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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
Dinner with Secretary
Explanation and Analysis—Curtain of Stars:
After Patrick's date with Jean in the chapter "Dinner with Secretary," he leaves her apartment and sees the night sky above New York. He describes the sublime view with a metaphor:
Eleven thirty-four. We stand on the sidewalk in front of Jean’s apartment on the Upper East Side. Her doorman eyes us warily and fills me with a nameless dread, his gaze piercing me from the lobby. A curtain of stars, miles of them, are scattered, glowing, across the sky and their multitude humbles me, which I have a hard time tolerating. She shrugs and nods after I say something about forms of anxiety.
As he drops off Jean, Patrick feels that the doorman is leering at him, fitting with Patrick's usual neuroticism with strangers. But then he sees the "curtain of stars" looming above him. This simple metaphor makes the stars seem utterly massive and totally encompassing. Patrick says that this "humbles" him, very unusual for his character. This is perhaps the only description of the natural world in the novel, which takes place entirely in the manmade urbanism of New York. Patrick's money and prestige makes him feel invulnerable in the city, but the incursion of the starry night sky leaves him feeling uncomfortably small. The comparison to a "curtain" is especially important in contrast with Patrick's "Venetian blinds," one of his favorite pieces of decor, which he keeps lowered to represent his secret sexual and murderous activities. Here, though, the "curtain of stars" leaves Patrick feeling exposed and vulnerable.
At Another New Restaurant
Explanation and Analysis—Gray Place:
In the chapter "At Another New Restaurant," Patrick gives the most extended description of his relationship with Evelyn in the novel. He uses metaphors of color to show how Evelyn feels that the relationship is mostly normal, while he feels his usual panicky isolation:
To Evelyn our relationship is yellow and blue, but to me it’s a gray place, most of it blacked out, bombed, footage from the film in my head is endless shots of stone and any language heard is utterly foreign [...]. It’s an isolation ward that serves only to expose my own severely impaired capacity to feel. I am at its center, out of season, and no one ever asks me for any identification.
To Patrick, their relationship is not a pleasant, naturalistic "yellow and blue," but a cold, fearful "gray place." Patrick describes their relationship as a strange prison, an "isolation ward," in which nothing makes sense. Patrick feels this way because Evelyn's relatively normal disposition highlights his "severely impaired capacity to feel." In other words, Patrick has to engage in normal, polite society in order to maintain his relationship with Evelyn, which makes him feel (rightfully) strange and deranged. The metaphor continues, in which Patrick frames himself as at the "center" of the gray space, as if his relationship exists to torment him with attention from the people around him.
The gray place is also compared to a film, a common motif in the later chapters of the novel. Patrick regularly remarks that his life is "like a movie," but here the film starts to break down, only "endless shots of stone" with unintelligible dialogue. As Patrick sinks deeper into addiction and delusion, his life stops making sense; but he can only understand this effect by comparing it to a film.
Related Themes:
