Implied Metaphor

Question

What is an implied metaphor and what is an example of one?

Thomas Tompion · Accepted Answer

Hello BlueDevil and welcome to the forum.

I know that the expression "implied metaphor' is used by some people, but I don't like it because:

A simile is an explicit parallel - She came into the room like a ship in full sail.

A metaphor is an implicit parallel - She sailed into the room.

Now if a metaphor is already implicit, it doesn't mean anything to talk of an implied metaphor: it's like talking about a red, red light.

However there are some people who think the adjective is justified if the metaphor is rather subtle and elusive - she came into the room in a large dress and hove to. Now there may be people who don't know that to heave to is a nautical expression meaning to put a ship into the wind to stop its forward motion; for them the metaphor might be so implicit as to be nearly meaningless. For others who know what it means, it becomes a subtle metaphor likening the lady to a ship. As you can see, the difference between an implied metaphor and a metaphor is one of degree, not kind. I would never use the expression for the reason I gave you: I don't talk about red, red lights.

Anonymous · Answer

Respectfully, I'd have to disagree with your assessment and defend the need for a distinction between explicit metaphors and implied/buried ones.

"She sailed into the room," is an implied metaphor (though not as buried as others) because what you are comparing her to is not mentioned outright, such as, "She was a sailboat without an anchor." You make the comparison explicit with the simile and could have also done so with the metaphor.

Here's another example of an implied metaphor: "The subway coursed through the arteries of the city." What is the subway being compared to here? It certainly isn't explicitly mentioned in the sentece; one has to "dig" for it a bit. (subway = blood). Similarly, there is the implied metaphor of the city as a circulatory system (What else has literal arteries?).

BTW, a simile IS a metaphor, in the same way that a square is a rectangle. It is useful to make similes a distinct category of metaphor, and it is equally useful to understand implied metaphors. Part of the difficulty of examining metaphors (and language as a whole) is that we are so inundated with them. From the moment we start forming and using language, we think metaphorically.

Implied Metaphor

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