“Juliet is the sun.”
The author examines the nature of this familiar Shakespearean metaphor from a number of perspectives, but for the benefit of the uninitiated he first tasks himself with describing what it likely means on the surface: that Romeo is suggesting Juliet makes him feel warm and cozy or that his day does not begin until he sets eyes on her. These are rather obvious, but then he throws a slight curve just to show the extension of the power of metaphor: that like the sun which nourishes the soil in which flowers grow, Romeo means Juliet nourishes that part of him where love grows.
Art as Metaphor
In an analysis of the illusion inherently at hand in metaphor, the author examines the argument that such illusory comparisons cannot teach because one cannot know by feeling, but only by touching. In other words, an artistic representation is itself a metaphor for reality and if it isn’t real, how can one learn from it. The flip side to this argument is quite simple: art’s power to move both positively and negatively.
“Art is often praised because it brings men together. But it also separates them.”
Edmund the Bastard
The author invokes Shakespeare again, but this time using a far more complicated character expounding upon a far more expansive topic for metaphor. In this case, it is Edmund from King Lear expressing the knowledge of his revelation of a basic tenet of human nature: to attribute to causes beyond control and beyond the reach of man all those tragic reversals of fortune and tragic twists of fate:
“we make guilty of our disasters the sun, the moon, and stars”
Self-Reflection
The author quotes from a text by philosopher Kierkegaard which puts into metaphorical form a truism to the assertion that most people are an enigma to others. Kierkegaard argues that this is only half the story, that the enigmatic status of human begins before one person ever meets another because most people never really even understand the enigma of self-identity because of an aversion to self-reflection:
“Most men live in relation to their own self as if they were constantly out, never at home.”
Dr. Strangelove
To read excerpts from the author’s commentary about Dr. Strangelove, one would be surprised of his feelings toward it: it is not brilliant cinema, it does not espouse brilliant ideas and it offer superficial explanations for the problems facing the world. Nevertheless, he considered it a brilliant film and for one reason: because it is a brilliant farce. Having established this, he proceeds to unfurl one of his longest and most abstract metaphors of the book. Keep in mind that the following stands as a metaphorical explanation for the greatness of Kubrick’s comedic masterpiece. Its farce is:
“The figure displaced under the bed or into the closet is not a person but a turn of mind; the object that drops on the head is not a loose chandelier but a tight loyalty; the inappropriate get-up is not a feather boa or a spittoon on the foot from which you cannot extricate yourself, but a habit of response.”
