Activity One Worksheet I

Student Name ____________________________
Date ________________

The following lines appear in Margaret Atwood’s 1978 poem You Begin. Read the poem in its
entirety, and then answer the questions that follow about the metaphor contained in these
lines.

Your hand is a warm stone
I hold between two words.

1: What is this metaphor referring to within the context of the poem?
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2: How is this description different from saying simply that the hand is warm?
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3: How is this description different from saying the hand is like a warm stone?
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4: Describe how and why this metaphor works.
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5: What makes this an effective metaphor and why?
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