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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
Part 1, Chapter 15
Explanation and Analysis—Vronsky as a Popinjay:
While discussing Kitty's marriage matches, Prince Shcherbatsky expresses approval of Levin as a partner for his daughter. With a metaphor, he demeans Vronsky's character:
I don’t think, I know. It’s we who have eyes for that, not women. I see a man who has serious intentions, that’s Levin; and I see a popinjay like this whippersnapper, who is only amusing himself.
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Part 1, Chapter 23
Explanation and Analysis—Kitty as a Butterfly:
After rejecting several men at the ball, Kitty realizes that she has no partner for the final mazurka. When she sits down dejectedly, the narrative uses a simile and a metaphor to illustrate her predicament:
Unlock with LitCharts A+She went to the far corner of a small drawing room and sank into an armchair. Her airy skirt rose like a cloud around her slender body; one bared, thin, delicate girlish hand sank strengthlessly into the folds of her pink tunic; in the other she held her fan and waved it before her flushed face with quick, short movements. But though she had the look of a butterfly that clings momentarily to a blade of grass and is about to flutter up, unfolding its iridescent wings, a terrible despair pained her heart.
Part 2, Chapter 11
Explanation and Analysis—The Murderer:
After Anna and Vronsky have sexual relations for the first time—assumed through the uses of ellipses—Vronsky feels a unique sense of dismay at the immutability of his actions. With a metaphor, the narrative describes Vronsky's perception of the situation:
Unlock with LitCharts A+And he felt what a murderer must feel when he looks at the body he has deprived of life. This body deprived of life was their love, the first period of their love. There was something horrible and loathsome in his recollections of what had been paid for with this terrible price of shame. Shame at her spiritual nakedness weighed on her and communicated itself to him. But, despite all the murderer’s horror before the murdered body, he had to cut this body into pieces and hide it, he had to make use of what the murderer had gained by his murder.
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Part 2, Chapter 25
Explanation and Analysis—Frou Frou's Fall:
When Vronsky makes a wrong move during his horse race, Frou-Frou breaks her back during a bad fall. The story uses an extended metaphor and simile to illustrate the event:
Unlock with LitCharts A+She flew over the ditch as if without noticing it; she flew over it like a bird; but just then Vronsky felt to his horror that, having failed to keep up with the horse’s movement, he, not knowing how himself, had made a wrong, an unforgivable movement as he lowered himself into the saddle. […] He barely managed to free the foot before she fell on her side, breathing heavily and making vain attempts to rise with her slender, sweaty neck, fluttering on the ground at his feet like a wounded bird.
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Part 4, Chapter 3
Explanation and Analysis—A Faded Flower:
When Anna confronts Vronsky about the actress, he notices that she has changed "morally and physically" and uses a metaphor to depict her deterioration:
Unlock with LitCharts A+She was not at all as he had seen her in the beginning. Both morally and physically she had changed for the worse. She had broadened out, and her face, when she spoke of the actress, was distorted by a spiteful expression. He looked at her as a man looks at a faded flower he has plucked, in which he can barely recognize the beauty that had made him pluck and destroy it. And, despite that, he felt that when his love was stronger, he might have torn that love from his heart, had he strongly wished to do so, but now, when it seemed to him, as it did at that moment, that he felt no love for her, he knew that his bond with her could not be broken.
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Part 5, Chapter 28
Explanation and Analysis—Bonnet Over the Mills:
When Anna and Vronsky return to Petersburg, Anna is ostracized by society—that is, until she officially divorces Karenin. Princess Betsy visits Anna despite the social repercussions and uses a metaphorical idiom to explain herself:
Unlock with LitCharts A+And, indeed, she went to see Anna that same day; but her tone was now quite unlike what it used to be. She was obviously proud of her courage and wished Anna to appreciate the faithfulness of her friendship. She stayed less than ten minutes, talking about society news, and as she was leaving said:
‘You haven’t told me when the divorce will be. Granted I’ve thrown my bonnet over the mills, but other starched collars will blow cold on you until you get married. And it’s so simple now. Ça se fait. So you leave on Friday? A pity we won’t see more of each other.’
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Part 7, Chapter 31
Explanation and Analysis—Reading by Candlelight :
Anna finally decides to put an end to her tormented life by jumping in front of a train, just as she witnessed a watchman do in the beginning of the novel. With a metaphor, the story describes her tragic suicide:
Unlock with LitCharts A+And the candle by the light of which she had been reading that book filled with anxieties, deceptions, grief and evil, flared up brighter than ever, lit up for her all that had once been in darkness, sputtered, grew dim, and went out for ever.
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