of speech that is quite recurrent in the Portuguese language and that makes an analogy between different terms, such as comparison.
The difference between these two stylistic features is that the metaphor does not use expressions that explain the parallel which is made between the elements, making the use of the figurative language. The comparison, on the other hand, always makes clear the parallel being drawn, as it uses expressions that “warn” that it is an analogy. See the difference:
"I see well like an owl!"
"Me have owl eyes!"
In the first statement, a Comparation, as the analogy is made through the term “how”. The second statement corresponds to a metaphor, since the analogy is not made using expressions of comparison, but making a statement in the figuratively: it does not mean that the person actually has the eyes of an owl, but it compares his vision to that of an owl, indicating that he can see very well.
hybrid similes
Hybrid similes are expressions that mix comparison and metaphor, comparing a series of elements with connectives that explain the analogy (comparison) and without them (metaphor).
"Then Botelho got mad and vomited terrible phrases, to the right and to the left, like who fires shots without making a target" (Aluísio Azevedo)
In the example above, taken from the work the tenement, by Aluísio Azevedo, the narrator amends a comparison in a metaphor: by narrating the “terrible phrases” that the character Botelho raged, the narrator uses the metaphor “he vomited terrible phrases”, comparing it to the act of firing shots.
Read too:thought figures – type of figure of speech that turns to the field of meaning
solved exercises
question 1 – FGV
All thoughts below are based on a metaphor or a comparison; the thought that shows a justification for the metaphor or comparison made is:
a) The city is not a concrete jungle; it's a human zoo. (Desmond Morris)
b) All speculations are grey, my friend, but the golden tree of life is eternally green. (Goethe)
c) Each bird, with outstretched wings, is a two-leaf book open in the sky. Let us protect this book. And let us increase, with this protection, the small bibliography. (Humberto de Campos)
d) Distance is like the wind. Light the big fires and put out the small ones. (D. Modugno)
e) The good society is a horde of the refined, composed of two tribes: one that gets bored and the other that gets bored. (Lord Byron)
Resolution:
Alternative D. The passage “Lights the big fires and puts out the small ones” serves as an explanation for comparing the distance with the wind.
question 2
Check the alternative that contains a comparison.
a) She was tall as a giraffe.
b) My life is an open book.
c) The eyes are the window to the soul.
d) Read avidly to quench the thirst for knowledge.
e) It was the most colorful of all, a veritable walking rainbow.
Resolution
Alternative A. Only this statement has a connecting element that expresses that a comparison is built: "high done a giraffe.” The other items only contain metaphors.
