The first experience Charlotte has, is joyful and occurs in seventh grade in which Miss Hancock teaches a lesson on the metaphor; that changes Charlotte's way of looking at the world. This ability to write her world with words is what Charlotte remembers most about the lesson on "The Metaphor". Miss Hancock enters the classroom, "eyes aglitter, hands clasped in front of her embroidered breasts" (217), telling her students that this lesson will open a "whole new world of composition"(217). Miss Hancock makes a metaphor in describing the power of figurative language as "a brand-new weapon in your arsenal of writing skills."(217) Moments later, Charlotte understands that this English teacher gave her an "entry to something I did not yet fully understand but that I knew I wanted."(218) Miss

The story ends in two metaphors; the first explains how Charlotte deals with Miss Hancock's death and her freedom from her mother, and the second ends the story in a celebration of a teacher whose gift of the metaphor forever changed her life. Self-realizations are made everyday, everyone looks back at an experience they had and think about what they did, or even what they wanted to do. Understanding our own personality, values, and identity will help a person realize who they truly are.

Hancock encourages students to share what they've written; she values each student's work by writing each of their metaphors verbatim on the board. When Charlotte suggests that hers is too long to write on the board, Miss Hancock encourages her to share, and Charlotte begins: "My mother is a flawless modern building, created of glass and the smoothest pale concrete."(219) Charlotte presents her mother, as a person who makes no mistakes, who's exterior is hard and cold. "Inside are business offices furnished with beige carpets and gleaming chromium,"(219) she continues. This almost colourless interior is equally cold and orderly, with "telex machines, mimeograph machines, and sleek typewriters... buzzing and clicking away"(219) in every room. The metaphor concludes with images of people who invade "the cool perfection of the building" and mar its "steel-grey tiles" as they track mud and dirt into a lobby where there are "no comfortable chairs" (219). Charlotte's metaphor appropriately describes a mother who apparently does not nurture her, whose strictness and dedication to order, make life with her as uncomfortable as the chairs in the building's lobby. We learn that Charlotte is more at home in figurative language than she is in her literal home. A "polished, antique, perfect" hall table in perfect taste with its "silver salver for messages" stands on a black and white tiled floor "unmarked by any sign of human contact" (221). The whole house seems sterile; its black and white kitchen tiles dazzling to the eye and its cupboards and walls a "blinding spotless white" (221). Charlotte compares the house she lives in with that of the metaphor about her mother; they are both perfect in a certain way. With her new knowledge of metaphor, Charlotte describes her home as "a box" in which nobody lives (221). After the lesson she begins to makes metaphors all the time, describing her mother as "a white picket fence -- straight, level" and as a "lofty mountain capped by virgin snow" (223). These are all ways of describing her mother's strictness and her demands for perfection. With the help of this new power of the metaphor, Charlotte is able to be more "free" in her world. She can describe things that she never noticed before. Charlotte's knowl

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Approximate Word count = 1847
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)