Previous
Logos
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
Volume 1, Part 1: Chapters 1–4
Explanation and Analysis—Spinning Mill:
Anna Pavlovna, maid of honor to the mother of the Emperor, is a well-respected member of aristocratic society in St. Petersburg. In his depiction of one of her soirees, which demonstrates her capability as a high society host, Tolstoy use a metaphor and simile drawn from the language of industrialization and machinery:
As the owner of a spinning mill, having put his workers in their places, strolls about the establishment, watching out for an idle spindle or the odd one squealing much too loudly, and hastens to go and slow it down or start it up at the proper speed—so Anna Pavlovna strolled about her drawing room, going up to a circle that had fallen silent or was too talkative, and with one word or rearrangement set the conversation machine running evenly and properly again.
Related Themes:
Volume 2, Part 2: Chapters 1–4
Explanation and Analysis—Stone by Stone :
After leaving his wife, Hélène Kuragin, whom he suspects of adultery, Pierre heads to Petersburg. On his journey, he meets a fellow traveler named Osip Bazdeev, who recognizes Pierre due to his status as a prominent Duke. Alluding to Pierre's recent marital issues, Bazdeev asks Pierre if he believes in God, and Pierre confesses that he does not. In the conversation that follows, Bazdeev uses an extended metaphor that compares human knowledge to a building made of stone:
Unlock with LitCharts A+“I shall never dare to say that I know the truth,” said the Mason, amazing Pierre more and more with his definite and firm speech. “No one can attain to the truth by himself; only stone by stone, with the participation of all, over millions of generations, from our forefather Adam down to our time, is the temple being built which is to become a worthy dwelling place for the great God,” said the Mason, and he closed his eyes.
Volume 2, Part 3: Chapters 7–10
Explanation and Analysis—Foundations:
Pierre echoes Osip Bazdeev's earlier metaphor, which compared the process of learning to the construction of a building, in his own, more cynical assessment of freemason beliefs and practices. After devoting himself to freemasonry for some time, Pierre begins to feel disillusioned with the group, and he expresses his growing skepticism with a series of metaphors that are drawn from masonry:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Pierre began to feel after a year that the ground of Masonry, on which he stood, was giving way all the more under his feet the more firmly he tried to stand on it. Along with that, he felt that the further the ground he stood on gave way under his feet, the more involuntarily he was bound to it. When he was starting out in Masonry, he experienced the feeling of a man who trustingly sets foot on the smooth surface of a swamp. Placing one foot on it, he sank.
Related Themes:
Volume 3, Part 2: Chapters 36–39
Explanation and Analysis—World of Phantoms:
In one of many sections of the novel where Tolstoy pauses the primary narratives in order to reflect upon the nature of history, he uses both simile and metaphor in a withering critique of French leader Napoleon Bonaparte, whom he characterizes as occupying an "artificial world of phantoms of some sort of greatness":
Unlock with LitCharts A+And even without his order they were doing what he wanted, and he gave the instruction only because he thought an order was expected of him. And again he was transferred to his former artificial world of phantoms of some sort of greatness, and again (as a horse walking about a slanting treadmill imagines it is doing something for itself), he began to obediently fulfill that cruel, sad, oppressive, and inhuman role which had been assigned to him.
Related Themes:
Volume 3, Part 3: Chapters 18–22
Explanation and Analysis—Queenless Beehive:
In an extended metaphor, Tolstoy compares the city of Moscow, largely abandoned in anticipation of French invasion, to a "queenless beehive":
Unlock with LitCharts A+There is no life in a queenless beehive, but to a superficial glance it seems as alive as the others. In the hot rays of the noonday sun, the bees hover just as merrily around a queenless hive as around the other living hives; from afar it has the same smell of honey; bees fly in and out of it in the same way. But we need only take a closer look at it to realize that there is no longer any life in this hive. The bees do not fly in the same way as in a living hive [...]
Related Themes:
Epilogue, Part 1: Chapters 1–4
Explanation and Analysis—A Pathetic Comedy:
Tolstoy offers a withering assessment of Napoleon Bonaparte in the Epilogue of the novel, in which he uses an extended metaphor that dismisses the French leader as an "actor" in a "pathetic comedy":
Unlock with LitCharts A+The act is performed. The last role has been played. The actor is told to undress and wash off his greasepaint and rouge: there is no more need for him. And several years go by during which this man, in solitude on his island, plays a pathetic comedy before himself, pettily intriguing and lying to justify his actions [...]
The stage manager, having finished the drama and undressed the actor, shows him to us. “Look at what you believed in! Here he is! Do you see now that it was not he but I who moved you?”
Related Themes:
Epilogue, Part 1: Chapters 8–16
Explanation and Analysis—Sterile Blossom:
After Marya acknowledges that she continues to feel jealous of Sonya, to whom Nikolai was previously engaged, Natasha urges Marya to look upon Sonya with compassion and uses a metaphor that describes Sonya as a "sterile blossom":
Unlock with LitCharts A+"I feel terribly sorry for her sometimes; I used to want terribly for Nicolas to marry her; but I always had a sort of presentiment that it would never be. She’s a sterile blossom, you know, like on strawberries? Sometimes I feel sorry for her, but sometimes I think she doesn’t feel it the way we would.”
[...] Indeed it did seem that Sonya was not burdened by her position and was completely reconciled with her destiny as a sterile blossom. It seemed she valued not so much the people as the whole family.
Related Themes:
Explanation and Analysis—Different Worlds:
In the Epilogue, Tolstoy metaphorically compares the various social classes and circles that make up the Bezukhov household to "totally different worlds":
Unlock with LitCharts A+As in every real family, several totally different worlds lived together in the house at Bald Hills, each maintaining its own particularity and yielding to the others, but merging into one harmonious whole. Every event that occurred in the house was equally—joyfully or sadly—important for all these worlds; but each world had its own reasons, independent of the others, for rejoicing or lamenting over whatever the event might be. Thus, Pierre’s coming was a joyful, important event, and as such it had an effect on everyone.
Related Themes:
