Discoveries and magic (Metaphor)
People explore the world through experience. Science doesn’t give us all the answers that we want to get, but it always leads to unexpected discoveries. “The biology student” does not use his scalpel “as an instrument; he uses it “as a magic wand!” Of course, this simple little thing has nothing to do with magic, but it does help to make impressive and astonishing discoveries that change our perception of ourselves and the world around us. This “scientific instrument” that does “scientific things” helps us to research “mastery of creation.”
Expectations (Simile)
It is almost impossible “to gaze directly at the Grand Canyon” and see it “for what it is.” It is almost impossible because the Grand Canyon, the thing as it is, “has been appropriated by the symbolic complex” which “has already been formed in the sightseer’s mind.” If it looks “like the postcard,” a tourist is “pleased” and happy; he might even say, “Why it is every bit as beautiful as a picture postcard!” He feels “he has not been cheated.” But if it doesn’t look like an ad, he will tell later that he was “unlucky in not being there at the right time.”
Memorable (Simile)
The author remembers hunting “in south Alabama” with his father and brother and a guide. At the edge of some woods, they saw “a wonderful bird.” It flew “as swift and straight” as “an arrow,” but then all of a sudden folded his wings and dropped “like a stone into the woods.” It was “a blue darter hawk.” “What was so impressive about the bird” that the author couldn’t forget it even many years later was “its dazzling speed” and “the effect of alternation of its wings,” as if it were flying “by a kind of oaring motion.”
Obscure (Metaphor)
According to the author, the sonnet is “obscured” by “the symbolic package” which is “formulated not by the sonnet itself” but by “the media” through which the sonnet is transmitted. Unfortunately for us, these media which are supposed to transmit the sonnet may only succeed in “transmitting themselves.” Students get easily carried away to be able to focus on the meaning of the words. It is “only the hardiest and the cleverest of students” who “can salvage the sonnet from this many-tissued package.” It is only “the rarest student” who knows that the sonnet must be “salvaged from the package.”
Both (Metaphor)
There is “an astronomer” who works night on Mount Palomar “observing, recording, hypothesizing, writing equations, predicting, searching the skies” and whatnot. During the days he comes down into the town “to satisfy his needs” as organism and culture member, “eats, sleeps, enjoys his wife and family and home, plays golf,” and participates in other “cultural and recreational activities.” He functions well as both “angel (scientist-knower)” and “beast (culture organism).” His life is not deprived of “the sovereignty and lordship of science and art.”
