SIMILES, METAPHORS, and ALLEGORIES are all way to compare people, places, things, and ideas to other people, places, things, and ideas.
TENORS and VEHICLES are also important to understand when identifying SIMILES and METAPHORS.
What is a SIMILE?
Similes are the easiest to identify.
They use the word “like” or “as” to compare.
EXAMPLE
She moved like a turtle. (comparing her movement to the movement of a turtle)
His speech was as dull as dirt. (comparing the dullness of his speech to the dullness of dirt)
What is a METAPHOR?
A Metaphor is also a way to compare things, but it is different from a Simile in that it does not use the words “like” or “as” to make the comparison.
Love is a red, red, rose. (comparing the characteristics of a rose to love)
The streets were a furnace that summer day. (comparing the temperature of a furnace to that of the streets)
In these examples, we are calling the things themselves a “rose” or a “furnace“. We are not saying they were “like” those things – we are saying they ARE those things.
What is an ALLEGORY?
An ALLEGORY is an EXTENDED METAPHOR. It is when a METAPHOR is extended through many sentences, or paragraphs, or when the entire story is a METAPHOR.
For example, the novella, Animal Farm, is an ALLEGORY, because the story itself can be compared to the events that occured during the Russian Revolution. The animals in the book represent the working class fighting working against the oppressive forces (the pigs). This mirrors the real event that occured when the Russians worked under the communist leader, Joseph Stalin.
The medieval play, Everyman, is an ALLEGORY because the story itself represents man’s journey from birth to death and how man must stay away from evil forces and be a good, moral person. The characters in the play are named, Good Deeds, Knowledge, Beauty, and Strength. The main character, Everyman, meets these characters and learns how they either help him on his voyage or hinder him.
What is a TENOR and VEHICLE?
The Tenor is the literal object that is being compared. It is the “real” thing within the comparison.
The Vehicle is the object that the literal object is being compared to.
So, let’s use some of our examples above, again.
She moved like a turtle. (Her movement = Tenor / Movement of a turtle = Vehicle)
The streets were like a furnace. ( The temperature of the streets = Tenor / Furnace = Vehicle)
_____
In most similes or metaphors, the vehicle will appear after the tenor, but not always.
Look at this simile from Dante’s Inferno, Canto IX
As frogs confronted by their enemy, the snake, will scatter underwater till each hunches in a heap along the bottom, so did the thousand ruined souls I saw take flight before the figure…
In this simile, the ruined souls are feeling from a figure just like when frogs flee from a snake.
However, this simile is reversed -the Tenor appears after the Vehicle
The Tenor is the literal thing = the ruined souls fleeing
The Vehicle is the thing they are being compared to = frogs fleeing from a snake
