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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
Prologue
Explanation and Analysis—A Poem, A Stink:
Cannery Row's prologue opens with a dense wall of metaphor-packed imagery:
Cannery Row in Monterey in California is a poem, a stink, a grating noise, a quality of light, a tone, a habit, a nostalgia, a dream. Cannery Row is the gathered and scattered, tin and iron and rust and splintered wood, chipped pavement and weedy lots and junk heaps, sardine canneries of corrugated iron, honky tonks, restaurants and whore houses, and little crowded groceries, and laboratories and flophouses. Its inhabitants are, as the man once said, “whores, pimps, gamblers, and sons of bitches,” by which he meant Everybody. Had the man looked through another peephole he might have said, “Saints and angels and martyrs and holy men,” and he would have meant the same thing.
Related Themes:
Chapter 14
Explanation and Analysis—Hour of the Pearl:
"The hour of the pearl" is a metaphor used throughout Cannery Row to mark the hours of dusk and dawn that straddle day and night. In Chapter 14, this motif appears for the first time in a description of the "magic" of Cannery Row in the early morning:
Unlock with LitCharts A+It is the hour of the pearl—the interval between day and night when time stops and examines itself.
Related Themes:
Chapter 21
Explanation and Analysis—Hour of the Pearl:
"The hour of the pearl" is a metaphor used throughout Cannery Row to mark the hours of dusk and dawn that straddle day and night. In Chapter 14, this motif appears for the first time in a description of the "magic" of Cannery Row in the early morning:
Unlock with LitCharts A+It is the hour of the pearl—the interval between day and night when time stops and examines itself.
Related Themes:
Chapter 23
Explanation and Analysis—True Philosophers:
Despite Mack and his friends not always doing right by Doc, Doc holds great affection for them and holds them in high regard. In this passage from chapter 23, Doc describes his feelings about them using a metaphor in which he presents them as "philosophers":
Unlock with LitCharts A+Doc said, “Look at them. There are your true philosophers. I think,” he went on, “that Mack and the boys know everything that has ever happened in the world and possibly everything that will happen. I think they survive in this particular world better than other people. In a time when people tear themselves to pieces with ambition and nervousness and covetousness, they are relaxed. All of our so-called successful men are sick men, with bad stomachs, and bad souls, but Mack and the boys are healthy and curiously clean. They can do what they want. They can satisfy their appetites without calling them something else.”
Related Themes:
