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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
Chapter 12
Explanation and Analysis—Aunt Polly the Healer:
After Tom witnesses Injun Joe kill Dr. Robinson and frame Muff Potter, he is full of guilt and fear, and Aunt Polly misinterprets his reaction as an illness, leading her to try various remedies. Here, Twain uses a metaphor to describe Aunt Polly’s poor healing abilities—comparing her to death itself:
She gathered together her quack periodicals and her quack medicines, and thus armed with death, went about on her pale horse, metaphorically speaking, with "hell following after." But she never suspected that she was not an agent of healing and the balm of Gilead in disguise, to the suffering neighbors.
Related Themes:
