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Irony
Definition of Metaphor
A metaphor is a figure of speech that compares two different things by saying that one thing is the other. The comparison in a metaphor can be stated explicitly, as... read full definition
A metaphor is a figure of speech that compares two different things by saying that one thing is the other. The comparison in a metaphor... read full definition
A metaphor is a figure of speech that compares two different things by saying that one thing is the other... read full definition
Chapter 1
Explanation and Analysis—Collar:
In the following metaphor from Chapter 1, the narrator compares her task of writing on "women and fiction" to a collar around her neck:
That collar I have spoken of, women and fiction, the need of coming to some conclusion on a subject that raises all sorts of prejudices and passions, bowed my head to the ground.
The figurative "collar" that the narrator describes suggests that her obligation to write about "women and fiction" feels heavy and oppressive, like a a metal shackle that an enslaved person might be forced to wear around their neck. This metaphor connects Woolf to a long tradition (among both European and American women) of comparing the gender-based oppression they experience to chattel slavery. Notable examples include Mary Wollstonecraft's seminal feminist essay A Vindication of the Rights of Women, in which she speaks of a "slavery that chains the very soul of woman, keeping her for ever under the bondage of ignorance."
It's worth noting that many of the female writers and thinkers who used these sorts of metaphors in the 19th and 20th centuries had not experienced chattel slavery themselves, seeking instead another form of oppression within which to contextualize their own. Black women, subject to both gender-based and race-based oppression, often did not need to make such comparisons to contextualize their lived experiences. In fact, many of the early feminist movements, which centered on White women's right to work and earn money, failed to resonate with Black women who had long since been forced into work or servitude against their will.
For better or worse, the metaphor in this passage conveys the oppression that the narrator experiences as a woman in a male-dominated society and also the sense of responsibility she feels to accurately describe the plight of female intellectuals. This existential weightiness is represented by the more tangible heaviness of an imaginary collar around the narrator's neck.
Related Themes:
Explanation and Analysis—Rare Types:
In Chapter 1, the narrator describes the men who surround her on the fictionalized "Oxbridge" college campus, utilizing metaphor to draw comparisons between them and their objects of study:
Many were in cap and gown; some had tufts of fur on their shoulders; others were wheeled in bath-chairs; others, though not past middle age, seemed creased and crushed into shapes so singular that one was reminded of those giant crabs and crayfish who heave with difficulty across the sand of an aquarium. As I leant against the wall the University indeed seemed a sanctuary in which are preserved rare types which would soon be obsolete if left to fight for existence on the pavement of the Strand.
The narrator likens these men to scientific specimens, "rare types" of "giant crabs and crayfish" who would go extinct if left to fend for themselves in nature, outside the laboratory, conservatory, or museum. This extended metaphor subverts masculine academic elitism, providing an alternate perspective on such "ivory tower" types. These men, according to the narrator, have so far removed themselves from society as to be entirely useless to it.
This instance of simile critiques the way men are privileged over women in society and the elitist, upper-class institutions that perpetuate this inequality. The narrator observes the overlap between gendered oppression and class oppression, which results in the financial, educational, and societal impoverishment of women.
Related Themes:
Explanation and Analysis—Thought:
At the beginning of Chapter 1, the narrator sits on the bank of a stream in Oxbridge, considering the task ahead of her: crafting an intelligent, informed speech on the remarkably broad topic of "women and fiction." Sitting down to address this topic, the narrator utilizes metaphor to describe her jumbled thought processes:
There one might have sat the clock round lost in thought. Thought—to call it by a prouder name than it deserved—had let its line down into the stream. [....] Alas, laid on the grass how small, how insignificant this thought of mine looked; the sort of fish that a good fisherman puts back into the water so that it may grow fatter and be one day worth cooking and eating.
In the above excerpt, the narrator reflects on the nature of thought, crafting an elaborate metaphor to represent her own "stream" of consciousness. In fishing this stream, the narrator remarks that she often extracts "fish," or ideas, that are not yet fully formed. The work the narrator—and, by extension, Woolf—does over the course of A Room of One's Own is that of a fisherman awaiting the maturation of a fish. In order to extract a trophy of an idea from her "stream" of consciousness, the narrator must be patient.
More broadly, this musing on stream-of-consciousness writing serves as a commentary on female intellectual freedom. In the narrator's view, women must work to acquire the space, time, and resources necessary to fully develop rich intellectual lives—to be allowed to throw ideas back into the "stream" to mature. Men, by contrast, tend to be awarded these resources more freely.
Related Themes:
Chapter 2
Explanation and Analysis—The Factory:
At the beginning of Chapter 2, the narrator walks to the British Museum to conduct research on "Women and Fiction," finding herself beset with masculine rhetoric on all sides. As she approaches the museum, she utilizes both simile and metaphor to remark on her surroundings:
London was like a workshop. London was like a machine. We were all being shot backwards and forwards on this plain foundation to make some pattern. The British Museum was another department of the factory.
This passage compares London to a workshop or a machine, first through simile and then more indirectly through metaphor. Note in this figurative language the subtle juxtaposition of "masculine" and "feminine" work. The narrator likens male intellectual output—the novels and documents sequestered in the British Museum archives—to manual labor done by working women at the turn of the century. Many such women labored in garment factories, emblematized by the imagery of a shuttle being thrown back and forth on the loom: "shot backwards and forwards [...] to make some pattern." This continues the narrator's working-class manifesto, including her criticism of scholars being "rare types"—men who are so far removed from the concerns of society that they cannot possibly meet the needs of the people. By speaking of the British Museum as just "another department of the factory, the narrator undermines the perceived superiority of elitist, patriarchal academic institutions.
Related Themes:
