Metaphor is a resource of figurative language.
A metaphor is the application of a concept or an expression to an idea or an object that it does not directly describe , with the intention of suggesting a comparison with another element and facilitating its understanding. For example: "Those two emeralds that he had as eyes shone on his face."
The word comes from the Latin concept metaphora and this, in turn, from a Greek word that in Spanish is interpreted as "translation" . The metaphor appears both in literary theory (framework in which it is used as a rhetorical figure or trope ), and in the field of linguistics (a space where it appears as one of the most important reasons for semantic modification) and in psychology .
Metaphor as a literary device
As a literary device, metaphor serves to identify two terms between which there is some kind of similarity (in our previous example, the terms would be "eyes" and "emeralds" ). One of the terms is literal and the other is used figuratively. According to specialists, the metaphor consists of three levels: the tenor , which is what the metaphor literally refers to ( "eyes" ); the vehicle , which is the figurative term or what is meant ( "emeralds" ) and the foundation , which is the discourse or the relationship between the tenor and the vehicle (in this case, the green color shared by the eyes and the emeralds).
Writers resort to metaphors to establish unprecedented relationships between words or to discover unsuspected attributes in them. For this reason, metaphor has an important poetic power since it has the ability to multiply the usual meaning of words.
The construction of a metaphor appeals to parallelism.
Use in literature
The use of metaphors in literature is very widespread and transcends genres and styles. Although they are usually associated with poetry , they frequently appear in stories and novels .
Metaphors can even be part of a newspaper article , an autobiography or biography , a dialogue from a film script , a theatrical monologue or an essay . Whether in verse or prose, in a poem or in a narrative, this figure always finds a place in writing to enrich a text.
Metaphor classification according to type
It is important to note that a metaphor in poetics occupies a similar place to that of comparisons, but is incomplete by not directly mentioning the object or element to which it wishes to refer. In any case, it is necessary to clarify that there are two types of metaphor: the pure and the impure .
An impure metaphor exists when both terms appear, the real one and the evoked one; This type of metaphor is also known as in praesentia or image .
In cases in which the real term does not appear, but only the metaphorical one, we are dealing with a pure metaphor . This metaphor is used to direct attention to the signifier or give an unknown aspect to the everyday.
The metaphor can function as a euphemism to avoid the harshness of the literal.
The allegory
Metaphors are an allegorical element ; That is, they manifest something that is not being expressed, but that can be intuited and understood through reason and the association of concepts. For example, when we see a scale we can think of justice associating both elements, which balance and allow harmony.
It is said that every metaphor commonly understood in society ( scale = justice ), first had to be a personal metaphor, arising from the internal universe of an individual, who shared it and later that personal association became another element of culture. of a certain society.
Each poet can relate to a certain number of symbols or words that, in his career, he reinterpreted and gave them a new notion. This can especially be found in the symbolist poetry of the 19th century .
The analysis of metaphor by Aristotle and Freud
From philosophy, Aristotle defined metaphors as a comparison between two or several entities that at first glance are different and assured that this human capacity to generate metaphors revealed the great power of the mind .
In psychology it was Sigmund Freud who described them as a fundamental element to understand the human mind, since thinking in images was closer to the unconscious, to desires, than thinking in words; From there, psychoanalysis pays more attention to metaphorical thinking than to literal thinking.
The notion in constructivism and humanism
Also in constructivism, metaphor is a fundamental element because since reality is not independent of the observer and therefore each person has their own reality, metaphors are the individual way in which each individual filters and understands what is real. In this way, to Through them one's own reality could be built.
The difference between this current and Freudian theory is that it does not separate between metaphorical and literal language: both constitute a whole through which reality is interpreted .
Humanists also rely on metaphor when carrying out the psychological evaluation of a patient, possibly because they rely heavily on literature to develop themselves. In their therapeutic techniques they usually use the use of metaphors and the telling of stories.
The metaphor in cognitive psychology and child psychology
The cognitive current has long left aside metaphorical thinking, considering it too ambiguous and imprecise. It should be taken into account that this theory proposes that there is an objective way of seeing reality and that those who are not capable of looking at it through logic (as they present it) are distorting reality.
There are cognitive psychology professionals who are embracing the incorporation of metaphors into their research methods. In this way, the new theories of cognitive-behavioral psychology accept that there is no single way of seeing reality, but that it is analyzed through metaphors: there are, therefore, no logical-rational methods , but rather metaphors that help interpret the environment. For this reason, the metaphor is beginning to be used for the treatment of patients with obsessive-compulsive disorders to help them reevaluate those obsessive thoughts.
With regard to child psychology , given that in this period of our lives we have important metaphorical baggage through which we try to capture reality and values and judge our behavior and that of our peers, it relies heavily on the use of metaphors and stories for the treatment of these patients.
Introduction to therapy
Finally, it is worth mentioning that in psychology there are two types of metaphors: those introduced by the therapist and those that can be identified from the patient's story.
The former must be studied in advance so that they are meaningful for the patient's interpretation, while the latter serve to thoroughly understand those elements that the person cannot name ( traumas, unpleasant experiences , etc.).
According to Paul Watzlawick , a message that a patient emits not only communicates information, but something about that communication. This means that it has a metacommunicative importance and that it presents an alternative reality on which the therapist must work to try to carry out adequate communication, extracting those elements hidden behind the literal words.
Our life is full of metaphors, they exist in all fields and they are what help us understand and accept reality. Therefore, in short, we should all keep this concept in mind, not only in the field of arts , but also in science .