Metaphor as stylistic figure (using from literary works "Jane Eyre" and "The Old Man and the Sea")

A simile states that A is like B, a metaphor states that A is B or substitutes B for A.

According to this definition, then, “You are my sunshine” is a metaphor whereas “Your eyes are like the sun” is a simile. However, some describe similes as simply a specific type of metaphor (e.g., Joseph Kelly's The Seagull Reader (2005), pages 377-379). Most dictionary definitions of both metaphor and simile support the classification of similes as a type of metaphor, and historically it appears the two terms were used essentially as synonyms.

Despite the similarity of the two figures, and the fact that they have historically been used as synonyms, it is the distinction between them which is normally focused upon when the terms are introduced to people. Ironically, “not knowing the difference between a simile and a metaphor” is sometimes used as a euphemism for knowing little about rhetoric or literature. Of course, someone truly versed in rhetoric understands that there is very little difference between metaphor and simile, and that the distinction is trivial compared to, for example, the difference between metonymy and metaphor. Nonetheless, many lists of literary terms define metaphor as “a comparison not using like or as”, showing the emphasis often put on knowing this distinction.

Usually, similes and metaphors could easily be interchanged. For example remove the word `like' from William Shakespeare's simile, “Death lies on her, like an untimely frost,” and it becomes “Death lies on her, an untimely frost,” which retains almost exactly the same meaning. However, at other times using a simile as opposed to a metaphor clarifies the analogy by calling out exactly what is being compared. “He had a posture like a question mark” (Corbett, Classical rhetoric for the modern student (1971), page 479) has one possible interpretation, that the shape of the posture is that of a question mark, whereas “His posture was a question mark” has a second interpretation, that the reason for the posture is in question. At other times use of a simile rather than a metaphor adds meaning by calling to attention the process of comparison, as in “A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle” (Irina Dunn). The point is not to compare a woman to a fish, but to ask the reader to consider how the woman is like the fish. Finally, similes are often more convenient than metaphors when analogizing actions as opposed to things: “Wide sleeves fluttering like wings” (Marcel Proust) does not translate easily from simile to metaphor.

Terms and categorization

The table 1.2 includes the following more commonly identified types of metaphor.

Table 1.2. Metaphor Types

Other types of metaphor have been identified as well, though the nomenclatures are not as universally accepted. They are represented in the following table 1.3.

Table 1.3. Not universal metaphor types

Great amount of argues arise even nowadays in the field of importance and essence of the conceptual metaphor. In cognitive linguistics, conceptual metaphor refers to the understanding of one idea, or conceptual domain in terms of another, for example, understanding quantity in terms of directionality (e.g. “prices are rising”). A conceptual domain can be any coherent organization of human experience. For many metaphors, the mapping between conceptual domains correspond to neural mappings in the brain, which entails that the human conceptual structure is tightly bound to its perceptual system.

This idea, and a detailed examination of the underlying processes, was first extensively explored by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson in their work Metaphors We Live By [1], p.58. Other cognitive scientists study subjects similar to conceptual metaphor under the labels “analogy” and “conceptual blending.”

There are two main roles for the conceptual domains posited in conceptual metaphors:

1. Source domain: the conceptual domain from which we draw metaphorical expressions.

2. Target domain: the conceptual domain that we try to understand.

A mapping is the systematic set of correspondences that exist between constituent elements of the source and the target domain. Many elements of target concepts come from source domains and are not preexisting. To know a conceptual metaphor is to know the set of mappings that applies to a given source-target pairing. The same idea of mapping between source and target is used to describe analogical reasoning and inferences.

A primary tenet of this theory is that metaphors are matter of thought and not merely of language: hence, the term conceptual metaphor. The metaphor may seem to consist of words or other linguistic expressions that come from the terminology of the more concrete conceptual domain, but conceptual metaphors underlie a system of related metaphorical expressions that appear on the linguistic surface. Similarly, the mappings of a conceptual metaphor are themselves motivated by image schemas which are pre-linguistic schemas concerning space, time, moving, controlling, and other core elements of embodied human experience.

Conceptual metaphors typically employ a more abstract concept as target and a more concrete or physical concept as their source. For instance, metaphors such as `the days [the more abstract or target concept] ahead' or `giving my time' rely on more concrete concepts, thus expressing time as a path into physical space, or as a substance that can be handled and offered as a gift. Different conceptual metaphors tend to be invoked when the speaker is trying to make a case for a certain point of view or course of action. For instance, one might associate “the days ahead” with leadership, whereas the phrase “giving my time” carries stronger connotations of bargaining. Selection of such metaphors tends to be directed by a subconscious or implicit habit in the mind of the person employing them.

The principle of unidirectionality states that the metaphorical process typically goes from the more concrete to the more abstract, and not the other way around. Accordingly, abstract concepts are understood in terms of prototype concrete processes. The term “concrete,” in this theory, has been further specified by Lakoff and Johnson as more closely related to the developmental, physical neural, and interactive body. One manifestation of this view is found in the cognitive science of mathematics, where it is proposed that mathematics itself, the most widely accepted means of abstraction in the human community, is largely metaphorically constructed, and thereby reflects a cognitive bias unique to humans that uses embodied prototypical processes (e.g. counting, moving along a path) that are understood by all human beings through their experiences.

Lakoff, Chomsky, and Jacobs all devote a significant amount of time to current events and political theory, suggesting that respected linguists and theorists of conceptual metaphor may tend to channel their theories into political activism. Indeed, if conceptual metaphors are as basic as Lakoff argues, they may literally have no choice in doing so.

Critics of this ethics-driven approach to language tend to accept that idioms reflect underlying conceptual metaphors, but that actual grammar, and the more basic cross-cultural concepts of scientific method and mathematical practice tend to minimize the impact of metaphors. Such critics tend to see Lakoff and Chomsky and Jacobs as “left-wing figures”, and would not accept their politics as any kind of crusade against an ontology embedded in language and culture, but rather, as an idiosyncratic pastime, not part of the science of linguistics nor of much use. And others further, such as Deleuze and Guattari, Michel Foucault and, more recently, Manuel de Landa would criticize both of these two positions for mutually constituting the same old ontological ideology that would try to separate two parts of a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts.

Lakoff's 1987 work, “Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things”, answered some of these criticisms before they were even made: he explores the effects of cognitive metaphors (both culturally specific and human-universal) on the grammar per se of several languages, and the evidence of the limitations of the classical logical-positivist or Anglo-American School philosophical concept of the category usually used to explain or describe the scientific method [4], p.80. Lakoff's reliance on empirical scientific evidence, i.e. specifically falsifiable predictions, in the 1987 work and in Philosophy in the Flesh (1999) suggests that the cognitive-metaphor position has no objections to the scientific method, but instead considers the scientific method a finely developed reasoning system used to discover phenomena which are subsequently understood in terms of new conceptual metaphors (such as the metaphor of fluid motion for conducted electricity, which is described in terms of “current” “flowing” against “impedance,” or the gravitational metaphor for static-electric phenomena, or the “planetary orbit” model of the atomic nucleus and electrons, as used by Niels Bohr).

As to the difference between live and dead metaphor it means that dead metaphor is just an ordinary part of our literal vocabulary and quite properly not regarded as metaphor at all. There is an intermediate category which can be called `dormant' metaphor, which consists of expressions which we use without being conscious of their metaphorical character, but if we attend to them we can see at once that they unmistakable metaphors. These are metaphors in the process of expiring. Dormant metaphors can be found lurking in virtually every interesting sentence.

Live metaphor is metaphor which we are conscious of interpreting. `Richard is a gorilla' obviously cannot be taken at its literal face value. Metaphors like this have to be attended to and decoded. There is a fuzzy boundary between dormant and dead metaphor. Whereas dead metaphors are not recognisable as metaphor at all, dormant metaphors are expressions used unselfconsciously as part of our literal vocabulary, although when we take note of them it is evident at once that they cannot be straightforwardly literal. Metaphors which suffer the abuse of overuse, such as `the bottom line', `level playing field' degenerate into cliché, which is one process by which a living metaphor can expire.

Dormant metaphor can often be revived easily enough. One notorious way in which their metaphorical character can be resuscitated is when they are used in conjunction with other metaphors, producing mixed metaphor. The conjunction of disparate metaphors is curiously prevalent in political rhetoric, as in the examples (recorded in Fowler, 1965) “we will not be stampeded into stagnation”, or “the honourable member is leading us over the precipice with his head in the sand”. These lamentable examples of mixed metaphor produce a disconcerting effect. They are juxtapositions of ideas which might have been descriptively effective used separately but in conjunction produce an ugly result. Mixed metaphor is in general to be eschewed on aesthetic grounds. It generates distracting images or ideas which subvert discourse instead of facilitating it. But an inappropriate sense can be activated by literal contexts as well as by other metaphors, as in former US President Gerald Ford's immortal observation: “Solar technology cannot be introduced overnight”.

The category of metaphor can be further considered to contain the following specialized subsets, represented in the table 1.4.

Table 1.4. Metaphor Categorization

Metaphor's importance

The importance of metaphor is an interesting problem. One of the best (but nor quite serious) illustrations of the seriousness and importance of metaphor can be found in the myth of Oedipus. As part of the myth, Oedipus arrives in Thebes where hi finds that a monster, called the Sphinx, is guarding the road to the city. She poses riddles to everyone on their way to Thebes and devours them if they are unable to solve the riddles. So far, everyone had been devoured when Oedipus arrives. The Sphinx asks him the riddle: Which is the animal that has four feet in the morning, two at midday and three in the evening? Without hesitation Oedipus answers: Man, who in infancy crawls on all fours, who walks upright in maturity, and in his old age supports himself with a stick. The Sphinx is defeated and kills herself. Oedipus thus becomes the king of Thebes. Only having some knowledge about conceptual metaphor Oedipus could solve this riddle. There appear to be two metaphors operative in figuring out the riddle. The first is a metaphor that the life of human beings is a day. Oedipus must have been helped by the correspondences that obtain between the target concept of life and the source domain of day. Morning corresponds to infancy, midday to mature adulthood, and evening to old age. Since he knew these mappings, he offered the correct solution. Another, and maybe less important metaphor that may have played a part as human life is a journey. This metaphor is evoked by the frequent mention and thus the important role of feet in the riddle. Feet evoke the concept of journey that may provide a clue to the successful solution of the riddle through the “human life is a journey” metaphor. This reading is reinforced by the fact that much of the myth is a tale of Oedipus's life in the form of a journey.

All in all, Oedipus's life, at least on this occasion, is saved in part by his knowledge of metaphor. That is an important reason and motivation for finding out about metaphors because life always gives us a lot of riddles in different forms.

1.2 Metaphor use in different scopes

From ancient times till nowadays metaphor is one of the most sufficient figures of speech which are used by people to express their opinion specifically. Metaphors do attract the attention of the audience or readers. Metaphor is something unusual that makes people think about its objects. That is why metaphors are used in different parts of life, art, science and so on. Metaphors in politics are interesting; some of such metaphors used in English speaking countries represented in the table 1.5.

Table 1.5. Examples of English politic metaphors

Metaphors in literature and language

Metaphor is for most people device of the poetic imagination and the rhetorical matter of extraordinary rather than ordinary language. Moreover, metaphor is typically viewed as characteristic of language alone, a matter of words rather than thought or action. For this reason, most people think they can get along perfectly well without metaphor. But George Lakoff and Mark Johnson in their work “Metaphors we live by” [1], p.68, found out, on the contrary, that metaphor is pervasive in everyday life, not just in language but in thought and action. Our ordinary conceptual system, in terms of which we both think and act, is fundamentally metaphorical in nature.

The concepts that govern our thought are not just matters of the intellect. They also govern our everyday functioning, down to the most mundane details. Our concepts structure what we perceive, how we get around in the world, and how we relate to other people. Our conceptual system thus plays a central role in defining our everyday realities. If we are right in suggesting that our conceptual system is largely metaphorical, then the way we thinks what we experience, and what we do every day is very much a matter of metaphor.

But our conceptual system is not something we are normally aware of in most of the little things we do every day, we simply think and act more or less automatically along certain lines. Just what these lines are is by no means obvious. One way to find out is by looking at language. Since communication is based on the same conceptual system that we use in thinking and acting, language is an important source of evidence for what that system is like.

Primarily on the basis of linguistic evidence, we have found that most of our ordinary conceptual system is metaphorical in nature. And we have found a way to begin to identify in detail just what the metaphors are halt structure how we perceive, how we think, and what we do.

To give some idea of what it could mean for a concept to be metaphorical and for such a concept to structure an everyday activity, we can start with the concept argument and the conceptual metaphor “argument is war”. This metaphor is reflected in our everyday language by a wide variety of expressions (table 1.6).

It is important to see that we don't just talk about arguments in terms of war. We can actually win or lose arguments. We see the person we are arguing with as an opponent. We attack his positions and we defend our own. We gain and lose ground. We plan and use strategies. If we find a position indefensible, we can abandon it and take a new line of attack. Many of the things we do in arguing are partially structured by the concept of war. Though there is no physical battle, there is a verbal battle, and the structure of an argument reflects this. It is in this sense that the “argument is war” metaphor is one that we live by in this culture; its structures the actions we perform in arguing.

Table 1.6. “Argument is war” metaphors

This is an example of what it means for a metaphorical concept, namely, “argument is war”, to structure (at least in part) what we do and how we understand what we are doing when we argue. The essence of metaphor is understanding and experiencing one kind of thing in terms of another. It is not that arguments are a subspecies of war. Arguments and wars are different kinds of things (verbal discourse and armed conflict) and the actions performed are different kinds of actions. But argument is partially structured, understood, performed, and talked about in terms of war. The concept is metaphorically structured, the activity is metaphorically structured, and, consequently, the language is metaphorically structured.

Moreover, this is the ordinary way of having an argument and talking about one. The normal way for us to talk about attacking a position is to use the words “attack a position.” The metaphors not merely in the words we use, they exist in our concept of an argument. The language of argument is not poetic, fanciful, or rhetorical; it is literal. We talk about arguments that way because we conceive of them that way and we act according to the way we conceive of things.

So, metaphor is not just a matter of language, that is, of mere words. We can see that human thought processes are largely metaphorical. This is what we mean when we say that the human conceptual system is metaphorically structured and defined. Metaphors as linguistic expressions are possible precisely because there are metaphors in a person's conceptual system.

According to Lakoff and Johnson arguments usually follow patterns; that is, there are certain things we typically do and do not do in arguing. The fact that we in part conceptualize arguments in terms of battle systematically influences the shape argument stake and the way we talk about what we do in arguing. Because the metaphorical concept is systematic, the language we use to talk about that aspect of the concept is systematic.

We saw in the “argument is war” metaphor that expressions from the vocabulary of war, e.g., attack a position, indefensible, strategy, new line of attack, win, gain ground, etc., form a systematic way of talking about the battling aspects of arguing. It is no accident that these expressions mean what they mean when we use them to talk about arguments. A portion of the conceptual network of battle partially characterizes file concept of an argument, and the language follows suit. Since metaphorical expressions in our language are tied to metaphorical concepts in a systematic way, we can use metaphorical linguistic expressions to study the nature of metaphorical concepts and to gain an understanding of the metaphorical nature of our activities.

To see the metaphorical nature in our mind and everyday life, we can consider the metaphorical concept “time is money” as it is reflected in contemporary English (table 1.7).

Time in English culture is a valuable commodity. It is a limited resource that they use to accomplish goals. Because of the way that the concept of work has developed in modern Western culture, where work is typically associated with the time it takes and time is precisely quantified, it has become customary to pay people by the hour, week, or year. In English culture “time is money” is present in many ways: telephone message units, hourly wages, hotel room rates, yearly budgets, interest on loans, and paying your debt to society by “serving time.” These practices are relatively new in the history of the human race, and by no means do they exist in all cultures. They have arisen in modern industrialized societies and structure our basic everyday activities in a very profound way.

Table 1.7. “Time is money” metaphors

“Time is money”, “time is a limited resource” and “time is a valuable commodity” are all metaphorical concepts. They are metaphorical since we are using our everyday experiences with money, limited resources, and valuable commodities to conceptualize time. This isn't a necessary way for human beings to conceptualize time; it is tied to culture.