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- The effectiveness of written and spoken communication is often dependent on the ability of the speaker or writer to present the listener or reader with specific, detailed, memorable images. Metaphors accomplish this by combining ideas in unexpected ways. For example, Shakespeare's poetic phrase, "Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines," memorably evokes an image of the sun as a glaring eye.
- Metaphors are effective in part because they borrow emotional content from something that is already well understood and lend it to something that the writer is trying to help a reader understand. This explains why metaphors often use commonly understood objects (such as the moon, stars, and oceans.) For example, an author might write, "When he saw her, his head burst with starlight," or, "Friendless he wandered, through a desert that knew no bounds."
- Much of language is non-literal, and this portion of communication is often deeply significant. Non-literal communication may have the logic of a dream, associating two things on the basis of surface meanings or striving for deep symmetry between concepts not obviously connected. Metaphors operate on this non-literal level, deepening the reader or hearer's grasp of meanings below the surface of consciousness.
- The power of language to communicate ideas tends to dissipate through overuse and the passage of time. Phrases which once surprised hearers with their freshness, become trite. Metaphors reverse this process by revitalizing old words, giving them new meanings and applying them to new contexts. For instance, Vladimir Nabokov, in his novel Pnin, described a character's mouth as a seaside cave and his tongue as a "fat, sleek seal."
The Creation of Vivid Imagery
Transfer of Emotional Content
Non-Literal Significance
The Revitalization of the Familiar
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