The Tempest

by William Shakespeare

The Tempest: Metaphors 3 key examples

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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
Act 1, scene 2
Explanation and Analysis—Ivy:

Nature metaphors often appear in The Tempest. In Act 1, Scene 2, Prospero describes Antonio as "ivy": 

[...] he was
The ivy which had hid my princely trunk
And sucked my verdure out on't. Thou attend'st not.

Act 2, scene 1
Explanation and Analysis—Antonio's Speech:

The Tempest brims with ingenious metaphors. In Act 2, Scene 1, for instance, Antonio uses metaphors and an instance of personification in his effort to convince Sebastian to murder his brother, Alonso. Speaking about Alonso, Antonio says:

Whom I, with this obedient steel, three inches of it,
Can lay to bed for ever; whiles you, doing thus,
To the perpetual wink for aye might put
This ancient morsel, this Sir Prudence, who
Should not upbraid our course. For all the rest,
They'll take suggestion as a cat laps milk;
They'll tell the clock to any business that
We say befits the hour.

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Explanation and Analysis—Theater of Life:

Shakespeare uses the theater as a metaphor for life in many of his plays, and The Tempest is no exception. In Act 2, Scene 1, Antonio describes his harrowing experience of the tempest:

We all were sea-swallow'd, though some cast again,
And by that destiny to perform an act
Whereof what's past is prologue, what to come
In yours and my discharge 

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