On the Context of Metaphors and Similes

Adv. Poetry

Meyerhofer

On the Context of Metaphors and Similes

When it comes to good writing, maybe a third of the battle is coming up with good lines—which largely seems to require a kind of Zen-like clearing of whatever curtain separates our conscious and subconscious mechanisms of creativity. 

However, that's just the beginning; after all, coming up with a snazzy, poignant or provocative line or image doesn't necessarily mean that you should use it right away.  Maybe it belongs somewhere else (which is why, by the way, that we should always save and be willing to cannibalize our past poems and stories that didn't quite measure up). 

Just as we need to consider the denotation and connotation of our word choice, we also need to consider the tone and context of our metaphors.  For instance, let's say (just to invoke the cliché) that a poet were writing a piece about a traumatic childhood event.  Midway through the poem, they described raindrops (or body-blows) falling "...like a child jumping in mud puddles."  Right away, there are some problems with this.  The image of a child jumping in mud puddles could invoke a carefree feeling, which normally might create an unsettling disharmony with the poem's otherwise sad imagery (in a good way) BUT if the poem is about a child describing something else as a child... well, that's a bit like a clown describing something as "red as a clown's nose," i.e. not very original.

Let's look at another context: a grown adult in a board meeting, noticing how rain is pelting the window "like a child jumping through mud puddles."  Well, it's a bit problematic to compare water to water, but in terms of CONTEXT, see how the second example sets up a better contrast?

Going along with that, the primary aim of similes and metaphors seems to be to create a visceral reaction in the reader by basically taking their brain in two different directions at the same time.  In so doing, our multidimensional, creativity-loving selves momentarily arc out of what might otherwise be a rather bland, mundane, straightforward narrative, and THAT motion seems to be what quickens the senses.

So a good rule of thumb is to begin by pairing fairly dissimilar things, making sure that your similes and metaphors have an unexpected element to them, something that also seems to relate back to the core object or feeling that you're describing.  Don't just do this for shock value, though, or else you risk writing the poetic equivalent of junk food.

To get a better feel for this, let's look at some more basic images and similes/metaphors and discuss contexts in which they WOULD or WOULD NOT be effective (in our obviously subjective postmodern opinion).

1.  ...bright as a birthday cake
    A) To describe a child's smile at a literal birthday party*
    B) To describe a burning building
    C) To describe an electric blanket that caught on fire
    D) To describe an embarrassing rash

2.  ...like ash from a crematory
    A)  To describe the soot in a fireplace
    B)  To describe the color of someone's hair
    C)  To describe the sky on a cloudy day
    D)  To describe the taste of a crappy dinner you're pretending to like

3.  ...like an apostle
    A)  An attentive nurse in a hospice
    B)  A tollbooth operator with a hairy mole, who lets you by despite you forgetting your change
    C)  Mitochondria
    D)  The posts in a neighbor's fence
    E)   A priest offering comfort at a funeral

4.  ...necking like seahorses
    A)  Strands of DNA
    B)  Teenagers at a movie
    C)   Mating giraffes
    D)  Wires in a computer terminal
    E)   Mating dolphins

*There's an odd, possible exception to this kind of thing: using an unsurprising metaphor purely to advance a specific scene or action, i.e. "...her face bright as the cake her mother, hungover, had simply bought from the store on the way home from Vito's, where all the liquor bottles glowed with thumbprints."  Note, though, that you still seem to need some kind of contrast to avoid Hallmark-like cheesiness (which is really just another way of describing lack of dimension).