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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
The First Epoch: Part 1, Chapter 1
Explanation and Analysis—A Literary Trial:
Throughout the novel, the narrators discuss their own narrative as though they were in the midst of a trial; they see themselves and each other as witnesses and defendants. The law and justice are tenets that occupy a central role throughout the novel, which functions like a metaphorical trial. Collins combines his rich writing style with a forensic technique to make the novel's pages approximate a law case.
Related Themes:
The First Epoch: Part 1, Chapter 12
Explanation and Analysis—Schoolboy as Crusoe:
When Marian and Walter go into the village near Limmeridge to inquire about the identity of the person who sent the anonymous letter to Laura, they end up at the local school. Seeking the schoolmaster, they walk in on one of the boys being punished, and Walter uses a metaphor to describe him:
Unlock with LitCharts A+The schoolmaster was sitting at his high desk, with his back to me, apparently haranguing the pupils, who were all gathered together in front of him, with one exception. The one exception was a sturdy white-headed boy, standing apart from all the rest on a stool in a corner—a forlorn little Crusoe, isolated in his own desert island of solitary penal disgrace.
The Third Epoch: Part 1, Chapter 1
Explanation and Analysis—House-Forest:
After the Second Epoch closes with the unexpected reunion between Walter, Laura, and Marian, the Third Epoch opens with the three of them anonymously living together in a rented flat in a busy working-class part of London. Walter brings the reader up to speed on their new living situation, using a metaphor to describe their neighborhood:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Our poor place of abode, our humble calling, our assumed relationship, and our assumed name, are all used alike as a means of hiding us in the house-forest of London.
The Third Epoch: Part 1, Chapter 3
Explanation and Analysis—House as Desert Island:
Soon after moving in, Walter refers to their city and neighborhood as a house-forest. Once they have settled, he uses another nature metaphor to describe their abode and isolation from society:
Unlock with LitCharts A+As early as the end of October, the daily course of our lives had assumed its settled direction; and we three were as completely isolated in our place of concealment, as if the house we lived in had been a desert island, and the great network of streets and the thousands of our fellow creatures all round us the waters of an illimitable sea.
Related Themes:
The Third Epoch: Part 1, Chapter 8
Explanation and Analysis—Houses as Carcasses:
When Walter goes to Welmingham to speak to Mrs. Catherick, he is disgusted by the sight that meets him after he gets off the train in the village. In his description of the area, he uses a metaphor that compares the houses of Welmingham to dead bodies.
Walter asks himself and the reader if there is any "wilderness of sand in the deserts of Arabia" or "any prospect of desolation among the ruins of Palestine" that can "rival the repelling effect on the eye, and the depressing influence on the mind, of an English country town" when it is still in the process of development. As he narrates his walk through the village, he provides an answer to his own question:
Unlock with LitCharts A+And the tradesmen who stared after me from their lonely shops; the trees that drooped helpless in their arid exile of unfinished crescents and squares; the dead house-carcasses that waited in vain for the vivifying human element to animate them with the breath of life; every creature that I saw; every object that I passed—seemed to answer with one accord: The deserts of Arabia are innocent of our civilized desolation; the ruins of Palestine are incapable of our modern gloom!
Related Themes:
The Third Epoch: Part 3, Chapter 3
Explanation and Analysis—Love as Shipwreck:
As Laura grows stronger, Walter finds that she's acting more and more like her old self, which brings his romantic love for her back to the surface. Walter uses a metaphor to describe the return of these emotions:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Changed as all the circumstances now were, our position towards each other in the golden days of our first companionship, seemed to be revived with the revival of our love. It was as if Time had drifted us back on the wreck of our early hopes, to the old familiar shore!
The Third Epoch: Part 3, Chapter 6
Explanation and Analysis—Discovery as Mine:
After Professor Pesca divulges his involvement in the Brotherhood, Walter deduces that Count Fosco is a defector from the secret society. He then begins to carefully consider how to go about revealing that he knows he is a traitor, at which point he metaphorically refers to his discovery as a mine.
Unlock with LitCharts A+[...] I must place the discovery itself where it would be ready for instant use against him, and safe from any attempt at suppression on his part. If I laid the mine under his feet before I approached him, and if I left instructions with a third person to fire it, on the expiration of a certain time, unless directions to the contrary were previously received under my own hand, or from my own lips—in that event, the Count’s security was absolutely dependent upon mine, and I might hold the vantage ground over him securely, even in his own house.
Related Themes:
The Third Epoch: Part 4, Chapter 1
Explanation and Analysis—Overflowing Trust:
In Count Fosco's narrative, he weaves his narration of the story's events with broader reflections on himself and other characters. Emphasizing that it is his rule "never to make unnecessary mysteries" or to make people suspect him, he uses a metaphor to describe the trust he managed to earn from Mrs. Michelson and Mrs. Clements.
Unlock with LitCharts A+Mrs. Michelson believed in me from first to last. This ladylike person (widow of a Protestant Priest) overflowed with faith. Touched by such superfluity of simple confidence, in a woman of her mature years, I opened the ample reservoirs of my nature, and absorbed it all.
I was rewarded for posting myself sentinel at the lake, by the appearance—not of Anne Catherick herself, but of the person in charge of her. This individual also overflowed with simple faith, which I absorbed in myself.
Explanation and Analysis—Destiny as Puppet Master:
After the Count and Madame Fosco drive away at the end of the third part of the Third Epoch, the tell-all narrative that the Count agreed to write for Walter takes over and serves as the entire fourth part. Early in this narrative, Count Fosco metaphorically describes humanity as puppets and personifies Destiny as the supreme puppet-master:
Unlock with LitCharts A+All the gold of my rich nature was poured hopelessly at her feet. My wife—poor angel!—my wife who adores me, got nothing but the shillings and the pennies. Such is the World; such Man; such Love. What are we (I ask) but puppets in a show-box? Oh, omnipotent Destiny, pull our strings gently! Dance us mercifully off our miserable little stage!
