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Irony
Definition of Metaphor
A metaphor is a figure of speech that compares two different things by saying that one thing is the other. The comparison in a metaphor can be stated explicitly, as... read full definition
A metaphor is a figure of speech that compares two different things by saying that one thing is the other. The comparison in a metaphor... read full definition
A metaphor is a figure of speech that compares two different things by saying that one thing is the other... read full definition
Key Examples in A Moveable Feast
Chapter 8: Hunger Was Good Discipline
Explanation and Analysis—War Trauma:
The lasting trauma and solidarity of Hemingway and the "lost generation" of World War I veterans is a motif in the book. Many of the veterans in the book struggle with alcoholism, personal relationships, career success, and the sense that they can only trust or understand one another. None of them know quite how to process their feelings about the terrible things they saw, experienced, and did in the war, especially as they try to get on with their lives. Hemingway repeatedly circles back to war as a metaphor for all of the difficult experiences he goes through.
Related Themes:
Chapter 16: Winter in Shrums
Explanation and Analysis—Glacier Run:
In Chapter 16, Hemingway describes his young family's wintertime retreat in Austria. He uses imagery to turn the "great glacier run" into a metaphor for the future he always hoped he was building in Paris:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Finally there was the great glacier run, smooth and straight, forever straight if your legs could hold it, your ankles locked, you running so low, leaning into the speed, dropping forever and forever in the silent hiss of the crisp powder. It was better than any flying or anything else, and you built the ability to do it and to have it with the long climbs carrying the heavy rucksacks. You could not buy it nor take a ticket to the top. It was the end we worked all winter for, and all the winter built to make it possible.
Related Themes:
Paris Sketches: Ezra Pound and His Bel Esprit
Explanation and Analysis—Shackled in the Bank:
In Paris Sketches: Ezra Pound and His Bel Esprit, Hemingway recounts his part in Ezra Pound's "Bel Esprit," a writers' collective that aimed to fund T.S. Eliot's writing career. Hemingway uses a hyperbolic metaphor to describe his youthful devotion to this cause:
Unlock with LitCharts A+As a member of Bel Esprit I campaigned energetically and my happiest dreams in those days were of seeing the Major stride out of the bank a free man.
Related Themes:
Paris Sketches: The Pilot Fish and the Rich
Explanation and Analysis—War Trauma:
The lasting trauma and solidarity of Hemingway and the "lost generation" of World War I veterans is a motif in the book. Many of the veterans in the book struggle with alcoholism, personal relationships, career success, and the sense that they can only trust or understand one another. None of them know quite how to process their feelings about the terrible things they saw, experienced, and did in the war, especially as they try to get on with their lives. Hemingway repeatedly circles back to war as a metaphor for all of the difficult experiences he goes through.
Related Themes:
Explanation and Analysis—Pilot Fish:
In Paris Sketches: The Pilot Fish, Hemingway relies on an extended metaphor to express a profound sense of regret and, ironically, betrayal over the way his marriage with Hadley ended:
Unlock with LitCharts A+The pilot fish [...] is always going somewhere, or coming from somewhere, and he is never around for very long. He enters and leaves politics or the theater in the same way he enters and leaves countries and people’s lives in his early days [...] Nothing ever catches him and it is only those who trust him who are caught and killed. He has the irreplaceable early training of the bastard and a latent and long denied love of money. He ends up rich himself, having moved one dollar’s width to the right with every dollar that he made.
Related Themes:
