Metaphors are the stuff of which great writing is made. Let's say you are writing about the object of your affection. To you, he or she is the loveliest person you have ever encountered. But how do you describe this so that the reader is also touched by the beauty that inspires you?
You could say, "Well, he is about six feet tall and has blonde hair and blue eyes." But this is not poetry. It is prose. What's more, it's not interesting-it doesn't describe the feelings roused in you by this person. There are countless people in the world who are six feet tall with blonde hair and blue eyes.
This is where metaphor comes in. A metaphor is a comparison between one object and another. You take the unfamiliar, a subject that the reader has never encountered, and illuminate it using the familiar. A metaphor can also set the tone. According to Jacob Drachler and Virginia Terris in their book "Many Worlds of Poetry, tone in poetry comprises "the attitudes of the poet toward his subject and toward his audience, as they can be inferred from the poem." Does this person have a pure and inspiring kind of beauty, or is it a hypnotic kind of beauty, drawing you into an ultimately malevolent obsession?
A simile is a metaphor that uses comparative words such as like or as. Let's try out some similes showcasing two different tones or attitudes toward a handsome blonde man:
"You are like gold, like a blonde tapestry spun from the sun."
"You are like gold stolen from a king's treasury, the kind that carries a fatal curse."
These are both interesting metaphors, creating pictures for the reader. No one has seen the writer's sweetheart, but we have all seen something made of gold, a tapestry and the sun. Thus, the metaphor denotes a shining, rare and regal kind of beauty. We have also all seen pictures of the riches of an ancient tomb, and heard tales of curses being put on such objects. Your metaphor might be even stronger, more daring, if you go ahead and remove the comparative words.
"You are golden, a blonde tapestry spun from the sun."
"You are gold stolen from a king's treasury, the kind that carries a fatal curse."
When you've hit this kind of territory, you are in the realm of imagination, using concrete but unexpected details to draw the reader in.
CLICHE-BUSTING
Many metaphors are part of our common lexicon. They've become pick-up lines, clichs, lines in pop songs.
An example of this would be: "Your eyes are like two deep pools.
Try to find another metaphor, or twist this one to become strange and new:
"Diving into your swimming pool eyes, I sting with your chlorine."
That metaphor is not only unexpected, it says something powerful. Swimming-pool eyes would certainly be lovely, but anyone who has stayed for too long in a swimming pool knows that prolonged exposure to chlorine can cause a discomfort that borders on pain.
Now, through this metaphor, we have expressed some ambivalence, a very interesting thing in writing. The human condition often includes mixed feelings: You are drawn to someone, and yet some aspect of this person's personality causes you pain.
Sylvia Plath was one of the unparalleled masters of imagery and metaphor. In her poem below, "Morning Song," note all of the ways the writer describes her feelings of wonder toward her newborn child:
"Morning Song"
Love set you going like a fat gold watch.
The midwife slapped your footsoles, and your bald cry
Took its place among the elements. -
Our voices echo, magnifying your arrival. New statue.
In a drafty museum, your nakedness
Shadows our safety. We stand round blankly as walls.
I'm no more your mother
Than the cloud that distills a mirror to reflect its own slow
Effacement at the wind's hand.
All night your moth-breath
Flickers among the flat pink roses. I wake to listen: A far sea moves in my ear.
One cry, and I stumble from bed, cow-heavy and floral
In my Victorian nightgown.
Your mouth opens clean as a cat's. The window square
Whitens and swallows its dull stars. And now you try
Your handful of notes;
The clear vowels rise like balloons.
Wow! Obviously the poem's narrator loves her new baby. Along with the expected affection, however, there lurks a touch of awe and even apprehension. Consider these words again: "New statue/In a drafty museum, your nakedness/Shadows our safety."
The drafty museum might be construed as the atmosphere of the home into which the child is born. Drafty museums may be exciting to look through, but they lack warmth and the comfort of human touch. The child's nakedness, his very purity, evokes a sentinal-like vigilance.
Both the descriptive metaphors (baby sounds and coos do rise like balloons!) and the hint of ambivalence toward parenthood ring true with new parents, making "Morning Song" one of the most textured and memorable poems about motherhood around.
Metaphors are not limited to poetry. You might use them throughout an essay to help clarify non-concrete concepts:
"To say with certainty there is no higher power in the universe is like finding a pie cooling on your window ledge and not wondering who baked it." (I don't remember who said this, but I know it wasn't me. I give anon full credit for this wonderful metaphor.)
You might use them in a short story or novel to add color and strength:
"The cheeks of the old woman were papery, like a Chinese fan presented as a favor long ago, and left in a drawer for many years."
(Remember, a little goes a long way. You don't want your metaphors to break up the flow of your narrative.)
Or, they may be very much the unifying factor in a story, a central metaphor that in one image contains the whole point of a story.
In Edgar Allen Poe's "Tale of the Telltale Heart," the beating heart that the murderer thinks belongs to his victim turns out to be his own fearful heart, symbolizing terrible and breathless guilt.
In Poe's "Masque of the Red Death," wealthy revelers sequester themselves off in a castle, away from commoners dying from the plague, and attempt to drive away thoughts of death by throwing a decadent masked ball. One mysterious guest has the temerity to show up in a mask that looks like the terrible bleeding death suffered by plague victims. He, of course, represents unavoidable mortality.
Besides all of the uses that we've discussed for metaphors, they can also be a lot of fun. You can flex your creative muscles and come up with images that you didn't even know you were capable of, and add interest and layers of deep meaning into your work. So, pick up your pencil, that tiny fallen tree with years of unspoken thoughts to communicate, and make a metaphor!