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

In contrast, two leading theorists emphasize the fact that truth conditions cannot be specified for a metaphor. Max Black maintains that metaphors are too open-ended to be able to function as referring expressions, and so cannot be expressions which have truth conditions (Models and Metaphors, Black, 1962). If metaphors are used in contexts where precise terminology is expected, for example, in a scientific theory, then their role, Black argues, is purely heuristic, that is, they are means to an end or ways of assisting understanding, rather than being terms which can be tested for truth or falsity (Black) [12], p.37. Donald Davidson also thinks it is a mistake to look for the truth conditions of a metaphor, since, in his words, “much of what we are caused to notice [in a metaphor] is not propositional in character”, that is to say, metaphor is a prompt to thought which cannot be reduced to or contained by a series of truth conditions [13], p.263. What metaphor does, Davidson maintains, is make us see one thing as something else by “making literal statement that inspires or prompts the insight”. Seeing one thing as something else is not the recognition of some truth or fact, and so “the attempt to give literal expression to the content of the metaphor is simply misguided” [13], p.263.

The idea that metaphor actually creates insight or new meaning is developed by Black. His interactionist theory asserts that at the heart of a metaphor is the interaction between its two subject terms, where the interaction provides the condition for a meaning which neither of the subject terms possesses independently of the metaphorical context. The primary subject (grammar) in a metaphor, he claims, is coloured by a set of `associated implications' normally predicated of the secondary subject [12], p.28. From the number of possible meanings which could result, the primary subject sieves the qualities predicable of the secondary subject, letting through only those that fit. The interaction, as a process, brings into being what Black terms an `implication-complex', a system of associated implications shared by the linguistic community as well as an impulse of free meaning, free in that it is meaning which was unavailable prior to the metaphor's introduction.

Metaphor theories

According to Paul Edwards' article on metaphor we can distinguish four different theories of metaphor. They are: the emotive theory, the comparison theory, the iconic signification theory, and the verbal opposition theory. The theories are briefly reviewed in the table 1.9.

Table 1.9. Metaphor theories

The emotive theory is based on the fact that metaphors, in virtue of their deviant meaning, cannot be verified. From Aristotle's definition of metaphor we find out that a metaphor is “the application to a thing of a name that belongs to something else”. This ambiguity inherent in metaphor implies that metaphorical constructions are not capable of verification and therefore, they do not bear any cognitive meaning at all. For example, if we have the following two linguistic constructions: “Time is an uncle” and “Time is, of all modes of existence, most obsequious to the imagination” (Samuel Johnson), we can see that the first one is not a metaphor since there is no powerful emotive meaning attached to it. This is not the case with the second example which is where the emotive theory of metaphor stops. It does not say anything about what a metaphor is in itself. For example, the perception of time bowing to imagination, can rouse a certain emotion in ourselves on the basis of a tension between the perception of time and that of imagination. It also tells us that we can elude time by making use of our imagination, whereas seeing time as an uncle does nothing of the sort. Thus, there is knowledge to be gained through metaphor. This is what the representatives of the emotive theory overlooked, which is that metaphors have a cognitive side. They differ from nonsense constructions because they are bearers of cognitive meaning. The emotive theory of metaphor, thus fails to provide a good basis for explaining individual metaphors. Emotions alone are not sufficient in this attempt.

The comparison theory of metaphor is the opposite of the one above. It emphasizes the intelligibility of metaphor to the detriment of its emotional tension. Basically, in this view, metaphor does not differ very much from a simile. The only difference lies in dropping the use of words such “as” or “like” in metaphors. Thus, the metaphor “love is a red rose” can be rewritten: “love is like a red rose” and therefore, through the metaphor we compare two terms (“love” and the “red rose”). By doing this we are able to know something about “love”, i.e., that it has some feature in common with the “red rose”.

Usually the comparison theory of metaphor is associated with object comparison which means that metaphor focuses on comparing objects. This implies that the connotations of the words used in metaphor derive from “what is generally true of the objects”. Now there are new difficulties that arise with this new theory which Beardsley quickly points out in the essay. For example, Beardsley cites from T.S. Eliot's Four Quartets: “frigid purgatorial fires / Of which the flame is roses, and the smoke is briars” [24], p.74. Beardsley considers that: some of the important marginal meanings of `briars' in the Eliot poem comes, of course, from the way the crown of thorns figures in the Christian story. And quite apart from its historical truth, the existence of that religion is sufficient to give the word that meaning. If in explicating this line we limit ourselves to what we know about briars, we would not fully understand it.

We should have particular knowledge of the world in order to understand it. Not knowing what the connotation of the word “briars” is as it is used in this particular context, makes it impossible to grasp the metaphor. These then are the flaws of the comparison theory. Just by comparing terms or objects even though sometimes we can arrive at something that is meaningful, that can be understood, we are not necessarily producing metaphors. It leaves aside any tensional element and any emotional component as well.

Out of the comparison theory grew the iconic signification theory which regards metaphor as involving a double semantic relationship. First, the modifier, which Beardsley defines as “the metaphorical predicate or term, whether noun or adjective”, leads us to a specific occurrence or situation. Then, this occurrence or situation is brought forth as an iconic sign of the subject. An iconic sign should be understood as a sign capable of signifying through its similarities to what it signifies. “The meaning of the metaphor”, Beardsley explains, “is obtained by reading off the properties thus iconically attributed” [285], p.74. For example, when saying that “Time is a river”, the word “river” is used here so that it functions as an iconic sign for time, thus conferring on us an insight into the nature of time, namely that it is directed one-dimensionally, that it cannot be reversed, etc.

The failing here, Beardsley thinks, is that the iconic theory imports a foreign object of a certain kind and thus it is subject to the difficulties arising with regard to what object works best in order to bring forth the full meaning of the metaphor. Moreover, the iconic signification theory, because it is based on the object comparison theory, allows for swaps between the modifier and the modified subject. Thus, in the example above “Time is a river”, we can inverse the metaphor and say “The river is time”. The only difference, Paul Henle, an exponent of the iconic signification theory, thinks is that sometimes, “the feeling tone is different”. Beardsley objects: “I don't believe this will do: the difference between `this man is a lion' and `this lion is a man' is in what the different metaphorical modifiers attribute to the subjects” [24], p.78. The examples above are not comparable to each other since in calling men lions and lions men we are not attributing the same properties from one to the other. The properties of lions that we attribute to men are different from the properties of men that we attribute to lions and therefore, the metaphor cannot be inverted.

The iconic signification theory of metaphor presents us with a refinement of the comparison theory in that it brings in a tensive moment created by putting together remote ideas. “Time” and “river”, in the example above, are two remote ideas which are metaphorically connected. However, there is not enough place for a well defined emotive component since there is a difference in the “feeling tone”, as Henle considers, when a metaphor is inverted. This difference however, does not take us too far because, in Henle's view, we would be dealing with the same metaphor: “this man is a lion” and “this lion is a man” are basically expressions of the same metaphor, even though there might be a slight difference in the “feeling tone”.

The fourth theory, the verbal opposition theory of metaphor, brings together words or phrases whose central meanings collide. They enter into a logical conflict and this is an indication of a necessary shift, a shift from the central meaning to the marginal meaning. Beardsley's view of metaphor with regard to this theory is that in many common words and phrases we can roughly distinguish two sorts of meaning: the central meaning (designation or connotation, that may be recorded in a dictionary as standard); and the marginal meaning, consisting of those properties that the word suggests or connotes. This theory thus rests upon a distinction between two levels of meaning, and the principle that metaphor involves essentially a logical conflict of central meanings.

This conflict is what alerts us to the fact that the word or phrase has to be taken metaphorically. This approach to metaphor, however, does not allow for words to acquire new meanings because words come into play with a series of meanings which are either central or marginal and as a result of the logical opposition we pick from the “repertoire of marginal meanings (and from the non-conflicting part of the central meaning) those properties that can sensibly be attributed to the subject-thing, and so read the metaphor as making that attribution” [24], p.286. Metaphor, Beardsley considers, brings into play some properties of the words or phrases used in its structure that were not previously in the foreground of the meaning. Thus, at first, a word has a definite set of properties that make up the intension of that word. Then, other properties are brought forth inasmuch as they could, potentially, become part of that word's intension. Then, when that word is used metaphorically, the property actually becomes part of the word's intension and therefore a new meaning is created.

To illustrate how this works we can borrow Beardsley's example. He writes that the word `warm' was extrapolated from the area of sensory experience and employed in describing human personality:

“I should think that the first application of `warm' to a person had to change some accidental properties of warm things into part of a new meaning of the word, though now we easily think of these properties as connotations of `warm' - for example, approachable, pleasurable-in-acquaintance, inviting. These qualities were part of the range of connotations of `warm' even before they were noted in warm things, which may not have been until they were noted in people and until someone, casting about for a word that would metaphorically describe those people, hit upon the word `warm' But before those qualities could come to belong to the staple connotation of `warm', it had to be discovered that they could be meant by the word when used in an appropriate metaphor.” [24], p.85

Thus, in order to understand the metaphor “she is a warm person”, one has to think of properties of the word “warm” such as inviting, approachable, etc., which initially were not among the connotations of this particular word. Through metaphorical use, the word expanded its range of meanings and became fuller.

Now, the verbal opposition theory of metaphor, even though it does not include an emotive component, seems to be a very elaborate approach to the study of metaphor allowing for metaphor to augment the use of words in a language, allowing for new meanings to occur, allowing for surprising ideas to emerge from the juxtaposition of words. Two exponents of this view are Colin Turbayne and Philip Wheelwright, both stressing the importance of metaphor in bringing forth new meanings for words or phrases.

2. ANALYTICAL PART. CHARACHTERISTICS OF METAPHOR ANALYSIS (USING EXAMPLES OF LITERARY WORKS).

2.1 Ways of metaphor identification and analysis

First, we should examine the fundamental metaphorical essence. From the Greek word `metaphora' meaning `transference', a metaphor has generally been understood as a figurative expression which interprets a thing or action through an implied comparison with something else. Aristotle, who is usually considered the originator of `comparison' theories of metaphor, described metaphors in the Rhetoric as elliptical similes - comparisons of `things that are related but not obviously so' without using `like' or `as'. According to Aristotle, the best or `most well liked' type of metaphor transfers its meaning from one subject or `register' to another through the principle of analogy. As Aristotle observes in the Poetics, these metaphors often depend on logical relationships between multiple terms. The metaphor `old age is the evening of life', for instance, relies on the relation between a set of terms describing day and another set describing age.

Aristotelian approaches to metaphor remained largely unchallenged until 1936, when I.A. Richards offered what philosopher Max Black has termed an `interaction' view of metaphor [10], p.59. Critiquing both Aristotle's notion of metaphor as special or ornamental use of language, and his assumption that metaphor involves the mere substitution of one term for another, Richards claimed that metaphor relies on a complex interaction of thoughts, rather than a process of linguistic substitutions. To explain how a metaphor functions as a `double unit', Richards introduced the terms `tenor' and `vehicle', which refer to the `principal subject' and the name of the figurative term itself, respectively. (In the metaphor `Juliet is the sun', for example, `Juliet' would be the tenor and `sun' the vehicle.) Richards' theory of metaphor as the product of an interaction between vehicle and tenor was later refined by Max Black in his book, Models and Metaphors [12], p.37. In this volume, Black suggested that a metaphor acts as a `filter' in which two or more subjects interact according to a `system of associated commonplaces' (a shared set of cultural responses) to produce new meanings for the entire phrase or sentence. In the metaphor `Tom is a fox', then, not only is `Tom' viewed in terms of cultural associations of foxes as sly creatures, but `fox' is also reinterpreted through its juxtaposition with a human male.

In the late 1970s, John Searle rejected both interaction and comparison theories of metaphor, and offered an understanding of metaphor based on the `speaker's utterance meaning'. In Expression and Meaning, his 1979 study of speech act theory, Searle criticized earlier approaches to metaphor on the grounds that they tried to locate the meaning of metaphors in the sentences or metaphorical expressions themselves [15], p.158. Instead, Searle suggested, we must examine the slippage between the speaker's meaning and the sentence or word meaning. In other words, metaphorical utterances work not because a certain juxtaposition of words produces a change in the meaning of the lexical elements but because the speaker's meaning differs from their literal usage. Thus phrases like `It's getting hot in here' or `Sally is a block of ice' function as metaphors only in certain contexts with specific truth conditions: there is no single principle according to which metaphors operate.

Despite divergent theories of the ways in which metaphors operate, twentieth-century approaches have almost uniformly attempted to broaden traditional conceptions of metaphor as special use of language, offering an understanding of metaphor as a fundamental cognitive process or structure. In short, metaphor came to be seen as `the omnipresent principle of language' (Richards), as a basic pattern of organizing and concertizing experience. No longer simply the domain of rhetoric or literary studies, metaphor has, over the past three decades, become a central topic of debate for fields like psychology, linguistics, philosophy, and the cultural studies of science.

The question of how we identify the metaphor has never been adequately treated, in part, because writers have not correctly identified the unit of discourse that constitutes a metaphor. Language can only be identified as metaphorical by virtue of linguistic and contextual conditions that require that we interpret it differently from its surrounding discourse; therefore we cannot give the conditions by which we recognize metaphors without identifying that unit of discourse which constitutes a metaphor. We know that metaphors need not to be a full sentence - it may be a phrase. Nor is a sentence always sufficient to distinguish a metaphorical from a literal use of term.

Some people may claim that the fact that metaphors are identifiable neither as single words (which would thus have meanings in some way similar to or analogous to word meaning) nor as sentences (which would thus have meanings by virtue of rules concatenating single words into sentences) constitutes an argument against a semantics of metaphor. But developing criteria for identifying metaphors the value of treating metaphor semantically as well as pragmatically will become evident. We should use a distinction that cuts across the semantic-pragmatic divide and is more useful in delineating metaphor - a distinction between a first-order meaning and a second-order meaning.

The first-order meaning is what we have in mind when we ask about the meaning of the word “rock” in the sentence: “the rock is becoming brittle with age”. A second-order meaning is obtained when features of the utterance and its context indicate to the hearer or reader that the first-order meaning of the expression is either unavailable or inappropriate. In our example the first-order meaning of the word “rock” is a naturally occurring solid material matter, and the first-order meaning of the sentence is a comment of the brittle quality of such matter given the passage of time. Here we uttered in the absence of any talk about geology or rocks, but in the context we could reasonably assume that any meaning the sentence might have would not be a first-order meaning. Instead we could assume that the professor was being spoken of a rock which was becoming brittle - that is the first-order interpretation while not the appropriate meaning in the context would none the less be pertinent to the meaning intended. The distinction as put forward here is necessarily rough; it will be refined as we develop the required technical apparatus and conceptual precision.

We know that many sentences have multiple meanings. For instance: “Every woman loves some man” has two literal meanings: (1) there is some man M such that, for every woman W, W loves M; or (2) for every woman W there is some man M such that W loves M. Some phrases have both literal and metaphorical meanings. Some phrases (or sentences) have multiple metaphorical meanings, e.g. three meanings of the phrase “Her lips are cherries”, represented in the table 2.1.

Table 2.1. Three meanings of “Her lips are cherries”

To determine the concrete (literal or metaphoric) meaning of the phrase we should use the context. To see that context matters we can consider these three ways contexts fix the truth-values for the expression “Her lips are cherries”, represented in the table 2.2.

Table 2.2. Three contexts of “Her lips are cherries”

The three meanings of the expression “Her lips are cherries” are distinct because they distinctly correlate circumstances (contexts or situations) with truth-values. The literal meaning of “Her lips are cherries” involves only her lips and cherries. But the metaphorical meanings of “Her lips are cherries” involve many additional terms in the contexts of which they are true. For instance: the first metaphorical meaning involves some man, an act of kissing, an act of eating, and two different pleasures of the same kind; the second metaphorical meaning involves cannibals, feats, culinary arts, and the role of garnishing. These additional items are inferred from the discourse context in which the metaphor is uttered or from some larger text in which the metaphor occurs. The discourse context itself can be described by some larger text in which the metaphor occurs. The unit of metaphorical discourse is almost always some large text that describes some situation about which the metaphor is uttered. Metaphors are almost never isolated sentences or phrases and that is why we always should use contexts (or situations) to identify and analyze the metaphoric sense of word expression.

As an example we can also consider the short text from Shakespeare's “Romeo and Juliet”, Act II, Scene II (Shakespeare, 1974, p.751):

“(Juliet appears above at a window) ROMEO: But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks? It is the east and Juliet is the sun! Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon”.

The metaphorical analysis is represented in the table 2.3.

Table 2.3. The metaphorical analysis of the metaphor “Juliet is the sun”

The text lays out two correspondences: the window is the east, Juliet is the sun; it suggests another: the moon is something too. The text specifies an analogy: Juliet is to the window as the sun is to the east; just as the sun appears in the east, so also Juliet appears in the window.

The metaphor “Juliet is the sun” means that Juliet at her window is the counterpart of the sun in the east. The word expression “Juliet is the sun” is true if and only if the sun is appearing in the east and it is compared with Juliet appearing at her window.

We can also consider another example of metaphor identification and analysis using the expression “Sally is a block of ice” [15], p.173. One analysis says that “Sally is a block of ice” means that Sally metaphorically has the property of being cold while a block of ice literally has the property of being cold. Another one gives us the idea that “Sally is a block of ice” means that the feelings aroused in the emotional sensory system by social contact with Sally are analogous to the feelings aroused in the thermal sensory system by tactile contact with a block of ice. Sally and the block of ice are counterparts in a pair of fairly complex situations that share relational structure. The analogy is illustrated in the table 2.4.

Table 2.4. The metaphorical analysis of the metaphor “Sally is a block of ice”

2.2 Metaphor analysis implemented using the example of novels Jane Eyre and The Old Man and the Sea.

Metaphor analysis of the novel Jane Eyre

The novel Jane Eyre contains several different moments which can be considered as metaphorical figures. They include such words and expressions that mean (or are intended to mean) other objects and are used to describe these metaphorical objects other than direct meaning of the word. To find that metaphorical meaning we should conduct the metaphor analysis. There are no approved and affirmed ways of carrying out that analysis, we even can not practically find approved ways of identifying the metaphors in texts, but it is assumed that we can use our knowledge and approaches of different linguists to conduct such analysis. Several methods can be used in this case. They include “the table of meanings” and “the metaphorical chain”.

First, we can find some word or an expression in considered novel that give us the reasons to think it is a metaphor. For example, in the novel Jane Eyre we can see that “The Moon” is used in different contexts but it seems that it has some implication. In this case we can draw up table of meanings specified above, that should include different meanings of the word and circumstances of its use in the novel (table 2.5).

Table 2.5. Metaphor analysis of the word “moon” used in the novel Jane Eyre

After conducting the table above we can fully understand the sense of using the word “moon” in the novel Jane Eyre as a specified metaphor for change, taking a new direction. Then we should say that throughout the novel Jane Eyre of Charlotte Bronte we can find a lot of metaphorical describing or the relationship between human beings and nature. Several natural themes run through the novel, one of which is the image of a stormy sea. After Jane saves Rochester's life, she gives us the following metaphor of their relationship: “Till morning dawned I was tossed on a buoyant but unquiet sea… I thought sometimes I saw beyond its wild waters a shore... now and then a freshening gale, wakened by hope, bore my spirit triumphantly towards the bourne: but . . . a counteracting breeze blew off land, and continually drove me back” [9], p.159.

The gale is all the forces that prevent Jane's union with Rochester. Bronte implies that Jane's feelings about the sea driving her back remind her of her heart felt emotions of a rocky relationship with Rochester and still being drawn back to him. We could also remember about birds and their meaning in the novel. Jane believes that birds are faithful to their mates. It is neither kind nor unkind, just nor unjust. Perhaps Bronte is telling us that this idea of escape is no more than a fantasy-one cannot escape when one must return for basic sustenance. The author brings the buoyant sea theme and the bird theme together in the passage describing the first painting of Jane's that Rochester examines.

Besides, we can also see that the concept of nature in Jane Eyre is reminiscent of the majority's view of the world: the instantiation of God, such general metaphor. John is filled with the same dispassionate caring that God's nature provided Jane in the heath: he will provide, a little, but he doesn't really care for her. John is more human than God, and thus he and his sisters are able to help Jane.

Other semantic metaphors in the novel include “food”, that is used throughout the novel to represent want. One example of this is when Jane is at Lowood School. Here the food is scant, and elder girls often take it from Jane in the beginning. Examples such as the burnt porridge are given. However, the hunger Jane feels is not just a physical desire for food, but for personal growth as well. When she is accepted at the school and begins to accomplish things for herself in drawing class, she is no longer focuses on her hunger, as it has been fulfilled by her own achievements. She says:

“That night, on going to bed, I forgot to prepare in imagination the Barmecide supper, of hot roast potatoes, or white bread and new milk, with which I was wont to amuse my inward cravings. I feasted instead on the spectacle of ideal drawings, which I saw in the dark - all the work of my own hands.” [9], p.178

A similar case can be seen in Jane's hunger before she is welcomed to Moor House. She has not eaten much, has had to beg for food, and is physically weak from hunger. She is not only hungry for food however, and when she arrives at the house and is welcomed there, Jane is more satisfied with the friendship she finds than the food she is offered. She had been hungry for companionship, and she finds it with Diana and Mary. So the analysis of the words “hunger”, “food” gives us a general idea that this objects are used in the novel to describe not only hunger of Jane for food, but hunger in general, for food, for occupation, for company.