Chances are you know what it’s like to have a favorite color; you buy clothes, paint walls, and choose products in that color because you love it and you can’t get enough. Right?
So if I’m talking about a person being my favorite color, I’m making a pretty strong statement without coming right out and saying “I like you best” (boring!).
In the world of language and literature, we call this type of statement “metaphor”. Metaphor is a tool used to explain ideas using experiences others can understand or relate to. Sometimes literal explanations are just uninteresting, or perhaps too confusing for the reader; in these cases, we use figurative language like metaphor.
