Loading…
GCSE English Literature · key term
A comparison used to explain an idea or test an argument by relating it to something else.
Used by AQA, Edexcel and OCR
Paper 2
A comparison that uses a relationship between things to explain or argue for a similar relationship elsewhere.
Revise: Love's PhilosophyThis is an analogy: because natural things join together, the speaker argues that people should do the same. Its emotional appeal is strong, but it is not a necessary logical conclusion. Rivers joining cannot decide whether another person wants a relationship.
Paper 2
Create a free account to keep every note you open and track your progress.
A comparison that explains an idea through a similar situation. Estella uses an analogy about daylight to explain why her upbringing has prevented her from returning Miss Havisham’s love.
Estella argues that an upbringing devoted to excluding tenderness cannot suddenly produce it on demand. Her analogy about daylight makes the mechanism clear: someone taught to regard daylight as an enemy cannot naturally welcome it when their teacher changes her wishes. Satis House’s confinement gives this comparison particular force.
Paper 1
An extended comparison that helps explain an idea; Wells repeatedly compares human vulnerability under Martian rule with animals’ vulnerability under human rule.
A comparison used to explain something unfamiliar through something more familiar, such as the narrator’s comparison between the Heat-Ray and a lighthouse beam.
