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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 1
Explanation and Analysis—Sethe's Eyes:
Throughout the novel, Sethe’s eyes are compared to iron and deep wells of emptiness. In Chapter 1, Paul D notes Sethe’s eyes as one of her defining traits.
Halle's girl—the one with iron eyes and backbone to match…A face too still for comfort; irises the same color as her skin, which, in that still face, used to make him think of a mask with mercifully punched out eyes…like two wells.
Related Themes:
Part 1, Chapter 10
Explanation and Analysis—Blood Eddy:
In Chapter 10, Paul D reflects on his further enslavement after Sweet Home and discusses how he began to tremble. He attributes the sensation to his blood, which he compares to a frozen river melting.
Unlock with LitCharts A+A flutter of a kind, in the chest, then the shoulder blades. It felt like rippling—gentle at first and then wild. As though the further south they led him the more his blood, frozen like an ice pond for twenty years, began thawing, breaking into pieces that, once melted, had no choice but to swirl and eddy. Sometimes it was in his leg. Then again it moved to the base of his spine. By the time they unhitched him from the wagon and he saw nothing but dogs and two shacks in a world of sizzling grass, the roiling blood was shaking him to and fro. But no one could tell.
Related Themes:
Part 2, Chapter 19
Explanation and Analysis—Jungle:
In Chapter 19, Stamp Paid reworks a metaphor used by white people—one that compares the true nature of Black people to a jungle—by suggesting that enslaved people's anger and “crazed” behavior are not caused by their African origins, but by white people:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Whitepeople believed that whatever the manners, under every dark skin was a jungle. Swift unnavigable waters, swinging screaming baboons, sleeping snakes, red gums ready for their sweet white blood. In a way, he thought, they were right. The more coloredpeople spent their strength trying to convince them how gentle they were, how clever and loving, how human, the more they used themselves up to persuade whites of something Negroes believed could not be questioned, the deeper and more tangled the jungle grew inside. But it wasn’t the jungle blacks brought with them to this place from the other (livable) place. It was the jungle whitefolks planted in them...The screaming baboon lived under their own white skin; the red gums were their own.
Related Themes:
