Darkness
Darkness has been a ubiquitous metaphor in literature since the dawn of the last century. Its presence benefited greatly from the horrors of two world wars. The narrator of “The Spider” is quoting a militant Black leader when he engages one of the most dominant utilizations of darkness as metaphor. “He said that after forty years of illumination, a time of darkness had befallen the Nation and a spider had come.” In this particular instance, darkness is a metaphor intended to cover the movement of a society from what one views as a period of enlightened thought to one negatively reacting to the societal changes characterizing that era.
The Baby
A cute little metaphor is used to great effect to describe the arrival of a baby into the world. “She did not know it then, though the doctors would soon inform her that she was already three months pregnant with a little girl — a wide-eyed chocolate drop of a baby whom she would name Jamilah, the beautiful.” The mention of a chocolate drop instantly brings to mind the very specific image of Hershey’s Kiss. That image is all it takes to make the metaphor vividly come to life in a reader’s mind.
Vague Science
The power of the comparative quality of the simile often lies in delineating a scene through such specificity as that illustrated above. Likewise, however, the simile can be powerful when the comparison is much vaguer. “I found myself laying supine on the guest bed at the Clifford's’, a doctor and my mother’s niece Velma hovering over me, looking me up and down like a science experiment.” The term “science experiment” is familiar enough to make this simile immediately effective, but vague enough that the image it brings to mind will differ from reader to reader.
The Sin of Slavery
A speech mounted like a sermon uses metaphor to castigate the multi-layered legacy of systemic racism in American history. “A real original woman, with none of the stain of ol’ master’s blood running in her veins.” The speaker here uses a familiar trope from the language of slavery to describe a Black woman with no genetic connection to Caucasians. The language refers to the irony of the foundation of white supremacist ideology which insists on racial purity. The reality is that multi-racial miscegenation in America was born precisely by the forced intercourse between white slaveholders and the Black females they held in bondage.
Office Art
A large painting hangs on a hotel conference wall which the narrative character finds disturbing but impossible not to look at. “It was one of those corporate monstrosities, chaotic in effect, like the thoughtless finger paintings of a small child.” This is an example of metaphorical language getting at the very heart of what almost every reader will literally have seen themselves. The reference to the monstrous appearance of office art is subjective, of course. Nearly everyone, however, has critically judged a painting displayed in public as possibly being the work of a child rather than a professional artist.
