Metaphor
"Men's words are bullets...”
"But my heart is a lonely hunter...”
“Life is a broken-winged bird...”
A metaphor is a figure of speech that constructs an analogy between two things or ideas; the analogy is conveyed by the use of a metaphorical word in place of some other word. For example: "Her eyes were glistening jewels".
Whereas a simile states that A is like B, a metaphor states that A is B or substitutes B for A.
Some metaphors are explicit, like Shakespeare's line from As You Like It:
“All the world's a stage.”
A metaphor can also be implicit, as in Shakespeare's Sonnet LXXIII, where old age is indicated by a description of autumn:
Sonnet LXXIII
By William Shakespeare
That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou seest the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west,
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.
In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death-bed whereon it must expire
Consumed with that which it was nourish'd by.
This thou perceivest, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere long.
Metaphor Examples in Literature
There is a huge list of metaphor examples in literature. Here are some of them, before that you may want to read on similes and metaphors examples.
"Between the lower east side tenements the sky is a snotty handkerchief." ~ "The Butt of Winter", Marge Piercy
"A man may break a word with you, sir, and words are but wind." ~ "The Comedy of Errors", William Shakespeare
"The streets were a furnace, the sun an executioner." ~ "Rosa", Cynthia Ozick
"But my heart is a lonely hunter that hunts on a lonely hill." ~ "The Lonely Hunter", William Sharp
"Love is an alchemist that can transmute poison into food--and a spaniel that prefers even punishment from one hand to caresses from another." ~ "Lacon", Charles Colton
"Men's words are bullets, that their enemies take up and make use of against them." ~ "Maxims", George Savile
"The rain came down in long knitting needles." ~ "National Velvet", Enid Bagnold
"Language is a road map of a culture. It tells you where its people come from and where they are going." ~ Rita Mae Brown
"Memory is a crazy woman that hoards colored rags and throws away food." ~ "Keystones of Thought", Austin O'Malley
"Love is the wild card of existence." ~ "In Her Day", Rita Mae Brown
"Time is a dressmaker specializing in alterations." ~ "Face Toward the Spring", 1956, Faith Baldwin
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