The two most common figures of speech are simile and metaphor. Both compare things that are ordinarily considered unlike each other. A simile makes an explicit comparison between two things by using words such as like, as, than, appears, or seems: “A sip of Mrs. Cook’s coffee is like a punch in the stomach.” The force of the simile is created by the differences between the two things compared. There would be no simile if the comparison were stated this way: “Mrs. Cook’s coffee is as strong as the cafeteria’s coffee.” This is a literal comparison because Mrs. Cook’s coffee is compared with something like it, another kind of coffee. Consider how simile is used in this poem.
What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore —
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over —
like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?
This famous poem is a series of somewhat elaborate similes. Their effect is cumulative: the poem asks a number of questions based on these similes and asks the reader to supply an answer. The similes are made even more complicated in that the subject is slippery: we are being asked to compare the Harlem of the title and the concept of a dream deferred to all of the images that follow. The Manhattan neighborhood known as Harlem was a mostly African American neighborhood that had fallen on hard times at the time the poem was written: despite its “renaissance” in the 1920s (see Chapter 30), Harlem had experienced damaging riots in 1935 and 1943 based on the frustrations built on poverty and the limited opportunities available to black Americans at that time. The American dream for Harlemites was deferred. What happens to that dream? Hughes asks us to consider a number of possibilities, each of which connotes something slightly different. Take a few minutes to trace through each of these and consider what makes them different. By the end of the poem, the dream, Harlem, and the poem are so heavy with the weight of these similes that they threaten to burst, to explode. We might come away from this vision covered in rotting meat or a runny sore. Also important in this list of similes are the verbs Hughes chooses: dry up, fester, run, stink, crust and sugar over, sag, explode. The images are not the only aspect of these similes we have to deal with: these actions are part of the comparison.
A metaphor, like a simile, makes a comparison between two unlike things, but it does so implicitly, without words such as like or as: “Mrs. Cook’s coffee is a punch in the stomach.” Metaphor asserts the identity of dissimilar things. Macbeth tells us that life is a “brief candle,” life is “a walking shadow,” life is “a poor player,” life is “a tale / Told by an idiot.” Metaphor transforms people, places, objects, and ideas into whatever the poet imagines them to be, and if metaphors are effective, the reader’s experience, understanding, and appreciation of what is described are enhanced. Metaphors are frequently more demanding than similes because they are not signaled by particular words. They are both subtle and powerful. Both similes and metaphors expand the sense of a poem economically, by compelling our minds to connect two things that are not obviously connected.
While you were away
I matched your socks
and rolled them into balls.
Then I filled your drawer with
tight dark fists.
Although it would be creepy and cool to imagine the speaker dumping dozens of severed hands into her husband’s sock drawer, that would clearly be a misreading of the poem’s intent. We immediately understand that the speaker is saying the rolled up matched socks are like fists, but she goes straight to the comparison: no “like” necessary. We are left to marvel at the comparison: What’s the deal with this relationship? Why such a combative metaphor? The speaker leaves it to us to speculate. We know that the speaker is quite active: “I matched … and rolled … Then I filled.” The addressee hasn’t done anything … except leave. At first the speaker’s act sounds like a kindness, but the sentiment shifts at the end. The addressee might take it as a warning to expect a fight upon returning home.
Some metaphors are more subtle than others because their comparison of terms is less explicit. Notice the difference between the following two metaphors, both of which describe a shaggy derelict refusing to leave the warmth of a hotel lobby: “He was a mule standing his ground” is a quite explicit comparison. The man is a mule; X is Y. But this metaphor is much more covert: “He brayed his refusal to leave.” This second version is an implied metaphor because it does not explicitly identify the man with a mule. Instead it hints at or alludes to the mule. Braying is associated with mules and is especially appropriate in this context because of the mule’s reputation for stubbornness. Implied metaphors can slip by readers, but they offer the alert reader the energy and resonance of carefully chosen, highly concentrated language.
Some poets write extended comparisons in which part or all of the poem consists of a series of related metaphors or similes. Extended metaphors are more common than extended similes. In “Catch,” Robert Francis creates an extended metaphor that compares poetry to a game of catch. The entire poem is organized around this comparison. Because these comparisons are at work throughout the entire poem, they are called controlling metaphors. Extended comparisons can serve as a poem’s organizing principle; they are also a reminder that in good poems metaphor and simile are not merely decorative but inseparable from what is expressed.
Notice the controlling metaphor in this poem, published posthumously by a woman whose contemporaries identified her more as a wife and mother than as a poet. Anne Bradstreet’s first volume of poetry, The Tenth Muse, was published by her brother-in-law in 1650 without her prior knowledge.
Thou ill-formed offspring of my feeble brain,
Who after birth did’st by my side remain,
Till snatched from thence by friends, less wise than true,
Who thee abroad exposed to public view;
Made thee in rags, halting, to the press to trudge,
Where errors were not lessened, all may judge.
At thy return my blushing was not small,
My rambling brat (in print) should mother call;
I cast thee by as one unfit for light,
Thy visage was so irksome in my sight;
Yet being mine own, at length affection would
Thy blemishes amend, if so I could:
I washed thy face, but more defects I saw,
And rubbing off a spot, still made a flaw.
I stretched thy joints to make thee even feet,
Yet still thou run’st more hobbling than is meet;
In better dress to trim thee was my mind,
But nought save homespun cloth in the house I find.
In this array, ’mongst vulgars may’st thou roam;
In critics’ hands beware thou dost not come;
And take thy way where yet thou are not known.
If for thy Father asked, say thou had’st none;
And for thy Mother, she alas is poor,
Which caused her thus to send thee out of door.
The extended metaphor likening her book to a child came naturally to Bradstreet and allowed her to regard her work both critically and affectionately. Her conception of the book as her child creates just the right tone of amusement, self-deprecation, and concern.