Paul Revere's Ride Figurative Language

Paul Revere, the amazingly brave American hero who saved the country, say the storytellers and poets. While he really was just an average messenger who was captured by the British. In the poem Paul Revere’s ride by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Longfellow does an extraordinary job at creating suspense throughout the poem. He does this by often using metaphors, similes, and detailed descriptions including rhymes. Longfellow wrote “A phantom ship with a mast and spar Across the moon like a prison bar,” which are examples of rhyme, metaphor, and a simile. “Booted and spurred, with a heavy stride \ On the opposite shore walked Paul Revere.” Here is a quick shortened version of all examples of ways Longfellow created: “A phantom ship with a mast

With that it is quite obvious how that would convey a reader to being suspenseful, with all the questions like ‘will the British notice him?’ and, this could also be a false foreshadowing that he will get captured. (False in the poem’s story, not real life what happened.) Next in order, Longfellow creates the suspense by writing ”Now he patted his horse’s side \ Now gazed at the landscape far and near \ Then, impetous, stamped the earth, \ And turned and tightened his saddlegirth, but mostly he watched the eager search \ The belfry tower over the Old North Church, \ As it rose above the graves on the hill.” This contains rhymes, and it also contains the descriptions of how he is preparing, which builds suspense by informing readers that the British will be coming soon and that Revere will have to ride, and fast. It is showing how the British will cause even more gravestones to appear, another case of foreshadowing here, which will cause readers to be caught up in the suspense of ‘will he make it to lexington?’ As well as making the reader question the character’s risk of getting caught after or during the ride, due to how it shows gravestones as a sign of

He did this mainly by using strategies such as foreshadowing, similes, metaphors, and rhyme schemes. The four main points of text evidence are, “Then he climbed the tower of the Old North Church, \ By the wooden stairs, with stealthy tread, \ To the belfry-chamber overhead, \ And startled the pigeons from their perch \ On the sombre rafters, that round him made \ Masses and moving shapes of shade, \ --By the trembling ladder, steep and tall \ To the highest window in the wall, \ Where he paused to listen and look down \ A moment on the roofs of the town, And the moonlight flowing over all.” along with, “And one was was safe and asleep in his bed \ Who at the bridge would be the first to fall, \ Who that day would be lying dead, \ Pierced by a British musket-ball.” Additionally, “A phantom ship, with each mast and spar \ Across the moon like a prison bar,…” and finally, “Booted and spurred, with a heavy stride \ On the opposite shore walked Paul Revere.” Which these specific lines are exceptionally important to the order of the poem, and likely without them the poem would become very boring. This is due to the fact that the main reason anyone even adds this type of sentence is to create an exciting feeling, such as suspense. Throughout the poem Paul Revere’s Ride by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Longfellow created a very strong series of