FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE The decay of society was praised by artists as the decay of a corpse is praised by worms. G. K. Chesterton A simile consists of two parts: tenor and vehicle. The tenor is the primary in White's the "de- cay of society" and "artists" in Chesterton's. The vehicle is the thing to which the main subject is flies" and the "decay of a corpse" and "worms." Usually, though not invariably, the vehicle is, or contains, an image. An image is a word or expression referring to some- thing we can perceive. "Summer flies," for example, is an im- age, primarily a visual one, though like many images it has a secondary perceptual appeal: we can hear the flies as well as see them. Vehicle commonly follows tenor, as in the two instances above. But the vehicle may come emphasizing the main subject by delay and also arousing our curiosity by the cart before the horse: Like a crack in a plank of wood which cannot be sealed, the dif- ference between the worker and the intellectual was ineradicable in Socialism. Barbara Most similes are brief, but they may be by breaking the vehicles into parts and applying each to the tenor. A historian, writing about the Italian patriot Garibaldi, explains that his mind was like a vast sea cave, filled with the murmur of dark waters at flow and the stirring of nature's greatest forces, lit here and there by streaks of glorious sunshine bursting in through crev- ices hewn at random in its rugged sides. George Trevelyan Similes Clarify Similes have many uses. One is to clarify an unfamiliar idea or perception by expressing it in familiar terms: For more material and information, please visit www.tailieuduhoc.org DICTION Cold air is heavy; as polar air plows into a region occupied by tropical it gets underneath the warm air and lifts it up even as it pushes it back. A cold front acts physically like a COWCatcher. Wolfgang Langewiesche Finding familiar equivalents often involves concretion, which is turning an abstraction into an image readers can imaginatively see or hear or touch. It has been said, for ex- ample, that the plot of one of Thomas Hardy's novels is as complicated as a medieval mousetrap. Virginia Even though few of us have seen a medieval mousetrap, the phrase cleverly suggests a labyrinthine Rube Goldberg contrivance. Occasionally the process may be reversed so that a simile abstracts, that is, moves from the concrete to the abstract: The taste of that crane soup clung to me all day like the memory of an old sorrow dulled by time. John c. Neihardt Then the apse [of a medieval cathedral] is pure and beautiful Gothic of the fourteenth century, with very tall and fluted windows like single prayers. Hilaire Belloc Similes can also be emphatic, especially when they close a sentence or passage, like those by Neihardt and Belloc. Similes Expand the Subject Most those whose primary function is to ex- more than provide a perceptible equivalent of an abstract idea. Any vehicle comes with meanings of its own, and these enter into and enlarge the significance of the tenor. phrase "single prayers" does not help us to see the windows of the cathedral. But it does enlarge our conception of those windows, endowing them with the connotations we For more material and information, please visit www.tailieuduhoc.org FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE associate with prayer: the upward lift of the spirit, the urge to transcend mortal limits. Here are two other examples of similes rich in implication. The is about the reminiscences of old soldiers: The easy phrases covered the cruelties of war, like sand blowing in over the graves of their comrades. Thomas Pakenham The image suggests the capacity of the mind to obscure the horror of war, even in those, perhaps especially in those, who endured it. In this second example the novelist Dinesen is dis- cussing life on a farm in South Africa: Sometimes visitors from Europe drifted into the farm like wrecked timbers into still waters, turned and rotated, till in the end they were washed out again, or dissolved and sank. The image implies a great deal about such drifters: their lack of will and purpose, the futility with which they float through life, their incapacity to anchor themselves to anything solid, their inevitable and unmarked disappearance. Clearly, one advantage of of other as economy of meaning. Compressing a range of ideas and feelings into few words, similes deepen prose. Similes Express Feelings and Judgments Many similes are emotionally charged. Pakenham's image of sand blowing over the graves of fallen soldiers, for example, is heavily freighted with sadness. And in the following figure the naturalist Rachel Carson does more than describe the summer sea; she reveals its beauty: Or again the summer sea may glitter with a thousand moving pin- pricks of light, like an immense swarm of fireflies moving through a dark wood. For more material and information, please visit www.tailieuduhoc.org " DICTION Emotional connotations often involve judgments. The poet Rupert Brooke, writing about a conversation with a salesman, imagines how the man's mind works: The observer could see thoughts slowly floating into it, like carp in a pond. This simile operates on several levels: it translates an abstrac- tion (the process of thinking) into an arresting visual image. It suggests the slowness and ponderousness of this particular mind. And it implies a judgment, even if humorously: this is not a mind the writer admires. One other example, more extended, of a judgmental simile. The historian Barbara Tuchman is talking about the attitudes of English Socialists just before World War I: What was needed was a strong [Socialist] party with no nonsense and a businesslike understanding of national needs which would take hold of the future like a governess, slap it into clean clothes, wash its face, blow its nose, make it sit up straight at table and eat a proper diet. Tuchman's image of the bossy nanny nicely conveys the un- yielding self-righteousness of some Socialists of the their smug self-assurance, their certainty that they alone knew what was best for humanity, and their conviction that it was their duty to impose the truth upon people too childish to know what was good for them. Fairly or not, Tuchman is passing judgment. Her mocking image uncovers the disdain for common people which she senses beneath the Socialists' reforming zeal. The judgments implied by such similes are more than so- ber, objective opinions. The images by which they are deliv- ered give them great persuasive force. Thus Tuchman plays upon the resentment we carry from childhood against those Brobdingnagian know-it-alls who forced us to live by their rules. For more material and information, please visit www.tailieuduhoc.org FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE Similes Give Pleasure All good writing gives pleasure. But figurative language is a special delight. simile, reducing imposing Social- ists who would reform the world to bossy nannies pontifi- cating in a nursery, is amusing (whether it is fair is something else). Here is another example: There are fanatics who love and venerate spelling as a tomcat loves and venerates catnip. There are who would rather parse than eat; specialists in the objective case that doesn't exist in English; strange beings, otherwise sane and even intelligent and comely, who under a split infinitive as you and would suffer under gastroenteritis. H. L. Mencken Similes Intensify Our Awareness Finally, beyond their capacity to familiarize the strange, to expand ideas, to express feelings and evaluations, and to give us pleasure, similes have an even greater power. They bring us more intimately in touch with reality by joining diverse experiences. Think about this description of an old woman's hands: Their touch had no substance, like a dry wind on a July afternoon. Sharon Curtin Curtin's simile does all the usual a less fa- miliar to a more familiar one, implies something about the loneliness of old age, even passes a judgment on life. But it does more: it unifies perceptions that most of us would not have put together. Similes may also cut across the boundaries that separate the senses: There was a glamour in the air, a something in the special flavour of that moment that was like the consciousness of Salvation, or the smell of ripe peaches on a sunny wall. Logan Smith For more material and information, please visit www.tailieuduhoc.org DICTION In that image two disparate sense perceptions blend into a experience, and the fused aroma and vision of the peaches and the sunlit wall connect with the writer's con- sciousness of religious mystery. Metaphor Like a simile, a metaphor is also a comparison. The difference is that a simile compares things explicitly; it literally says that X is like Y. A metaphor compares things implicitly. Read literally, it does not state that X is like Y; but rather that X is Y: Cape Cod is the bared and bended arm of Massachusetts. Henry David Thoreau Thoreau writes "is," not "is like." However, we understand that he means the Cape resembles a human arm, not that it really is an arm. The metaphor has simply taken the compar- ison a step closer and expressed it a bit more economically and forcefully.1 A metaphor has the same two parts as a simile: the main image introduced for comparison. In sentence the tenor is "Cape Cod" and the vehicle is "the bared and bended arm." In many meta- phors both parts are stated. In some, however, the writer re- fers only to the vehicle, depending on the context to supply the full comparison. Such a figure is called an implied fused rather than a full one. Had Thoreau written "the bared and bended arm of Massachusetts" in a context which clearly indicated he meant Cape Cod, his metaphor would have been implied. 1. It is sometimes argued that metaphors are more figures than sim- iles and even in some ways essentially different. Here we need not assume any greater virtue in metaphors. They are more economical and generally more emphatic. For these reasons they are sometimes preferable to similes. But on some occasions the explicit comparison of a simile is better. For more material and information, please visit www.tailieuduhoc.org FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE Fused metaphors may involve metonymy. Metonymy means substituting for one concept another that is associated with it. The novelist Joseph Conrad, discussing the difficulty of saying exactly what one wants to say, speaks of the old, old words, worn thin, defaced by ages of careless usage. Conrad does not actually say that words are coins, but he implies the full metaphor by the expressions "worn thin" and "defaced," qualities of old coins. The logic of the figure runs like this: Words are (like) old coins. Old coins are often worn thin by passing from hand to hand and their faces nearly rubbed away. Therefore, words can be "worn thin" and "defaced." Another figure often found in metaphors and closely re- lated to metonymy is synecdoche, which is substituting a part for the whole, as when a ship is referred to as a "sail." In the following passage the religious revivals staged by the evan- gelist McPherson are compared (implicitly) to an amusement park: With rare ingenuity, Aimee kept the Ferris wheels and the merry- go-round of religion going night and day. Carey The logic goes like this: Aimee's revivals were (like) an amusement park. An amusement park contains Ferris wheels and merry-go-rounds. Therefore, events at the revivals were (like) Ferris wheels and merry- go-rounds. For more material and information, please visit www.tailieuduhoc.org DICTION Many metaphors use synecdoche and metonymy.2 Usually a writer wants to introduce as precise an image as possible into the vehicle of a metaphor, thus appealing immediately to the reader's eyes or ears. "Ferris wheels" and "merry-go- rounds," for instance, are easier to visualize than the larger, more abstract "amusement park." And these images are richly meaningful, implying the park in its entirety, as well as evok- ing vivid pictures of revolving vertical and horizontal wheels. The Uses of Metaphor Metaphors have the same functions as similes. They clarify the unfamiliar and render abstractions in images: [Science] pronounces only on whatever, at the time, appears to have been scientifically ascertained, which is a small island in an nescience. Bertrand Russell Russell's image of a small island (science) in a wide and lonely sea (all that we do not know) vividly expresses the relation- ship between knowledge and ignorance. Metaphors also enrich meaning by implying added dimen- sions of thought or feeling. Consider all that is suggested by the term "idol" in this metaphor: We squat before television, the idol of our cherished progress. Evelyn Jones "Idol," signifying a false god, denies the progress television symbolizes and celebrates. The image implies as well the ir- rationality and subservience of its worshipers. In the next example the judgmental quality of the metaphor 2. Metonymy is sometimes treated as a figure distinct from metaphor. For our purposes it is convenient to regard with a va- riety of metaphor. For more material and information, please visit www.tailieuduhoc.org FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE is more pronounced. About the ancient Romans, the writer remarks that they were marked by the thumbprint of an unnatural vulgarity, which they never succeeded in surmounting. Lawrence A dirty thumbprint, like one left on a china cup or a white a graphic signature of crudeness. In the following metaphor the judgment is ironic (the passage concerns Huey Long, a powerful Louisiana politician of the 1930s, who, when he was elected to the U.S. Senate, passed on his gov- ernorship to a political crony): He designated his old benefactor, K. Allen of Winnfield, as the apostolic choice for the next full term. Hodding Carter "Apostolic," alluding to Christ and his disciples, is a wry comment on Long: on the power he wielded, on the venera- tion he was accorded by his followers, and perhaps even on he regarded himself. Like similes, metaphors may be emotionally charged, pleas- antly or, as in this example, unpleasantly (the writer is re- membering a dose of castor oil forced down him when he was a child): . a bulge of colorless slime on a giant spoon. William Gibson Metaphors are also emphatic, particularly at the end of a statement, where the not only and pictures a complex abstraction, but also strongly restates it, leaving a memorable image in the mind: What distinguishes a black hole from a planet or an ordinary star is that anything falling into it cannot come out of it again. If light cannot escape, nothing else can and it is a perfect trap: a turnstile oblivion. Calder For more material and information, please visit www.tailieuduhoc.org 306 DICTION Finally, metaphors may be extended through several sen- tences or even an entire paragraph. In fact, exploring and ex- panding a metaphor can be an effective way of generating a piece of prose. Here is a brief example: Man is born broken. He lives by mending. The grace of God is glue. Eugene O'Neill And here are two longer ones. The works out a meta- phor comparing Time magazine to a tale told to little children: is also a nursery book in which the reader is slapped and tickled alternately. It is full of predigested pap spooned out with confidential nudges. The reader is never on his own for an instant, but, as though at his mother's knee, he is provided with the right emotions for everything he hears or sees as the pages turn. Marshall McLuhan Notice how the metaphor determines the diction: "slapped and tickled," "predigested pap," "spooned out," "nudges," "never on his own," "mother's knee," "provided with." Even the phrase "as the pages turn" suggests the passivity of a child for whom the baby-sitter turns the pages. The other example of an extended metaphor returns us to the passage with which we began this section, com- parison of Cape Cod to a bent arm. The image opens a para- graph in the book Cape Cod: Cape Cod is the bared and bended arm of Massachusetts: the shoul- der is at Buzzard's Bay; the elbow, or crazy-bone, at Cape barre; the wrist at Truro; and the sandy fist at hind which the State stands on her guard, with her back to the Green Mountains, and her feet planted on the floor of the ocean, like an athlete protecting her with northeast storms, and, ever and anon, heaving up her Atlantic adversary from the lap of the to thrust forward her other fist, which keeps guard the while upon her breast at Cape Ann. For more material and information, please visit www.tailieuduhoc.org [...]... relating these to your main topic; or outwardly, exploring the larger entity to which the image belongs, as the "bared arm" is a natural part of a boxer in a defensive stance Finding Metaphors There is no formula for creating metaphors Sometimes the literal detail of a scene lends itself to figurative use, as in the following sentence explaining why the writer was not allowed into a large office to observe... bended arm" both by analysis and by expansion Thoreau breaks it down into its parts—"elbow," "wrist," "fist"—and applies each of these to Cape Cod At the same time he expands the metaphor into the larger inclusive image of the boxer—"back," "feet," "other fist," "breast"—connecting each detail with other parts of Massachusetts If you wish to develop a metaphor (or simile), remember that you can work in either... metaphor fails: The teacher leaves the students to develop the foundations of their education "Foundations," of course, are "built" or "laid," not "developed." t> Metaphors and Similes Should Not Be Overworked Metaphors and similes ought not to be sprinkled about profusely, especially in expository writing Even when they do not clash, too many are likely to cancel one another Their effectiveness depends... awkward connotations, a simile or metaphor must not be too colloquial or too learned for the occasion It would not do to write in a paper for a history professor that "Napoleon went through Russia like a dose of salts." t> Metaphors and Similes Should Not Be Awkwardly Mixed When several similes or metaphors appear in the same passage, they ought to harmonize in thought and image Mixtures like the following... uncommon, for if every other sentence contains a simile or a metaphor, readers soon begin to discount them Personification Personification, really a special kind of metaphor, is referring to inanimate things or to abstractions as if they were human A simple instance of personification is the use of personal pronouns to refer to objects, as when sailors speak of a ship as "she." Here is a more subtle instance,... LANGUAGE 311 As London increased, however, rank and fashion rolled off to the west, and trade, creeping on at their heels, took possession of their deserted abodes Washington Irving "Rank" and "fashion" signify aristocratic Londoners; "trade" designates the merchant class These abstractions are personified by the verbs: the aristocrats "roll off" elegantly in carriages, the tradesmen "creep" in with... helped to father it, and Judge Lynch is one of its creations; and when it comes lumbering forth it can make the whole country step in time to its own irregular pulse beat Bruce Catton Catton's personification (or perhaps "animalification") makes his point with extraordinary clarity and strength: mindless savagery is no abstraction; it is an ever-present menace Allusions An allusion is a brief reference to. .. metaphorical at all; it is taken literally to mean the widening of a river as it empties into a larger body of water For more material and information, please visit www.tailieuduhoc.org FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE 309 £> The Vehicle Should Fit the Tenor The vehicle of any simile or metaphor is likely to have several meanings Be sure that none of them works against you It is easy to focus so exclusively on the meaning... can bring each other embarrassingly to life The dead metaphors, "mouth of a river" and "leg of a journey," for instance, work well enough alone, but it would be clumsy to write that "the last leg of our journey began at the mouth of the river." You must be careful, too, about the other, nonfigurative words you use with a simile or metaphor, even when these words are to be read literally Because this... the comparison: The town hall has been weathered by cold winds and harsh snows like an old mare turned out to graze While an old mare is an image of decrepitude, it has other characteristics which make it unsuitable as a vehicle for a building Can you imagine a town hall in a pasture, nibbling grass and swatting flies with its tail? t> Metaphors and Similes Should Be Appropriate to the Context Figures . brief, but they may be by breaking the vehicles into parts and applying each to the tenor. A historian, writing about the Italian patriot Garibaldi, explains. similes ought not to be sprinkled about pro- fusely, especially in expository writing. Even when they do not clash, too many are likely to cancel one another.