The creative correlation of the properties and attributes of one object for a more prominent artistic representation of another is such a literary function of a metaphor. Examples from fiction convince: such a creative find is obvious creative luck. Literature rigidly embeds a metaphor in a piece of text. Once falling into it, it becomes its integral element.
The creative heritage of almost any literary classic is a storehouse of such relationships. They are filled with the thought of Pushkin and Lermontov, who created artistic examples of metaphors that brought outstanding accents to the unique landscape lyrics. The unique image of the water element was created by the Pushkin paths: “lakes of the plains”, “fountain of love”, “foam of waters”, “talk of waters”, “coolness to draw,” “according to the mirror of rivers”. Lermontov’s metaphors are equally convincing: “tears sprayed,” “life is the sea.” This list can be significantly increased. The aforementioned classics today act on our associatively shaped perception, correlating the movements of the human soul with the unique dynamics of nature. The imaginative thinking of the classics makes it easy to give examples of a metaphor: “the life of the mouse running around,” “the soul is on fire,” “we drink from the cup of being,” “the star of the north,” “the night's shadow,” “the elements of the disturbing swarm,” “the old woman’s winter,” "Silence of the night", "lightning of a snake." This list goes on and on.
More complex associations generate
detailed metaphors. Examples from the fiction of such paths fill the works of Mandelstam. His poem “The Shell” evokes in the reader the association of “shells without pearls” with the author, and his beloved woman with the sea, which attracts and fills it.
The doctrine of metaphors was developed by Russian linguists. They determined that literary paths have a life cycle. Victor Maksimovich Zhirmunsky saw the problem of “faded metaphors”, from which texts should be removed. An example is the outdated word of metaphorical origin “shooter” (in our understanding, a hyperactive child). The paths fade because of their transformation. (The “wing of the house” gradually moved to architecture.) Konstantin Alexandrovich Kedrov was the first to use the term “metametaphor”. Its essence: you can go deep into every object endlessly, like into the universe. Mikhail Naumovich Epstein defined the concept of “metabolism” - the “spreading” of the inner meaning of objects, their correlation with several concepts at once.
Let us turn after literary to another group of metaphors - linguistic. They have special generic properties: a relatively free, memorable design, widely used by various people under similar circumstances. However, the linguistic metaphor traditionally “has free entry” into literature. Artistic images are individualized through the original production of oral speech. Russian literary critic and writer Alexander Pavlovich Kvyatkovsky wrote that oral allegories are scattered in countless numbers around each person: "dizzy", "the sun rises", "burning eyes", "it is raining." Really endless linguistic metaphors. Examples from fiction are not the only demonstration of their application.
This type of trails (artistic figures) has long been adopted in many professional fields: politicians, journalists, advertising agents, educators. Is this a coincidence? The answer should be sought in the properties of the metaphor. Psychologists say that it is remembered stronger than the rest of the
literary text, since it directly affects the human subconscious. A metaphor is an ideal tool, if you need to go beyond, show perspective, influence people's beliefs, their mood. It is so strong that it is used in transtherapy.
Perhaps that is why authors of
fiction should be advised not to get involved in destructive metaphors. For an example, as they say, there is no need to go for a long time. The classic novel, “The Catcher in the Rye” (the original name is “Catcher on a Grain Field”) even contains a metaphor in its name. Examples from fiction of the 20th century, unfortunately, often carry a charge of dissatisfaction, chronic pessimism. “Wacky childhood”, “solid linden”, “disgusting to say so”, “damned notebook”, “vile habit”, “terrible liar”, “jump into the stands and trumpet”, “teeth ... moldy”, “I can also be poisonous. " All, without exception, the text of the Salinger novel is saturated with depression. The results of correlating an art book with real life speak for themselves.
John Hinckley, who shot Ronald Reagan, was obsessed with this novel. 19-year-old John Bardot, who fired a mortal shot at Hollywood actress Rebecca Schaeffer, held Salinger's “Catcher” in his left hand. After five shots at the idol of millions of John Lennon, Mark Chapman calmly awaited the police, sitting under a lantern with an open book in his hands.