Romeo & Juliet Act III The Metaphor

Metaphor is another language device associated with figurative language. Like similes, metaphors also compare two ideas. Usually, one idea tends to be concrete while the other tends to be abstract. Where a simile points out the comparison using like or as, a metaphor makes the comparison directly. Consider these examples of the same comparison stated as both simile and metaphor:

Simile: Sam is as hungry as a bear. Metaphor: When Sam is hungry, he’s a real bear.

Simile: Suzi runs like the wind. Metaphor: Suzi breezed across the finish line to win the relay.

DIRECTIONS: Metaphors are underlined in the following passages from scenes in Act III. Review each passage in the context of the play and decide what the comparison suggests to the reader. On a blank word document, copy this page and write what two things are being compared and what you think each comparison means.

1. Juliet (sc ii) telling her Nurse that she has dishonored Romeo:

Back, foolish tears, back to your native spring!/ Your tributary drops belong to woe.

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2. Romeo (sc iii) reflects to the friar upon the hellish punishment of banishment from Verona will be:

Heaven is here, / Where Juliet lives.

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3. Friar Lawrence (sc iii) comforting Romeo:

The law, that threatened death, becomes thy friend / And turns it to exile.

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4. Romeo (sc v) speaking to Juliet: It was the lark, the herald of the morn

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5. Lord Capulet (sc v) comments upon Juliet’s eyes that are red from crying:

For still thy eyes, which I may call the sea, / Do ebb and flow with tears; /

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