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Metaphor
Explanation and Analysis—Time as Spinner:
In Book 1, Chapter 14, Louisa contemplates her future, and the narration uses metaphor and personification to describe her thoughts:
It seemed as if, first in her own fire within the house, and then in the fiery haze without, she tried to discover what kind of woof Old Time, that greatest and longest established Spinner of all, would weave from the threads he had already spun into a woman. But, his factory is a secret place, his work is noiseless, and his Hands are mutes.
Louisa wonders what kind of “woof” (an old-fashioned term for “fabric”) Time will weave from the “threads” of her life. The book describes Time in a manner that is both metaphorical and personified, as a weaver who creates the lives of the people in the narrative. However, Time is no average weaver, but one whose “factory” is secret, whose work is “noiseless,” and whose Hands (workers) are “mutes.” Interestingly, this metaphor describes Time in the terms of mechanized labor, which Dickens also uses to describe Coketown. But in this case, the metaphor could not be more at odds with the reality it references. The so-called “factory” of Time is silent, invisible, and undetectable, unlike the polluting, noisy factories of Coketown.
This contrast underscores Louisa’s helplessness in the face of time passing; the terms in which she might understand it are insufficient to describe it. In addition, the metaphor casts Louisa in the role of being the product of Time’s weaving, rather than a participant in shaping her own life.
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