Metaphor
This article is part of the Figures of Speech course. You may choose to follow it in a structured way, or read each item separately.
- Figures of comparison
- Simile
- says one thing is like another (and extended simile)
- Metaphor
- makes a hidden or covert comparison (and extended metaphor)
- Dead and fossilized metaphors
- those which have become commonplace
- Personification
- compares something not human to a person
- Conceit
- makes a very far-fetched or unlikely striking comparison
- Symbols
- are conventional comparisons more generally agreed by a culture
- Allegory
- tells a story in terms of a different world
- Metonymy - synecdoche
- use part of something to stand for the whole thing, or vice-versa
- Figures of meaning
- Figures of construction
- Figures of sound patterning
- Miscellaneous Figures
Metaphors are like similes - except that metaphors are hidden or covert comparisons, where similes are open and overt. (See also Metaphor and simile.)
Metaphors say that one thing is (or behaves like) another without using words of comparison. We might suggest that a husband is subordinate to his wife by describing him as 'a doormat'. Obviously this is not literally true: he is a human being, not a collection of fibres on which one might wipe one's shoes. We are saying that he is like the mat in one respect: that he 'lies flat under', or submits to, the treatment his wife gives him, only our words do not admit that this is a comparison. We say 'he is a doormat', not 'he is like one'. We can develop the metaphor by saying 'She wipes her feet on him'. Again, this is unlikely to be the literal truth, though again the speaker does not state that it is a comparison. However, you should note that it is a telling one: the speaker is suggesting that the wife has no respect for her husband, and indeed hardly recognises him as human; she can 'treat him like dirt'. (Is this a simile or a metaphor?)