Why Compare?

Why do authors often use symbolism, metaphors, similes, and other devices when they write stories or poems? Language itself is a way to name what we perceive in the world, so it follows naturally that writers take naming a step further to add color, form, texture, etc., to their work. They inspire readers to imagine, to feel, and to react to the writing.  Even writers who are not inclined to the literary form, scientists, for instance, use symbolic language to give non-scientist readers a clear idea of what a complicated concept means by likening it to something people can more easily envision.  Analogies and other comparisons give nonprofessionals a way to understand scientific findings without knowing in full the special vocabulary of a particular field of study: physics, chemistry, biology, or others.

You can also incorporate literary devices into your writing, and it is often a good idea to do so.  You can add depth to your commentary by using analogies and similes. If you feel especially brave (foolhardy?), you might use an extended metaphor, which is to continue a metaphor past a one-time comparison of two things and extend it for several sentences or throughout the whole essay. I could write a blog on some basic features of a structured essay by telling my readers that the thesis statement is a ship, topic sentences are its sails, and transitions are the winds that move the ship in a certain direction. I could extend the metaphor further by calling the writer the captain of the boat. Perhaps happily, I won’t write that particular metaphoric  blog; but I wonder if readers would have a  mental image of The Good Ship Thesis essaying across the Sea of Syntax with transition breezes billowing in the topic sentence sails  to move the ship north, northwest .

While such comparisons can be effective, the danger of extended metaphors - as well as other devices -is that they can also appear contrived, fake, or even go so far off base that they seem ridiculous to the reader. The apt phrase, the right likeness, the perfect analogy, however, works and is worth consideration because when used well, they add fabulous fathoms to the writer’s voyage.

See you next time the breeze is cool, the sun is up, and the waves roll into view! ‘Til then, hang ten!