Figures of Speech Metaphor
A metaphor is a figure of speech that compares two seemingly unrelated things but share common characteristics. For example, saying “time is a thief” is a metaphor, comparing time to a thief. Like a thief, it is said that time can steal moments or opportunities. Metaphors often add vividness, depth, and layers of meaning to language by creating imaginative connections between different concepts or objects. (As/ Like ছাড়া সরাসরি তুলনা বোঝালেই, বুঝে নিতে হবে এটা Metaphor.)
Functions of Metaphors:
- Imagery Creation: Metaphors help create vivid mental images by comparing two seemingly unrelated things. They produce sensory experiences and make descriptions more dynamic and engaging.
- Emphasis and Intensity: Metaphors emphasize a point by drawing parallels between the familiar and the unfamiliar. They add depth and intensity to language, making ideas or emotions more impactful.
- Simplification and Clarification: Metaphors can simplify and clarify complex concepts or abstract ideas. By likening something abstract to something concrete, metaphors make it easier for audiences to grasp and understand.
- Affective Communication: Metaphors evoke emotions and feelings by connecting the audience with familiar experiences or sensations. They can convey sentiments more effectively than direct language, tapping into the audience’s emotions.
- Engagement and Creativity: Metaphors invite the audience to interpret and explore meanings beyond the literal sense.
Read More: Literary Term Play
Examples:
1. …were we not wean’d till then?
But suck’d on country pleasure, childishly?
Explanation: This is a metaphor. The words “wean’d” and “suck’d” are transferred from the baby to adult lovers. Adult lovers enjoy childish things like the baby. But here, the adult lovers are compared to the babies indirectly. The function of this metaphor is to present the capacity of the lovers to enjoy simple things more vividly and lively.
2. This world is an weeded garden
Explanation: This is a metaphor. Here, an indirect comparison is made between a world full of undesirable elements and a garden full of weeds. The function of this metaphor is to illustrate the meaning of the world more lively.
3. “Before high-pil’d books, in charact’ry
Hold like rich garners the full-ripened grain.“(Keats)
Explanation: This is a metaphor. Here writing poetry is implicitly compared to reaping and sowing. The function of this metaphor is to represent the emptiness of a life that is unfulfilled creatively.
4. She is all states, and all princes, I.” (The Sun Rising, John Donne)
Explanation: This is a metaphor. Here, the beloved is indirectly compared to all states and the lover to all princes. The function of this metaphor is to represent the connection between the poet and his beloved.
Read More: Literary Term Comedy
5. Life is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing. (Macbeth, Shakespeare)
Explanation: This is a metaphor. Here, life is indirectly compared to a tale that has no meaning. The function of this metaphor is to represent life and its nothingness.
Previous Years Questions and Solutions
NTRCA Exam-2005
1. A host, of golden daffodils (Daffodils, William Wordsworth)
Explanation: It is an example of a metaphor. The word “host” properly belongs to man, a person, but it is here transferred to “daffodils”. Here, daffodils are indirectly compared to a host. The function of this metaphor is to give a character of daffodils and bring them before the mind’s eye.
NTRCA Exam- 2008, 2018
1. Life is but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage.
And then is heard no more.
Explanation: This is a metaphor. Here, “life” is indirectly compared first to “a walking shadow” and then to “a pitiable actor”. The function of this metaphor is to illustrate the futility of life more lively.
NTRCA Exam-2008, 2018, 2019
1. Much have I travelled in the realms of gold
And many goodly states and kingdoms seen. (On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer, John Keats)
Explanation: This is a metaphor. Here, literature is indirectly compared to the realms of gold, countries, and kingdoms. The function of this metaphor is to illustrate the poet’s reading, which is like travelling in different countries, states, and kingdoms.
NTRCA Exam-2012
1. Failures are the pillars of success.
Explanation: This is a metaphor. Here, the word “pillar,” which properly belongs to a “building,” has been transferred to “success” in such a way that a comparison is implied between “pillars” and “failures”. As pillars hold a building, failures hold the key to success. The function of this metaphor is to excite the fancy and help one to imagine how failures help to succeed more vividly.
Read More: Definition of Literary Terms
NTRCA Exam-2013
1. Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting.
Explanation: This is a metaphor. Here, the words “sleep” and “forgetting,” which properly belong to “death,” are applied to “birth”. Here, “our birth” is indirectly compared to “a sleep” and “a forgetting” because we become oblivious of our spiritual existence at our birth. The function of this metaphor is to excite the fancy and help us to imagine how our birth is compared to sleep and forgetting more vividly.
2. A sonnet is a moment’s monument.
Explanation: This is an instance of metaphor. Here, “sonnet”, a lyric poem of fourteen lines, is indirectly compared to a “monument.” The tenor is ‘sonnet,’ and the vehicle is a monument (i.e. a tangible structure, such as a statue). The function of this metaphor is to excite the fancy of how a sonnet is comparable to a monument.
NTRCA Exam-2013
1. A thing of beauty is joy forever (Endymion, John Keats)
Explanation: It is an instance of metaphor. Here, a thing of beauty is indirectly compared to love. The function of this metaphor is to excite the fancy and help us to imagine the nature of a thing of beauty.
NTRCA Exam-2014
1. The curfew tolls the knell of parting day (Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard, Thomas Gray)
Explanation: This is an instance of metaphor. The curfew was a bell that was rung to tell people it was time to put their fires out (and, presumably, go to bed). The knell is the sound of the solemn ringing of a bell to announce a death or a funeral. Parting day meant that the day was coming to an end. Put it all together, Gray was saying the solemn bell was ringing, and it sounded like announcing the death of the day. So, it is an example of a Metaphor because here, the evening is compared to death. The function of this metaphor is to convey the meaning more vividly.
NTRCA Exam-2015
1. Thou still unravish’d bride of quietness!
Thou foster-child of silence and slow Time. (Ode to a Grecian Urn, John Keats)
Explanation: This is an instance of metaphor. Here, the Grecian urn is indirectly compared to a (woman) bride married to quietness. Again, the urn is compared to an adopted child whose adopting parents are silent and slow time. The function of this metaphor is to excite the fancy and help us to imagine the nature of a thing of beauty. This is also an example of personification.
NTRCA Exam-2015
1. Beauty is truth, truth beauty. (Ode to a grecian Urn, John Keats)
Explanation: This is an instance of metaphor. A metaphor is a figure of speech wherein an object is related to another object as a form of comparison. In this phrase, the poet (Keats) compares beauty and truth. It means that different art forms (beauty) can truly express human knowledge (truth) than any other means of explanation like science. The function to this metaphor is to convey the meaning more vividly and with a perception of delight. This is also an instance of chiasmus.
NTRCA Exam-2016
1. I will drink life to the lees. (“Ulysses”, Tennyson)
Explanation: This is a metaphor. Here, an indirect or hidden comparison is made between two different things. Here, the word “drink,” which applies to wine, is applied to “life”. Thus, the word “drink” is transferred from the object to which it properly belongs to another. Just as one enjoys wine, the speaker of the line wants to enjoy life. So, here is a hidden comparison between life and wine. The function of the metaphor is to convey the meaning of life more vividly with a perception of delight.
2. Men’s evil manners live in brass.
Their virtues we write in water. (Henry VIII, Shakespeare)
Explanation: This is a metaphor. Here, an indirect or hidden comparison means that bad things are always remembered while the good things are quickly forgotten. The bad things people do live in ‘brass (a metal object). It means that bad things do not wash away; they are fixed and remembered for a long time. On the other hand, the good things people do are written in water; that is, they easily wash away and are not remembered at all. The function of this metaphor is to convey the meaning more vividly and with a perception of delight.
Read More: Figures of Speech Anti-Climax
3. My vegetable love should grow
Vaster than empires, and more slow.
Explanation: This is a metaphor. Here, an indirect or hidden comparison is made between two different things. In these lines, the poet compares his love with the slow growth of vegetables. The poet assumes that due to his beloved’s shyness, his love will continue for thousands of years and grow slowly like a big tree vaster than an empire. The function of this metaphor is to excite the fancy and help one to imagine things more vividly.
4. “Here lay Duncan,
His silver skin laced with his golden blood.”
Explanation: This is a metaphor. Here, an indirect or hidden comparison is made. Here, Duncan’s skin (body) is indirectly compared to silver, and his blood is compared to gold. The function of the metaphor is to explain the murder of Duncan.
NTRCA Exam-2019
1. I fall upon the thorns of life!
I bleed!
Explanation: This is a metaphor. Here, an indirect or hidden comparison is made between two different things. In these lines, the poet uses a metaphor to compare life’s difficulties to the thorns of a plant. The function of this metaphor is to convey the meaning more vividly and with a perception of delight.
