metaphors be with you!

In describing his 4 master tropes, Burke says that “metaphor is a device for seeing something in terms of something else” (503). However, Buck says that the subject of metaphors is problematic and raises the question, "Is this figure a natural product or an artificial?" (32). I heard that metaphors, which are in the figurative language domain, originated from the literal. Therefore, my answer to her question would be that a metaphor is natural because hundreds or thousands of years ago, mankind used to use the old to describe the new. For example, when we look at furniture, chairs and tables have "legs." There is a "head" and "foot" of a bed. I think this is very logical and easier to remember when we refer to objects with terms that relate to the human body. The same goes when we learn other languages.

Buck also asks why metaphors please the readers. Again, there is that sense of novelty. For example, I use many metaphors when I teach writing. We have some pesky "circus introductions" to represent obvious introductions; "grasshoppers" to represent non-cohesive sentences; "jellyfish" to represent essays that start out strong and end up weak; "islands" to represent paragraphs that are not connected to those around them; and finally, the ever common "cuckoo sentence" in which a sentence does not belong in the paragraph in which it's placed. On the handout, I even add graphics that remind them. This helps students because they don't care to know terms like "cohesion" or "unity." Instead, these types of metaphors make writing amusing and keep its sense of novelty. Unfortunately, metaphors can indeed be problematic when students start using these esoteric metaphors in other places, and others are unaware of them.

Metaphors are interesting animals. :) Wouldn’t you agree?