Melanie walked out onto the stage, and her stomach dropped like a free-falling elevator. She crept slowly over to the podium and bent the microphone toward her mouth, like the straw in her pink lemonade. She gathered up all of her courage and began to speak, her voice an impostor as it boomed through the microphone. She flinched at its unfamiliarity and scanned the room for her mother's face.

Question

Melanie walked out onto the stage, and her stomach dropped like a free-falling elevator. She crept slowly over to the podium and bent the microphone toward her mouth, like the straw in her pink lemonade. She gathered up all of her courage and began to speak, her voice an impostor as it boomed through the microphone. She flinched at its unfamiliarity and scanned the room for her mother's face.

In three to five sentences, identify two examples of figurative language from the passage above and explain what each example of figurative language means.

Answer 1

One example of figurative language in the passage is the comparison of Melanie bending the microphone towards her mouth to the straw in her pink lemonade. This is a simile, as it uses "like" or "as" to compare two unlike things. This comparison helps the reader understand that Melanie is being gentle and cautious as she approaches the microphone, similar to how one would handle a fragile straw in a drink.

Another example of figurative language is when Melanie's voice is described as an impostor that boomed through the microphone. This is personification, as it gives human qualities to a non-human object (her voice). By stating that her voice is an impostor, it suggests that she feels disconnected or uncomfortable with the sound of her own voice amplified by the microphone, as it seems loud and unnatural to her.