The Comedy of Errors: Metaphors 7 key examples

The Duke appears to be suffering from a guilty conscience. He listens with sympathy to Aegeon’s sad story of a family divided by the forces of nature, and it is clear to him, as it is to the audience, that Aegeon has not come to Ephesus to sabotage the city in service of its rival, Syracuse. Nevertheless, he feels that it is his responsibility as leader of Ephesus to uphold its laws even when he disagrees with them, as people in positions of power can't simply "disannul” any law that they find unfavorable.

The Duke thus uses a trial court as a metaphor for his own internal conflict. His official station as Duke—the crown that symbolizes his position, the oath he has taken to uphold Ephesian law, and the dignity of the princedom itself—stands for the prosecution, which demands Aegeon’s death. The Duke’s own soul, however, would “sue as advocate” for Aegeon, defending him in this metaphorical trial. One important implication of the Duke’s metaphor is that he imagines his conscience and his position as Duke as separate entities that answer to different demands, thereby distancing himself morally from the decisions he makes.

Aegeon’s metaphor draws from the rhetoric of law, a word choice that seems appropriate given that his audience is the highest legal authority in the city: the Duke. This metaphor also reveals that Aegeon is preoccupied with a much more immediate threat to his safety than the storm he describes—namely, the punishment he is likely to receive, by law of Ephesus, for illegally entering the city. Much as a warrant is an official document with legally binding proclamations, so too does Aegeon emphasize in this metaphor the danger posed by the storm as a force of nature that cannot be  avoided or argued with. Facing down the storm, Aegeon claims that he feels as certain of his own death as if he had been sent a warrant for his own execution. 

In speaking of his “unjust divorce,” Aegeon does not mean that he and his wife have sought a legal divorce in order to end their marriage. By his own account, their marriage was a deeply happy one. Rather, he uses “divorce” as a somewhat ironic metaphor for the separation of his family by a force completely beyond their control and outside of the social sphere altogether: a powerful storm, which split up his family by sheer force of nature.

Aegeon’s “divorce” metaphor also suggests that the storm divided their family “equally,” as if they were two parties splitting up their shared property and taking joint custody of their children. Both of them have kept one of their sons—something “to delight in”—but they have also both lost a son. This “divorce” metaphor helps set up the primary narrative arc of the story: the reunion of a family.

Adriana picks up Luciana’s “bridle” metaphor and wittily uses it against her: a donkey, also commonly referred to as an “ass,” also wears a bridle. One must then be, Adriana implies, an “ass” to voluntarily take on a controlling husband. 

These “bridle” metaphors reveal the different personalities of the two sisters. Luciana is unmarried, and her view of marriage is both traditional and idealistic. For Luciana, it is merely natural and correct that a woman should be controlled by her husband, as a horse is controlled by its rider. Adriana, however, already has a husband—Antipholus of Ephesus—and her experiences as a married woman have revealed to her both the imperfections of men and the frustrations of being controlled by them. Adriana’s retort carries a note of warning to her sister: it is easy to valorize a wife’s obedience to her husband when one does not have a husband of her own to obey. 

Incorrectly assuming that her husband has left her due to physical flaws in her appearance, Adriana claims that, if there are indeed “ruins” (or signs of neglect and injury) on her body, then her husband is responsible for them through his own mismanagement, as master of the metaphorical estate. Further building upon this property metaphor, she describes her husband as the “ground” of her “defeatures,” or defects. Her use of the word “ground” here is layered, suggesting both that he is the physical ground that can, by moving, ruin whatever is built on top of it, and that he is the “grounds” (or reason) for her (imagined) defects. 

Luciana’s metaphor is nuanced. On one hand, she accepts the outdated notion that men are masters of their wives. This marks a stark contrast to her earlier attitude—she has, after all, argued against that very position with her sister. On the other hand, in imagining a husband as the manager of an estate, Luciana also suggests that a husband bears responsibility for the upkeep of his wife. After all, if an estate were to be neglected and fall to ruin, the blame would not be placed upon the building itself but on its owner for failing to maintain it. 

His metaphor here is also a warning to his servant Dromio. Gnats, he suggests, fly about during the day, making “sport” or having fun under the warmth of the sun, but even these “foolish” creatures understand that they must return to the various “crannies'' or recesses where they live at nightfall. So too, he argues, must a servant learn to read his master’s moods. Fun and games might be acceptable when the master is in a good mood, but servants must learn to withhold from making jokes and pulling pranks when their master “hides his beams” or expresses his displeasure.

This metaphor reflects the complicated relationship between master and slave in the play. Though Antipholus might let Dromio get away with occasional insubordination, permitting his jokes and games when they fit his mood, he is quick to remind his slave who is in control. It is his moods, he insists, that Dromio must cater and adapt to. Their relationship, then, while often friendly and full of humor, is nevertheless defined by relations of power and hierarchy.  

A wife, Adriana suggests, cannot hold itself up but must rely upon the greater strength of a tree to remain upright. This speech marks one of several points in the play where she imagines marriage requiring female dependence upon men, in stark contrast to her earlier, more independent attitude.

Furthering her metaphor, she compares those women who would compete for a married man’s attention to weeds that would displace the vine if they weren't cut away. Unlike the vine, these weeds are characterized as harmful to the tree, infecting it and stealing its health. One implication of her metaphor, then, is that a mistress can never truly have a man’s best interests in mind and instead exploits him, robbing him of resources. At this point in the play, Adriana is desperate to win back her husband, and her botanical metaphor reflects her feelings in this regard.