What’s in a metaphor?

Winston Churchill once said, “From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an iron curtain has descended across the Continent.” His words, "iron curtain," gave us our name for the Soviet block. Wouldn't it be great if we too could shape how people think of things? An excellent way is to use a metaphor, as Churchill did.

We use metaphors to make the abstract seem concrete; the vague seem clear; the unknown seem familiar; the dull seem vivid; and the speaker seem charismatic. This last part is not just speculation. There was a study of American Presidents that found that those considered most charismatic were those who used the most metaphors in their speeches.

In this and subsequent e-zines, I'll tell you how to find powerful metaphors for your own writing and speaking. Due to space limitations, I'll only introduce the process here.

A metaphor is a non-literal use of language. A metaphor says that one thing is another, quite different sort of thing. To be a metaphor, it must literally not be true. So how do metaphors work?

Metaphors give a human dimension to things not on a human scale and to give concrete imagery to abstract ideas. Metaphors help us to feel that we understand those things, to feel that we can reason about them, to feel comfortable with them.

For example, when Hamlet was contemplating suicide, he needed to reason about death, but who understands death? So Hamlet had to use a metaphor:

To die, to sleep;
to sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;
for in that sleep of death what dreams may come...

He equated death to sleep, with which we have experience, but that gave him pause. Might death perhaps not be end?"

Are these metaphors?

A ROBIN IS A BIRD
No, this is just simple classification. It is literally true.

SHE IS A STAR
At one time this was a metaphor, but it has passed into literal usage. The word "star" now has a definition covering fame or accomplishment.

SHE IS A SUPERNOVA
This breaths new life back into the metaphor "SHE IS A STAR": sudden appearance, high visibility.

SHE IS A BLACK HOLE
I've known people like that, absorbing all the attention given them and giving nothing back.

SHE IS AN ELECTRON
Huh? What's that supposed to mean? That she has jumped from one boyfriend to another, like an electron from sodium to chlorine in salt, but that she still drags along the old boyfriend as if by electrostatic attraction? Or that she shares boyfriends like a covalent bond? No, this is just too obscure. There doesn't seem to be enough in common to even try to use this as a metaphor. Besides, it is opposite to the spirit of metaphors. It tries to describe something familiar, humans, with something obscure to most people, atomic physics.

There are three components of a metaphor, often called by the strange names: tenor, vehicle, and ground. The tenor is the thing you are trying to make clear or vivid, the thing you are describing with the metaphor, the thing you are equating to the very different kind of thing.

The vehicle is the "different kind of thing" to which you are equating the tenor. The vehicle is the word being used non-literally. Since the metaphor equates the tenor to the vehicle, the hearer will mentally replace the tenor by the vehicle. This is unlike a simile, where they are only compared, and hence both are mentally present.

The ground is something they have in common. You need the ground to avoid the "huh" reaction to the metaphor, as when we tried to say "SHE IS AN ELECTRON."

How can you remember these terms? Imagine the tenor is Luciano Pavarotti, the vehicle is a Mack truck, and the ground is a dirt road that they both are on. HONK! SPLAT! The tenor is no longer visible. You only see the vehicle.

How do you find a metaphor? You need the metaphor to have all three parts: the tenor, the ground, and the vehicle. You can start with any one or two and find the others. Usually you start with the tenor. Next e-zine, we will discuss the process of finding metaphors in more detail.

The "Big Questions"

The big questions can only addressed metaphorically. Take for example, "What is Reality?" The best answer I have encountered is given by a metaphor:

It's like a conversation. At any time you have some idea of the other you are talking to, and although you can always be surprised, the longer you've been conversing, the better idea you get about the other. Reality is The Ultimate Other.

Alexis de Tocqueville wrote that Americans do not hold conversations: they hold monologues in each other's presence. That may explain a lot about how out of touch with reality we sometimes seem.

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