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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
Part 1, Chapter 3
Explanation and Analysis—A Fever:
In a letter to her son, Pulcheria Raskolnikov uses a metaphor that compares her daughter’s frenzied preoccupation with her plans to an illness:
Dunya now thinks of nothing else. For the past few days she has simply been in a sort of fever and has already made up a whole project for how you could go on to become an assistant and even a partner of Pyotr Petrovich in his legal affairs, more especially as you are in the department of jurisprudence. I fully agree with her, Rodya, and share in all her plans and hopes, seeing them as fully possible; and [...] Dunya is firmly convinced that she will achieve everything by her good influence on her future husband, and she is convinced of it.
Pulcheria informs Raskolnikov that his sister, Dunya, has become engaged to a wealthy lawyer named Pyotr Petrovich Luzhin, whom Dunya hopes will employ Raskolnikov as a legal assistant. Pulcheria characterizes Dunya as being “in a sort of fever,” a metaphor that imagines Dunya’s preoccupation with her plans as a state of frenzied illness. Reading between the lines of his mother’s message, Raskolnikov concludes that Dunya has only agreed to marry Luzhin in order to assist him, as he has paused his studies and lives in a destitute state.
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Part 1, Chapter 4
Explanation and Analysis—Ripened Anguish :
The narrator employs a series of metaphors and a simile to depict Raskolnikov’s inner turmoil. After Raskolnikov berates himself for his inability to provide for his mother and sister, tormenting himself with painful questions concerning his own future, the narrator notes that:
None of the questions was new or sudden, however; they were all old, sore, long-standing. They had begun torturing him long ago and had worn out his heart. Long, long ago this present anguish had been born in him, had grown, accumulated, and ripened recently and become concentrated, taking the form of a horrible, wild, and fantastic question that tormented his heart and mind, irresistibly demanding resolution. And now his mother’s letter suddenly struck him like a thunderbolt.
The narrator states that Raskolnikov’s questions “were all old, sore, long-standing” and had “worn out his heart.” Using a complex chain of metaphors, the narrator states that Raskolnikov’s “anguish” was “born in him, had grown, accumulated, and ripened recently and become concentrated.” These metaphors imagine his inner turmoil as, alternatively, a kind of child or fruit that has grown slowly within him and has now reached its final form. In stark contrast, the narrator uses a simile that compares the effect of his mother’s letter to a “thunderbolt,” which produces a quick and dramatic result on his psyche. These contrasting metaphors and similes suggest that the letter from his mother has jolted Raskolnikov into action after a long period of ruminating on his ideas.
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Part 2, Chapter 6
Explanation and Analysis—Whey Instead of Blood:
After Raskolnikov cruelly demands that Razumikhin leave him alone, Razumikhin retorts with his own insults, using both simile and metaphor to critique Raskolnikov’s resentful and lifeless personality:
“Listen to me. I announce to you that you’re all, to a man, babblers and braggarts! Some little suffering comes along, and you brood over it like a hen over an egg! Even there you steal from other authors! There isn’t a sign of independent life in you! You’re made of spermaceti ointment, with whey instead of blood in your veins! I don’t believe a one of you! The first thing you do in any circumstances is try not to resemble a human being!
Razumikhin accuses Raskolnikov of brooding over his own “suffering,” in a manner resembling “a hen over an egg.” Through this simile, then, Razumikhin suggests that Raskolnikov nurses his own feeling of injury, savoring his sense of pain and insult but taking no actions to redress his situation. Next, he suggests, in a metaphor, that Raskolnikov is “made of spermaceti ointment,” with “whey instead of blood.” Here, he imagines Raskolnikov as something less than fully human. Spermaceti is a waxy substance harvested from sperm whales, and whey is a byproduct of curdling milk. In both cases, then, he accuses Raskolnikov of being lifeless, without any real substance or nutrients in him. These similes and metaphors, then, suggest that Raskolnikov has tried to deny or cast away his own human nature.
Part 3, Chapter 2
Explanation and Analysis—Drop into an Ocean:
After Raskolnikov displays disturbing behavior upon the arrival of his mother and sister to St. Petersburg, Razumikhin and the doctor Zossimov discuss his apparent madness. The doctor, who has a particular interest in mental illness as a professional matter, reflects on Raskolnikov’s mental state using a series of metaphors:
Well, and then yesterday we added more fuel—that is, you did—with those stories…about the house-painter; a nice conversation that was, when he may just have lost his mind over it! If only I’d known exactly what happened in the office that time, and that some boor had…offended him with that suspicion! Hm…I wouldn’t have allowed such a conversation yesterday. These monomaniacs turn a drop into an ocean, they think any sort of claptrap is a reality…As far as I remember, I understood half of this business from Zametov’s story yesterday.
Their earlier discussion of the murder of the pawnbroker and her sister, Zossimov argues, “added more fuel” to Raskolnikov’s delusion, a metaphor that suggests that any disturbing topic might further disturb the troubled young man in his fragile state. Using an additional metaphor, he suggests that “monomaniacs turn a drop into an ocean.” Here, he implies that an obsessive and paranoid personality like that of Raskolnikov attempts to find great meaning or even signs of conspiracy in small or random incidents, such as the implication, made by a police officer at the station, that Raskolnikov could be a murderer.
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Part 4, Chapter 5
Explanation and Analysis—Moth and Candle:
When the detective Porfiry Petrovich visits Raskolnikov in his apartment, he is disturbed but unsurprised by the presence of this unwelcome guest, as he knows that Porfiry has long suspected him of the murder of the old woman and Lizaveta. When the detective claims that he not only suspects Raskolnikov of the crime but in fact knows positively that he is the guilty party, Raskolnikov asks why he has not yet sent for him to be arrested. In his lengthy response, Porfiry uses a metaphor that compares a guilty person to a “moth near a candle”:
Have you ever seen a moth near a candle? Well, so he’ll keep circling around me, circling around me, as around a candle; freedom will no longer be dear to him, he’ll fall to thinking, get entangled, he’ll tangle himself all up as in a net, he’ll worry himself to death! […] And he’ll keep on, he’ll keep on making circles around me, narrowing the radius more and more, and—whop! He’ll fly right into my mouth, and I’ll swallow him, sir, and that will be most agreeable, heh, heh, heh! You don’t believe me?”
In this extended metaphor, Porfiry imagines a guilty person as circling around him, as a moth repeatedly circles a flame despite the danger involved. “Freedom,” he claims, “is no longer dear to him,” and instead he will continue to circle the flame, “narrowing the radius more and more” until, finally, he is caught by the flame. Through this metaphor, Porfiry suggests that he does not need to bother calling for Raskolnikov’s arrest because Raskolnikov himself, due to feelings of guilt and mental disturbance, will entrap himself.
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Part 6, Chapter 7
Explanation and Analysis—Spill Like Champagne:
In a scene in which he finally confesses to Dunya that he murdered the pawnbroker and Lizaveta, Raskolnikov uses metaphor, simile, and allusion:
“Brother, brother, what are you saying! You shed blood!” Dunya cried out in despair.
“Which everyone sheds,” he picked up, almost in a frenzy, “which is and always has been shed in torrents in this world, which men spill like champagne, and for which they’re crowned on the Capitoline and afterwards called benefactors of mankind. But just look closer and try to see! I wished people well and would have done hundreds, thousands of good deeds, instead of this one stupidity—or not even stupidity, but simply clumsiness
As a shocked Dunya cries out that her brother has “shed blood,” Raskolnikov responds petulantly that blood has “always been shed in torrents in this world,” a metaphor that imagines the long history of violence as leaving “torrents” or rivers of blood around the world. Further, he accuses all humankind of spilling blood “like champagne,” a simile that emphasizes the casual and common nature of violence throughout history. Attempting to defend himself despite his own great feelings of shame, he alludes to Roman history, noting that men have been “crowned on the Capitoline” for killing others, an allusion to Julius Caesar, who was crowned a military tribune in a temple on the Capitoline Hill, one of the Seven Hills of Rome. The metaphor, simile, and allusion he uses here suggest that Raskolnikov is not yet ready to truly repent for his crime.
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