Metaphors
Read: Purdue OWL: Metaphors
Parts of a Metaphor
The metaphor comes in two main parts, classically known as the tenor and the vehicle,
which are connected by a verb. The dimension of the vehicle helps create new meaning.
Tenor
The tenor in a metaphor is the original subject. If I say 'you are a dog', then you are the
tenor. If I say 'It's a dog day', then the tenor is the day.
Vehicle
The vehicle in a metaphor is both the words and concepts that are invoked by the words.
Connecting verb
The tenor and the vehicle are generally connected by a verb that somehow equates them.
The verb 'to be' is by far the most common verb used, as it effectively says 'the tenor is
the vehicle'.
Dimension
The vehicle has a number of dimensions, attributes or variables which may be mapped or
transferred back onto the tenor and hence create new meaning.
Examples
Tenor
Vehicle
Dimensions
Love
Island
Separated,
idyllic
Time
Money
Trade,
interchange
House
Home
Safety,
familiarity
To persuade
To plant
to put in, to
nuture
Opportunity
A thing
Can be
examined,
grasped
Anger
Storm
Energy,
danger
New
Raw
Unchanged,
original
Superiority
Above
Position of
power
In analysis of discourse and the understanding of metaphor, the separation of tenor and
vehicle is a basic first step. This is followed by understanding the dimensions of the vehicle
and how these are mapped back onto the tenor and how meaning is changed or extended
as a result.
A good metaphor has many dimensions that map well into the tenor. A bad
metaphor has dimensions that either do not map back to the tenor or, worse,
create a distorted understanding.
Implicit metaphor is a comparison between two unlike things in which the tenor is not
specified, but is implied by the vehicle. For example:
"The reed was too frail to survive the storm of its sorrows."
Implicit tenor: a human
Vehicle: reed
Explicit tenor: sorrows
Vehicle: storm
Tenor
Vehicle
Dimension
Human (implicit)
reed
Weak
Sorrows (explicit)
storm
powerful
Explication: The metaphor compares the vehicle, a "frail reed," to an implied tenor, a
person whose "sorrows" are too much for her to endure. The image of a reed battered by
the wind and rain of an unrelenting storm captures the hopeless emotions associated with
human despair, depression, and desperation.
Assignment:
1. Read Sylvia Plath’s “Cut” and Robert Frosts’ “Bereft” (see full texts in First
Class and through links below). Analyze the metaphors in the following lines,
using the “tenor, vehicle, dimension” chart illustrated above.
Frost’s “Bereft”:
Where had I heard this wind before
Change like this to a deeper roar?
What would it take my standing there for,
Holding open a restive door,
Looking down hill to a frothy shore?
Summer was past and the day was past.
Sombre clouds in the west were massed.
Plath’s “Cut”
What a thrill ---My thumb instead of an onion.
The top quite gone
Except for a sort of hinge
Of skin,
………..
Out of a gap
A million soldiers run,
Redcoats, every one.
2. Write no more than three sentences (150 words) that fully explicate the lines through the
metaphors, and, in relation to those, the images and symbols.
3. Write a one- page explication of “Cut,” or “Design” that leads with a thesis sentence
that puts the main idea in the independent clause and the subordinate information in
phrases or clauses.
You will find copies of “Cut” and “Design” in First Class or you can access them through
these links:
“Design” by Robert Frost
“The Cut” by Sylvia Plath