2. Dean Koontz, Seize the Night. Bantam, 1999
"Bobby Holloway says my imagination is a three-
hundred-ring circus. Currently I was in ring two
hundred and ninety-nine, with elephants dancing
and clowns cartwheeling and tigers leaping through
rings of fire. The time had come to step back, leave
the main tent, go buy some popcorn and a Coke, bliss
out, cool down."
NOTICE his use of participials.
3. Emily Dickinson's Extended Metaphor:
Hope as a "Little Bird"
"Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune--without the words,
And never stops at all,
"And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.
"I've heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.“
4. Will Ferrell's Extended Metaphor:
The University of Life
"I graduated from the University of Life. All right? I
received a degree from the School of Hard Knocks.
And our colors were black and blue, baby. I had
office hours with the Dean of Bloody Noses. All
right? I borrowed my class notes from Professor
Knuckle Sandwich and his Teaching Assistant, Ms.
Fat Lip Thon Nyun. That’s the kind of school I went
to for real, okay?”
(Will Ferrell, Commencement Address at Harvard University, 2003)
5. Mark Twain's Extended Metaphor
Life on the Mississippi
"One day [Mr. Bixby] turned on me suddenly with this settler-
-
"'What is the shape of Walnut Bend?'
"He might as well have asked me my grandmother's opinion
of protoplasm. I reflected respectfully, and then said I didn't
know it had any particular shape. My gunpowdery chief went
off with a bang, of course, and then went on loading and firing
until he was out of adjectives.
"I had learned long ago that he only carried just so many
rounds of ammunition, and was sure to subside into a very
placable and even remorseful old smooth-bore as soon as they
were all gone."
(Mark Twain, Life on the Mississippi, 1883)
6. House Calls:
The Metaphors of Dr. Gregory House
Dr. House: As far as you're concerned, the patient is
Osama bin Laden, and everyone not in this room is
Delta Force. Any questions?
Applicant #11: We're protecting Osama bin Laden?
Dr. House: It's a metaphor. Get used to it.
("The Right Stuff")
7. Your Susan Orlean's Extended Metaphor:
"Super-Duper"
Turn!
If football is a metaphor for war, then Super Bowl week is a metaphor for football. Throughout the
week, everything had a sort of battlefield urgency and martial precision. Posted at the Media
Center: "Following is a press release regarding the Super Bowl Sod. It is from Bermuda Dunes
(near Palm Springs), California, not Las Vegas. . . . It is very important for it to be known that
the sod is from Palm Springs . . . and not Las Vegas, as has previously been reported." Over the
PA at an outdoor souvenir fair: "Attention, personnel! We need mini-helmets at the autograph
booth! Mini-helmets! ASAP!" At the Commissioners' Party, an enormous gala at the Miami
Beach Convention Center, the league owners were penned in a corner apart from the crowd and
were guarded by wiry tough guys with walkie talkies. One tough guy had collared a small, tan
man with luminous white hair who was headed into the pen. "Station to command base," the
guard said into his walkie-talkie. "I have a certain individual here asserting he is one of the
owners of the Seattle Seahawks. Can you clear me?" He was, and they did.
The Super Bowl is billed as the ultimate American sporting event and the ultimate athletic battle:
No other television broadcast attracts a larger audience, and the money and effort that people
spend to attend it is stupendous. But during my week in Miami, I didn't feel that it was on the
brink of a singular decisive battle: I felt that I was bouncing from one little skirmish to another-
-the mini-helmet crisis, the heavy-duty credentials checkpoints at the parties, the elbowing
through crowds to get near one of the players, the press briefings about which Charger had a
case of the gout and whether the 49ers practiced in full pads or just in sweatclothes. Very few
Super Bowls ever turn out to be exciting games. This is blamed, variously, on the misalignment
in the two football conferences, which means the matchup always has one clearly superior
team; on the fact that you can never guarantee that any single game in any sport will be
suspenseful (as opposed to a playoff series, which builds momentum); or on the simple fact that
nothing, no matter how thrilling, could ever live up to the hype that precedes every Super Bowl.
Still, everyone runs around all week in a state of high excitation. There is a real contest at the
Super Bowl, but it's not on the field--it's a battle for tickets and hotel rooms and invitations and
autographs and access and souvenirs, and it requires both an offensive and a defensive strategy.
8. The Great Gatsby: Chapter 3
See provided handout for text.
Using a highlighter underline diction that supports the
metaphor you find within this text.
Party Life = _______________.
9.
10. YOUR Turn
Draft an extended metaphor for a character of
your choice.
Nick Carraway
Tom Buchanan
Daisy Buchanan
George Wilson
Myrtle Wilson
Jordan
Catherine
Check your diction!
11. Out-of-Class: Listen!
Think: what is an extended metaphor for the setting
of the novel?
Find a song that contains an extended metaphor.
“Note” the metaphors
within this picture.
12. Thank You!
Richard Nordquist, About.com Guide
Extended Metaphor
"House" Calls: The Metaphors of Dr. Gregory House
Susan Orlean's Extended Metaphor: "Super-Duper"
