3. Love is…
Love is a crocodile in the river of
desire. (Bhartṛhari, Śatakatraya,
5e)
Love is the magician, the
enchanter, that changes worthless
things to joy, and makes right
royal kings and queens of
common clay. (Robert Green
Ingersoll, "Orthodoxy," 1884)
3
99 love metaphors: http://grammar.about.com/od/rhetoricstyle/a/lovemetaphors.htm
4. Metaphors We Live By,
George Lakoff and Mark Johnson
Metaphors—
are part of our everyday conversation,
thoughts, and actions.
structure our perceptions and
understanding.
shape our view of life in the present.
set up the expectations that determine
what life will be for us in the future.
4
5. Metaphors Structure Our
Perception and
Understanding
Marriage:
legal contract
team play
negotiated settlement
Russian roulette
indissoluble merger
religious sacrament
life sentence
solemn vow
5
6. The Metaphor Project
http://www.co-intelligence.org/metaphorproject_sources.html
Some Sources of Conventional Metaphor in America by
Categories with a Few Examples of Each
Sports
play to win, play by the rules, play fair, be a
team player, be a good sport, be a poor loser,
the best defense is a good offense, game of
chance, level the playing field, target something:
SPORTS metaphors are often applied to topics in
BUSINESS, POLITICS or WAR especially.
6
7. The Metaphor Project
http://www.co-intelligence.org/metaphorproject_sources.html
Some Sources of Conventional Metaphor in America by
Categories with a Few Examples of Each
Business
a business grows, one is building a
business, we're watching the bottom line, being profit or
customer driven, adding value, being lean and mean,
getting a competitive advantage, taking out insurance,
investing in something, something is money in the bank,
we owe you, you're in debt to us, that will cost you, you
earned it, balancing the books:
BUSINESS metaphors are often applied to topics in 7
POLITICS, SPORTS, WAR, and to personal life as well.
8. George Lakoff, UC Berkeley
Metaphors can kill. The discourse over whether to
go to war in the gulf was a panorama of metaphor.
Secretary of State Baker saw Saddam Hussein as
"sitting on our economic lifeline." President Bush
portrayed him as having a "stranglehold" on our
economy. General Schwarzkopf characterized the
occupation of Kuwait as a "rape" that was ongoing.
The President said that the US was in the gulf to
"protect freedom, protect our future, and protect the
innocent," and that we had to "push Saddam
Hussein back." Saddam Hussein was painted as a
Hitler. It is vital, literally vital, to understand just
what role metaphorical thought played in bringing8
us in this war.
9. The Metaphors of Dr. House
Dr. House: As far as you're concerned,
the patient is Osama bin Laden, and
everyone not in this room is Delta
Force. Any questions?
Applicant #11: We're protecting
Osama bin Laden?
Dr. House: It's a metaphor. Get used
to it.
("The Right Stuff")
9
10. http://www.flocabulary.com/hiphopmetaphors.html
"I come fresh like your breath after you brush,
wack Mc's like that orange soda get crushed."
- Fatlip on Pharcyde, Labcabincalifornia
"Throwing out the wicked like God did the devil,
funky like your grandpa's drawers, don't test me,
we're in like that, you're dead like Presley."
- Q-Tip on Steve Biko, Midnight Marauders
"My rhymes are like shot clocks,
interstate cops
and blood clots,
my point is your flow gets stopped."
Talib Kweli on Hater Players, Mos Def and Talib Kweli Are Blackstar
10
12. Metaphors
Help people create mental images.
Provide the complete picture of an entire idea
in a few words.
Make complicated, abstract ideas concrete.
Bring intensity to images.
Hold the imagination because of surprise and
precision.
Structure our perception and understanding.
12
13. Emily Dickinson
A Book
There is no frigate like a book
To take us lands away,
Nor any coursers like a page
Of prancing poetry.
This traverse may the poorest take
Without oppress of toll;
How frugal is the chariot
That bears a human soul!
13
14. Simile is metaphor
Simile compares things as similar
Uses “like” or “as”
This class is like a zoo.
Metaphor assumes the similarity—
says two things are the same
This class is a zoo. 14
15. Similes
The puppy’s nail’s were like
needles vaccinating my arm.
A book is like a vacation.
He’s as quiet as a blink.
Her smile was like an iron gate.
It’s as cold as a flagpole in Antarctica.
She’s interesting as a file cabinet.
The bathroom tile was as slimy as a cave wall.
15
16. “When Death Comes,” Mary
Oliver
When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn;
when death comes and takes all the bright coins
from his purse
to buy me, and snaps the purse shut;
when death comes
like the measle-pox;
when death comes
like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,
16
17. Similes
The waves unfurled like…
He entered the room like...
His feet were calloused as...
The child trembled like...
The airplane rose like...
The loneliness spread fast as…
After the shelling, the town looked like...
She was drunk as… 17
18. “Feared Drowned,” Sharon Olds
Suddenly nobody knows where you are,
your suit black as seaweed, your bearded
head slick as a seal's.
Somebody watches the kids. I walk down
the edge of the water, clutching the towel
like a widow's shawl around me.
18
19. Metaphors
No man is an island
—John Donne
For ever since that time you went
away
I've been a rabbit burrowed in the
wood —Maurice Sceve
I’ve been looking through the dirty
window of my life
A person without a dream is a car
with no engine
19
20. Cliches
Cliches lack surprise.
I’m so hungry I could eat a
horse.
Revenge is sweet.
She’s as busy as a bee.
He’s as hairy as an ape.
That’s just the tip of the iceberg.
20
22. Creative Techniques for
Developing Metaphors
Brainstorm
Busy as a bee.
mother of twins / ER nurse after a train wreck / ant /
teen’s cell phone / computer calculating the value of pi
Which one(s) share an abstraction with your purpose?
Which one(s) offer precision of meaning?
Which one(s) offer surprise?
22
23. 3 Types of Basic Metaphors
1. Expressed Identity (noun : : noun)
an army is a rabid wolf
2. Qualifying (adjective : : noun)
the hasty clouds
3. Verbal (noun : : verb and/ or verb : :
object)
frost gobbles summer down
23
24. Create Metaphors
1. In his rage my father was ______.
2. Among her new in-laws the young wife
was ______.
3. I paced the room, a _____.
4. A _____, his smile suddenly collapsed.
5. It was the old sycamore in the front yard, a
_______.
24
25. Exercise
road time shoe
journey bliss sole
path hunger soul
goal eat aspire
hockey drink yearn
skate ice heart
25
26. Exercise
power
verb noun adjective
crunch avalanche exhilarating
lift army rippling
rule socket misogynistic
flow tide blind
snowball Wheaties cruel
control Ironman electric
26
27. as verbs The news that ignited
his face snuffed out
her smile.
as adjectives and Her carnivorous
adverbs pencil carved up
Susan’s devotion.
as prepositional The doctor inspected
phrases the rash with a
vulture’s eye.
as appositives or On the sidewalk was
modifiers yesterday’s paper, an
ink-stained sponge.
27
28. Scratching at the window with claws of Imogene Bolls,
pine, the wind wants in. "Coyote Wind"
What a thrill--my thumb instead of an Sylvia Plath, "Cut"
onion. The top quite gone except for a
sort of hinge of skin....A celebration
this is. Out of a gap a million soldiers
run, redcoats every one.
The clouds were low and hairy in the Robert Frost, "Once
skies, like locks blown forward in the by the Pacific"
gleam of eyes.
Little boys lie still, awake wondering, James Wright, "The
wondering delicate little boxes of dust. Undermining of the
Defense Economy"
28
29. Create Metaphors
“having your house burglarized” is like “publishing
your diary in the newspaper”
“the strict dog trainer” is “a Nazi”
your cramped or messy dorm room
the movie’s effect on you
a mean babysitter
a terrible cook’s meal
a week with no homework
shopping at Borders
his request
reality shows on TV
driving your new convertible
29
30. Reality shows Verb Metaphor
stabbed in the back murdered The player who stabbed Jason in the back murdered
his chance to win the million.
ate bugs crunched The girl who ate the most bugs crunched her way to
the top.
kissed all the girls played Casanova The playboy who kissed all the girls on the island
found out he couldn’t play Casanova anymore once
he got home to his girlfriend.
A bad cook’s meal Prepositional Metaphor
phrase
cooking credentials from K-Mart The recipes were from Julia Child, but Aunt
Martha’s cooking credentials were from K-Mart.
Passed over for Adverb Metaphor
promotion
career died politely “Thanks for being a team player,” my boss said,
and my career politely died.
30
31. Metaphors from
Non-motion Verbs
His thoughts were interrupted by the incessant noise of
the ticking clock.
The tick tick tick scratched at his brain, his thoughts
lurching in static bursts like images on a DVD some
toddler had smeared with peanut butter.
He holds the weight of choices made.
His choices weigh on him—Jim, Atlas of Glassboro.
31
32. Metaphors from
Adjectives/Adverbs
The street lights shine brightly in the dark night.
The night’s cleaning crew, the street lights spray their
glow, washing away the stars.
The puffy white clouds drifted across the clear blue
sky.
The hare and the tortoise floated above me, racing
toward the finish line over the horizon.
http://science.discovery.com/videos/how-do-they-do-it-season-7/ 32
33. Metaphors for Abstractions
Find a concrete object to represent the abstract idea,
generalization, judgment, or opinion.
uncertainty = dirty window
I searched for the path, but could barely see through the
grime streaking the window.
exhilaration = roller coaster ride
When he touched my hand, the roller coaster click-click-
clicked uphill.
danger = siren
She was a siren, screaming in my mind, “Run away!”
33
34. Mixed Metaphors
Maintain a theme
Mixed metaphors conflict and distract
He stepped up to the plate and grabbed the bull by the
horns.
Her fur is a color that reminds me of a bowl of melted
chocolate and caramel with feet that look as if she
just walked through an inch of snow and the length of
her fur is no longer than my eyelashes.
34
35. •Your insincere apology just added fuel to the fire.
•After the argument, Dave was smoldering for
days.
•That kindled my ire.
•Boy, am I burned up!
35
36. Create Multiple Metaphors
Create 3 metaphors you could use in a single paragraph describing
a face
playing a game
embarrassing yourself
taking a day off for yourself
a desire
a garden or something in a garden
a sea creature
listening to or playing music
being lied to
dancing 36
37. On a Maine Beach, by Robley Wilson
Image Clusters
Look, in these pools, how rocks are like worn change money images
Keeping the ocean’s mint-mark; barnacles
Miser on them; societies of snails
Hunch on their rims and think small thoughts whose strange
Salt logics rust like a mainspring, small dreams circle images
Pinwheeling to a point and going dumb,
Small equations whose euphemistic sum
Stands for mortality. A thousand times
Tides swallow up such pools, shellfish and stone cycles of the tide
Show green and yellow shade in groves of weed;
Rocks shrink, barnacles drink, snails think they bleed
In their trapped world. Here, when the sea is gone,
We find old coins glowing under the sky,
Barnacles counting them, snails spending slow money
Round lifetimes half-awake. Beach rhythms flow circles
In circles. Perfections teach us to die. 37
38. Copycat: On a…
On a Glassboro campus
At a NASCAR race
In a foreign country
After a breakup
On a train going west
At a job interview
38
41. Creative Techniques for
Developing Metaphors
Tap Categories
ABC Puns, plays on words Landmarks, earth formations
Amazon Top Ten Lists Religion and spirituality
College majors Different times in history Languages
Animal, vegetable, mineral Yahoo directory Entertainment
Jobs, career functions, Persons, places or things People, places and things in
hobbies with attributes that set them the news
apart
TV Guide Fictional or mythical Sports
characters
Newspaper, magazine Ages Shapes, functions, symbols
Internet
41
42. Creative Techniques for
Developing Metaphors
SCAMPER
Substitute
Combine
Adapt
Modify; Maximize, Minimize
Put to another use
Erase
Reverse
42
43. Controlling Metaphor
Whole poem or story
Symbolic
Raymond Carver, “Locking Yourself Out,
Then Trying to Get Back In”
43
44. Jack Gilbert, “Michiko Dead”
He manages like somebody carrying a box
that is too heavy, first with his arms
underneath. When their strength gives out,
he moves the hands forward, hooking them
on the corners, pulling the weight against
his chest. He moves his thumbs slightly
when the fingers begin to tire, and it makes
different muscles take over. Afterward,
he carries it on his shoulder, until the blood
drains out of the arm that is stretched up
to steady the box and the arm goes numb.
But now the man can hold underneath again,
so that he can go on without ever putting the box
44
45. “Stillborn,” Sylvia Plath
They are not pigs, they are not even fish,
Though they have a piggy and a fishy air—
It would be better if they were alive, and that’s
what they were.
But they are dead, and their mother near dead
with distraction,
And they stupidly stare, and do not speak of her.
45
46. Controlling Metaphor
An abusive boss
An anorexic
A person wrongly accused of a crime
A turkey before (or after) Thanksgiving
Your own idea
46
