en_tm/jit/figs-metaphorparts/01.md

Description

A metaphor has three parts.

1. Topic - The thing someone speaks of is called the topic.
2. Image - The thing he calls it is the image.
3. Point of Comparison - The way or ways in which the author claims that the topic and image are similar are their points of comparison.

In the metaphor below, the speaker describes the woman he loves as a red rose. The woman (his "love") is the topic, and "red rose" is the image. Beauty and delicacy are the points of comparison that the speaker sees as similarities between both the topic and the image.

• My love is a red, red rose.

Often, as in the metaphor above, the speaker explicitly states the topic and the image, but he does not state the points of comparison. The speaker leaves it to the hearer to think of those points of comparison. Because the hearers must think of these ideas themselves, the speaker's message has a more powerful effect on the hearers.

Also in the Bible, normally the topic and the image are stated clearly, but not the points of comparison. The writer leaves it to the audience to think of and understand the points of comparison that are implied.

Jesus said to them, "I am the bread of life; he who comes to me will not be hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty." (John 6:35 ULB)

In this metaphor, Jesus called himself the bread of life. The topic is "I," and the image is "bread." Bread is a food that people ate all the time. The point of comparison between bread and Jesus is that people need both to live. Just as people need to eat food in order to have physical life, people need to trust in Jesus in order to have spiritual life.

Purposes of Metaphor

• One purpose of metaphor is to teach people about something that they do not know (the topic) by showing that it is like something that they already do know (the image).
• Another purpose is to emphasize that something has a particular quality or to show that it has that quality in an extreme way.
• Another purpose is to lead people to feel the same way about the topic as they would feel about the image.