“All thinking is analogizing, and it is the business of life to learn metonymy.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Poetry and the Imagination”
“The apparition of these faces in a crowd;
Petals on a wet, black bough.”––Ezra Pound
Metaphor and Metonymy
“They are different kinds of processes. Metaphor is principally a way of conceiving of one thing in terms of another, and its primary function is understanding. Metonymy, on the other hand, has primarily a referential function, that is, it allows us to use one entity to stand for another.
But metonymy is not merely a referential device. It also serves the function of providing understanding. For example, in the case of the metonymy THE PART FOR THE WHOLE there are many parts that can stand for the whole. Which part we pick out determines which aspect of the whole we are focusing on. When we say that we need some “good heads” on the project, we are using “good heads” to refer to “intelligent people.” The point is not just to use a part (head) to stand for a whole (person) but rather to pick out a particular characteristic of the person, namely, intelligence, which is associated with the head. The same is true for other kinds of metonymies.
Thus metonymy serves some of the same purposes that metaphor does, and in somewhat the same way, but it allows us to focus more specifically on certain aspects of what is being referred to. It is also like metaphor in that it is not just a poetic or rhetorical device. Nor is it just a matter of language. Metonymic concepts (like THE PART FOR THE WHOLE) are part of the ordinary, everyday way we think and act as well as talk.
For example, we have in our conceptual system a special case of the metonymy THE PART FOR THE WHOLE, namely, THE FACE FOR THE PERSON. For example:
She’s just a pretty face.
There are an awful lot of faces out there in the audience.
We need some new faces around here.”
—from George Lakoff & Mark Johnson, Metaphors We Live By (1980), 36–37
What is a Metaphor?
Understanding and experiencing one thing in terms of another
The pale-gray granite spires pierced the evening sky like needles.
The thought beneath so slight a film—
Is more distinctly seen—
As laces just reveal the surge—
Or mists—the Apennine. (Emily Dickinson)
All the world’s a stage. (Shakespeare)
Presentiment—is that long shadow—on the lawn—
Indicative that the sun goes down (Emily Dickinson).
What is a Metonymy?
Using one part or an aspect of an experience to stand for some other part (or the whole) of that experience. (Unlike metaphor which involves two domains of experience, metonymy (lit. “change of name”) only requires one. Unlike metaphor which is based on similarity, metonymy uses contiguity, i.e. ‘closeness’ of association.
pen for author; the bench for law, the ballot box for democracy
Head of cattle (used for counting number of cattle in a herd)
The buses are on strike today
Paris has dropped hemlines this year
The ham sandwich is getting impatient for his check
Hollywood is producing terrible movies these days
“The book is moving right along” contains an instance of a common metonymy of PRODUCT FOR PROCESS, in which the book, the product of the activity of writing, stands for the activity itself. Without the metonymy of the book for the writing of the book, one would say “the writing is moving right along.”
—Lakoff and Johnson, Philosophy in the Flesh (203)
Other metonymies
PRODUCT FOR PRODUCER
He bought a Ford.
He’s got a Picasso.
OBJECT USED FOR USER
The sax has the flu today.
The buses are on strike.
CONTROLLER FOR CONTROLLED
Napoleon lost at Waterloo.
A Mercedes rear-ended me.
INSTITUTION FOR PEOPLE RESPONSIBLE
Exxon has raised its prices again.
You’ll never get the university to agree to that.
THE PLACE FOR THE INSTITUTION
The White House isn’t saying anything.
Wall Street is in a panic.
THE PLACE FOR THE EVENT
Remember the Alamo.
Watergate changed our politics.
—from George Lakoff & Mark Johnson, Metaphors We Live By (1980), 38–39
What is Conceptual Metaphor?
So called “figures of speech” are perhaps better understood as figures of thought, as ways of saying one thing in terms of something else to reflect an understanding and experience of one kind of thing in terms of another. For example,
love is conceptualized as a process or journey: “Look how far we’ve come,” It’s been a long, bumpy road,” “We’re at a crossroads,” “We may have to go our separate ways,” “Our marriage is on the rocks,” and “we’re spinning our wheels.”
Contrary to what we might think, such conceptualizations of the experience we call love actually constrain how we think creatively and express our ideas about love in everyday and literary discourse. In this view, figurative thought allows us to use language to see something in terms of something else; however, closer inspection often reveals not so much a new metaphorical mapping between dissimilar domains but in fact the making manifest some of the possibilities about love that are suggested by the standing metaphorical concept “love is a journey.”
One may conclude that the constraints on how we speak and think are not imposed by the limits of language but by the ways we actually use figures of thought to think of our ordinary experiences.
Love is a journey One abstract domain of experience (love) & a concrete domain (journey)
Look how far we’ve come!
It has been a long, bumpy road
We are at a crossroads
They went their separate ways
Our marriage is on the rocks
We are spinning our wheels
Love as a natural force
She swept me off her feet
Waves of passion overwhelmed him
A whirlwind romance
Waves of passion
Love as magic
She cast a spell over him
He was entranced by her
She was spellbound
The magic is gone
Love as unity
We were made for each other
She is my better half
We belong together
They are inseparable
Theories are buildings
That theory needs more support
The foundation of Darwin’s theory is shaky
Her theory collapsed
Figures of thought are everywhere: an overeager funeral director is a “vulture”; a dishonest card player is “sly as a fox”; and a professor summing up a point begins a sentence with the phrase, “In a nutshell. . . .” I will not discuss here the related and overlapping relational figures such as, analogy, homology, and so on.
Definitions (and examples)
Simile: an explicit comparison between two things by using words such as “like,” “as,” “than,” “appears,” “seems.”
The pale-gray granite spires pierced the evening sky like needles.
The thought beneath so slight a film—
Is more distinctly seen—
As laces just reveal the surge—
Or mists—the Apennine. (Emily Dickinson)
Metaphor an implicit comparison based on an implied resemblance between two unlike things. In a metaphor two conceptual domains are brought together, as opposed to metonymy in which the relation is within a single conceptual domain.
(“Earth’s Eye” Henry David Thoreau’s figure for Walden pond)
“All the world’s a stage,” (Shakespeare)
Presentiment—is that long shadow—on the lawn—
indicative that the sun goes down (Emily Dickinson).
Implied metaphors are less evident (“He brayed his refusal to leave”)
extended or controlling metaphors keep the comparison alive in successive lines of poetry or in stages of a narrative.
His art is eccentricity, his aim
How not to hit the mark he seems to aim at,
His passion how to avoid the obvious,
His technique how to vary the avoidance. (Robert Francis).
Metonymy (“change of name”): functions by way of association (through physical or temporal contiguity). Metonymy substitutes the token for the type, or a particular instance, property, or characteristic for the general principle or function.
The ham sandwich is getting impatient for his check.
Hollywood is producing terrible movies these days.
Synecdoche: a part substituted for the whole; and as such, synecdoche functions as a form of metonymy. In synecdoche the terms of reference are concrete, as opposed to metonymy, in which the terms of reference often bridge the gap from abstract to concrete. It can be expressed as species for genus, material for thing made, abstract quality for thing possessing it (cf. microcosm and macrocosm relationship, wherein an individual entity is seen as recapitulating the nature and structure of the universe, or cause and effect).
Elizabeth lives four doors down
They’re taking on hands down at the factory.
Irony: In irony proper, the speaker is aware of a double meaning and the victim unaware. (As opposed to sarcasm, where both parties understand the double meaning).
In modern terms, irony can be understood as 1) verbal irony and 2) dramatic irony. Verbal irony is a form of speech in which one meaning is stated and a different, usually antithetical meaning is intended.
If I say “Wonderful day, isn’t it,” looking up at a concerned friend after I slip and fall on a patch of ice, the statement is understood in an ironic sense.
When Hamlet rejects the idea of suicide with the remark, “Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,” his remark is unconsciously ironic because conscience is a sacramental word associated with moral goodness, whereas coward has pejorative connotations.
Dramatic irony is a plot device according to which a) the spectators know more than the protagonist; b) the character reacts in a way contrary to that which is appropriate or wise; c) characters or situations are compared or contrasted for ironic effects, such as parody; d) there is a marked contrast between what the character understands about his acts and what the play demonstrates about them.
Building on the romantic sense of irony as a means of expressing the paradoxical nature of reality (since it expresses two meanings simultaneously), the modern critic Kenneth Burke has argued that verbal and dramatic irony are especially prevalent in twentieth century literature. He reasons that in any historical period when stable values are undermined, irony provides an appropriate (although perhaps not sufficient) attitude.