Background information on the various types and function of metaphor in literature and life. We use this presentation before we create large metaphor matrix for the characters of Julius Caesar and where they fit in Dante's Inferno.

1. A metaphor is a meaty rib you can’t stop eating.

3. Language isMetaphor

4. Ferdinand de Saussure [semiotics]
A sign is (dyadic)
Signifier
--------------
Signified

5. Charles Sanders Peirce
semiotic elements= triadic

6. Jacques Lacan
le non du père (the no of the father)
le nom du père (the name of the father)
What happens when we don’t know the true
“nature” of our father: (Father= person, laws,
mores, systems etc…)

8. Plato’s concept of
IDEA:Idea:idea
BED:Bed:bed

9. “The Treachery of Images”
The Following Two Images Are
By Scott McCloud
from
Understanding Comics

12. Aristotle’s view of a word or idea deals with
schemaor classification
•Boy
•Man
•Teacher
•Professor
Every word has a denotative (dictionary) and
connotative (associative) role. When we describe
one thing in terms of another we create a
metaphor.

13. Metaphor is the application to one thing of the name
belonging to another. We may apply (a) the name
of a genus to one of its species, or (b) the name of
one species to its genus, or (c) the name of one
species to another of the same genus, or (d) the
transfer may be based on a proportion
Aristotle- Poetics (335 B.C.)

14. Metaphor is a strategy in which a word
or expression is shifted from its
normal uses to a context where it
evokes new meaning.

15. Context
An artist must be aware of his
audience otherwise a metaphor may
go unnoticed or misunderstood
Tone: a metaphor can be funny,
insightful, objective, or serious.

16. Mr. Herzfeld is Benson from The
Regular Show

17. But Mr. T. WHOis Benson?

21. Like Benson on The
Regular Show, Mr.
Herzfeld is a manager.
well he’s more than that, but for
this experiment let’s focus on one
aspect of his job

22. Mr. Herzfeld Manager
Tenor Vehicle
•Disciplined
•Vigilant
•Cautious
•Forceful
•Organizes
•Expectations

23. Cop Car
School Bus
Clown Car
Hotwheel
Tenor Vehicle
•?
•?
•?
•?

24. Purpose: there are different
purposes
for metaphors:
Pragmatic-memetic
Aesthetic-vivid/interesting
Cognitive-different/delayed
Rhetorical-persuasive

25. Pragmatic: conveying meanings
concisely
=
At FVHS Mr. Herzfeld is Benson:
The Boss and adult figure in Regular Show

26. Aesthetic: making expressions more
vivid or interesting
=
Often at FVHS Mr. Herzfeld is Batman
trying to defuse a bomb.

27. Cognitive:
providing words to describe things that
have no literal name or rendering complex
abstractions easy to understand through
concrete analogies.
OR
creating new meanings, forestalling
meaning or forcing meaning to be seen in
the context of the whole piece of artwork.

28. Since seniors graduate and are replaced
every year by thirteen and fourteen year old
freshmen, Mr. Herzfeld’s job to turn kids into
well intentioned adults is truly Sisyphean.
=

29. Mr. Herzfeld is a well organized box of apples.
(This is another example of a cognitive metaphor)
=

30. Theoretical Critic Forest Thompson: “the worst
disservice a critic can do to poetry is to
understand it too soon.”
Theoretical Critic Shklovsky says “the purpose of
new metaphors is not to create meaning, but
to renew perception by “defamiliarizing” the
world.
Cleanth Brooks- The essential structure of a
poem is resembles that of architecture or
painting: it is a pattern of resolved stresses.
from “The Heresy of Paraphrase.”

31. I am the Walrus- The Beatles
I am he as you are he as you are me and we are
all together.
See how they run like pigs from a gun, see how
they fly.
I'm crying.
Sitting on a cornflake, waiting for the van to
come.
Corporation T-shirt, stupid bloody Tuesday.
Man, you been a naughty boy, you let your face
grow long.
I am the eggman, they are the eggmen.
I am the walrus, goo goo g'joob.

32. An entire work can be a metaphor

33. Kneeling at the Pipes
Princely cockroach, inheritor,
I used to stain the kitchen wall with your brothers,
flood you right down the basin.
I squashed you underfoot, making faces.
I repent.
I am relieved to hear somebody
will survive our noises.
Thoughtlessly I judged you dirty
while dropping poisons and freeways and bombs
on the melted landscape.
I want to bribe you
to memorize certain poems.
My generation too craves posterity.
Accept this dish of well aged meat.
In the warrens of our rotting citites
where those small eggs
round as earth wait,
spread the Word.
Marge Piercy

34. Metaphors can be rhetorical
in nature- they can persuade,
they can move an audience to think
in a new or particular way.

35. Persuasive Metaphor: A gumball machine
doesn’t work until you put a coin in it. Like
Benson, Mr. Herzfeld’s kind heart is what
drives his every action.
=

36. The world of politics is
filledwith persuasive
metaphor. Let’s get familiar
with some
background/context first…

37. 2008 Presidential Race: Obama
• Young
• Intellectual
• Inexperienced
• Cultured
• Sophisticated
• Articulate

38. Joe Biden
• Older
• Wiser
• Brash
• Talkative
• Old School
• Acceptable
• 2nd
fiddle

39. P. Candidate John McCain
• Maverick
• Too Old
• Out of Touch
• Independent
• Brave
• Experienced
• Surprising

40. VP Candidate Sarah Palin
• Inexperienced
• Different
• Sassy
• Non-intellectual
• Out of her league
• Motherly
• Independent
• Fighter

50. ACTIVITY:
Now you try it. Make a metaphor matrix with
your choice of one of the following:
● Local Food Sources: Restaurants, Home,
Vending Machines, Cafeteria etc….
● Types of Candy
● Musical Artists
● Animals or Insects (Famous or otherwise)
● Cartoon or Comic Characters