Metaphors

  I’m a riddle in nine syllables,

An elephant, a ponderous house,
A melon strolling on two tendrils.
O red fruit, ivory, fine timbers!
This loaf’s big with its yeasty rising.
Money’s new-minted in this fat purse.
I’m a means, a stage, a cow in calf.
I’ve eaten a bag of green apples,
Boarded the train there’s no getting off.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 Sylvia Plath's Metaphors

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

     How clever. Writing about metaphors by using metaphors. This is even better. It has a little riddle. A riddle that seems very complex until the answer is revealed. All the metaphors seem unrelated, until the answer is known and then it hits the reader how obvious it is and how the answer could clearly not be anything else. It is the kind of poem that after solving the short problem, everything makes sense. You are probably wondering at this point if I am going to tell you the answer. Well, okay. Spoilers. Plath is talking about being pregnant, but still, the idea of writing about something by doing the something makes me want to get to work on some piece of explanation and example. I think I shall. Thank you Plath for your inspiration, until next time.

Elizabeth and her Come Backs

    "Not so hasty, if you please. I have by no means done. To all the objections I have already urged, I have still another to add. I am no stranger to your younger sister's infamous elopement.... And such a girl to be my nephew's sister?.. Heaven and earth!- of what are you thinking? Are the shades of Pemberley to be thus polluted?""
    "You can now have nothing farther to say," she resentfully answered. "You have insulted me, in every possible method. I must beg to return to the house...."
     Her ladyship was highly incensed.
     "You have no regard, then, for the honour and credit of my nephew! Unfeeling, selfish girl! Do you not consider that a connection with you, must disgrace him in the eyes of everybody?"
     "Lady Catherine, I have nothing farther to say. You know my sentiments."
     "You are then resolved to have him?"
     "I have said no such thing. I am only resolved to act in that manner, which will, in my own opinion, constitute my happiness, without reference to you, or to any person so wholly unconnected to me."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, Volume 3 ch. 56 pg. 338

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

     Elizabeth is never in the wrong in this scene. It is the powerful moment when she regrets the mistakes she made with Darcy, so to make up for that, she stands firm to what she feels. She really is not that rude compared to Lady Catherine de Bourgh, but she says just enough that to Darcy's aunt, who is use to getting everything just the way she wants it, Elizabeth is revolting. She says just enough to get rid of the person who seeks to prevent Elizabeth's happiness. She says just enough to keep herself from confessing the vulnerable fact that she turned down the man she loves, whom she knows she is unworthy of.
     The character Mr. Collins adds so much more to this scene even though he is not present. The way he always did exactly what Lady Catherine asked of him and begged apologies for doing anything near questionable in her ladyships eyes adds so much more the Elizabeth's reaction. She say how Collins treated Lady de Bourgh, and she, in this moment, refuses to please her. It is not pride. It is not prejudice. It is simply Elizabeth's way of not letting Lady Catherine get away with treating everyone like a doormat.

The Engine

Into the gloom of the deep, dark night,
     With panting breath and a startled scream,
Swift as a bird in sudden flight
     Darts this creature of steel and steam.

Awful dangers are lurking nigh,
     Rocks and chasms are near the track,
But straight by the light of its great white eye
     It speeds through the shadows, dense and black.

Terrible thoughts and fierce desires
     Trouble its mad heart many an hour,
Where burn and smoulder the hidden fires,
     Coupled ever with might and power.

It hates, as a wild horse hates the rein,
     The narrow track by vale and hill;
And shrieks with a cry of startled pain,
     And longs to follow its own wild will.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 Ella Wheeler Wilcox's The Engine

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

     The cinematography in this poem is overwhelming. From the moment the word "deep" is read, the reader is in the moment. He rides on the engine or jumps back as it darts by. The personification of the train, "panting breath and startled scream,""Terrible thoughts and fierce desires," make the engine a real character, one a person could sympathize with. The similes also deepen that picture of what the engine is like: "swift as a bid in sudden flight," "It hates, as a wild horse hates the rein." The engine has personality and feelings as it moves quickly like an animal. Only once does Wilcox use a three syllable word (Terrible), and never is there a four or higher syllable word, which keeps the pace of the reader fast like the train, making the movements of the engine one with that of the readers' eyes. The poem The Engine is largely interactive with the audience, making it a highly enjoyable experience.