Adjudicating four figure-of-speech labels in a practice stanza
A poem set for study opens with four lines:
'The river is a ribbon of old silver, It folds the hills and hides them in its sleeve; The wind, a gossip, rattles every shutter, And leaves the sleeping village half-awake.'
In a practice test, students had to label the figure of speech in each line. Four answers came in: (i) line 1 is a simile; (ii) line 2 is personification; (iii) line 3 is a simile because 'a gossip' follows 'wind'; (iv) line 4 is a metaphor because a village cannot sleep. The teacher allows one mark per line and no half marks. A separate mark is reserved for naming 'the figure that best carries the central idea'. Two students also labelled line 1 'metaphor' and line 4 'personification' as well, and want to know whether a line can carry two labels and still be marked correct.
1. Give the correct label for each of the four lines and state the test you applied to decide.
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| Line | Correct label | Test applied |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Metaphor | The river is a ribbon. No 'like' or 'as' appears, so it is not a simile; the equation is direct. |
| 2 | Personification | Folding and hiding something in a sleeve are human actions credited to a river. |
| 3 | Metaphor (appositive) | 'The wind, a gossip' equates wind with a gossip. A comma is not a comparison word, so answer (iii) is wrong: a simile needs 'like' or 'as'. |
| 4 | Personification | A village cannot sleep; a human attribute is transferred to it. |
The working test is a two-step check. First ask: is X said to be Y, or is X said to be like Y? 'Is' gives metaphor, 'like/as' gives simile. Second ask: is a human action or feeling given to something non-human? If yes, personification, and it takes priority as the label because it names the effect the poet is creating.
Errors to name explicitly: (i) is wrong because there is no comparison word; (iii) is wrong because word order and a comma do not create a simile; (iv) is right about the impossibility but wrong about the label, since impossibility alone does not make a metaphor.
2. The two students ask whether line 1 can also be called a metaphor and line 4 personification, and whether both labels can be accepted. Decide, with a rule.
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Line 1 is metaphor - the students are right, and answer (i) is the error. Line 4 is personification, so the students are also right there, and answer (iv) is the error.
The general question needs a rule, because in ordinary criticism one phrase can support more than one name:
- Rule for this exam task: when the question gives one mark per line, write the label that names the foremost device - the one that produces most of the line's effect - and do not stack labels hoping one will be right. Stacking does not lose the mark, but it wastes time and can contradict itself (a student who writes 'simile, metaphor' for line 1 shows they cannot apply the like/as test at all).
- Rule for overlapping: line 4 can genuinely be described in two ways - 'the village sleeps' is personification, and the whole stanza can be read as an extended metaphor in which the landscape is a household. Both descriptions are true at different levels. But the one-mark answer is personification, because the human attribute is the direct local effect.
So the fair verdict is: accept personification for line 4, and credit a student who additionally explains the extended metaphor in the separate 'central idea' mark, not in the labelling mark.
3. Which figure best carries the central idea of a landscape that is alive and watchful? Justify your choice and state the criterion, noting that more than one answer may be defensible.
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Best answer: the pattern of personification running through lines 2–4 - the river folds the hills and hides them, the wind gossips, the village sleeps. A single line is not the unit here; the recurrence is.
Criterion: the figure that carries the central idea is the one that (a) recurs, (b) links the images to each other, and (c) produces the idea rather than merely decorating it. The 'ribbon of old silver' metaphor in line 1 gives colour and shape; it could be replaced by any other visual comparison without changing the poem's argument. Remove the personification, however, and the landscape stops being a household of watching, half-waking actors - the idea disappears with the figure.
A defensible alternative: a student who chooses 'the wind, a gossip' can score full marks if the reasoning is supplied - gossip implies voices, rumour and things half-heard, which is exactly the watchful, half-awake quality. The answer is not unique, but the reasoning must connect a specific word to a specific effect.
Weak answers to avoid: 'personification makes the poem interesting' (names the device, not the idea), and 'line 4 is a metaphor because a village cannot sleep' (misapplies the test without explaining the idea).