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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
Act 1, Scene 1
Explanation and Analysis—Winning at Cards:
Act 1, Scene 1 starts with Mirabell losing a game of cards to Fainall in the chocolate house. Finall uses a metaphor to describe why he doesn't want to play another game:
No, I’ll give you your revenge another time, when you are not so indifferent; you are thinking of something else now, and play too negligently. The coldness of a losing gamester lessens the pleasure of the winner. I’d no more play with a man that slighted his ill fortune, than I’d make love to a woman who undervalued the loss of her reputation.
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Act 3, Scene 10
Explanation and Analysis—Wearing Fools:
In Act 3, Scene 10, Millamant and Marwood develop an elaborate simile-turned-metaphor comparing acquaintances to clothing:
Unlock with LitCharts A+MILLAMANT: Well, ’tis a lamentable thing, I’ll swear, that one has not the liberty of choosing one’s acquaintance as one does one’s clothes. [...] I could consent to wear ’em, if they would wear alike, but fools never wear out – they are such drap-du-Berry things, without one could give ’em to one’s chambermaid after a day or two.
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Act 5, Scene 14
Explanation and Analysis—Deed to Independence:
At the end of Act 5, scene 14, Mirabell closes the play by handing Mrs. Fainall (Arabella) the deed to her home so that she will now have control of her fortune (monetary and otherwise) within her marriage. The deed is a metaphor for the independence Millamant wants and that Arabella previously seemed to have lost in marriage:
Unlock with LitCharts A+In the meantime, madam, let me before these witnesses restore to you this deed of trust. It may be a means, well managed, to make you live easily together. From hence let those be warned, who mean to wed,
Lest mutual falsehood stain the bridal bed;
For each deceiver to his cost may find,
That marriage frauds too oft are paid in kind.
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