Daisy Miller

by Henry James

Daisy Miller: Metaphors 2 key examples

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
Metaphors
Explanation and Analysis—Metropolis of Calvinism:

The narrator explains that Winterbourne is attached to Geneva, metaphorically referring to it as "the little metropolis of Calvinism." At the core of this metaphor is an allusion to John Calvin, a central figure in the Protestant Reformation in Switzerland and France. Calvin spent much of his life and did much of his work in Geneva.

Part 2: Rome
Explanation and Analysis—Textbook Acquaintances:

When Mrs. Walker invites Winterbourne to her party despite their disagreement, the reader discovers Mrs. Walker's reason for being attached to people like him. The narrator compares Mrs. Walker's friends to textbooks through a metaphor:

Mrs. Walker was one of those American ladies who, while residing abroad, make a point, in their own phrase, of studying European society; and she had on this occasion collected several specimens of her diversely-born fellow-mortals to serve, as it were, as text-books.

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