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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
Book 1, Chapter 1
Explanation and Analysis—Little Vessels:
In the first chapter of Hard Times, the narration uses a metaphor to compares the young schoolchildren to empty “vessels,” waiting to be filled “to the brim” with M’Choakumchild’s lessons:
The speaker, and the schoolmaster…all backed a little and swept with their eyes the inclined plane of little vessels then and there arranged in order, ready to have imperial gallons of facts poured into them until they were full to the brim.
The comparison shows the reader how children are viewed in Coketown, and especially by Gradgrind and M’Choakumchild, as devoid of interiority. In this metaphor, the children are significant for what they can hold (“facts”), rather than any inherent quality or value they possess as individuals.
This metaphor shows the reader how little respect Mr. Gradgrind has for his pupils, and how totally unaware he is of the intelligence, emotional sensitivity, and imagination of children. He cannot conceive that these children are already “full”—of impressions of the world, of forming personalities and characters. It isn't merely that Gradgrind does not value their interiority, it's that he's not even convinced that it exists. In seeing himself and M’Choakumchild as the agents who ultimately “fill” the children with something of value, Gradgrind puts his own ego on full display. He sees himself as the "molder" of these young minds into something, without whom they would remain vacant.
Related Themes:
Book 1, Chapter 14
Explanation and Analysis—Time as Spinner:
In Book 1, Chapter 14, Louisa contemplates her future, and the narration uses metaphor and personification to describe her thoughts:
It seemed as if, first in her own fire within the house, and then in the fiery haze without, she tried to discover what kind of woof Old Time, that greatest and longest established Spinner of all, would weave from the threads he had already spun into a woman. But, his factory is a secret place, his work is noiseless, and his Hands are mutes.
Louisa wonders what kind of “woof” (an old-fashioned term for “fabric”) Time will weave from the “threads” of her life. The book describes Time in a manner that is both metaphorical and personified, as a weaver who creates the lives of the people in the narrative. However, Time is no average weaver, but one whose “factory” is secret, whose work is “noiseless,” and whose Hands (workers) are “mutes.” Interestingly, this metaphor describes Time in the terms of mechanized labor, which Dickens also uses to describe Coketown. But in this case, the metaphor could not be more at odds with the reality it references. The so-called “factory” of Time is silent, invisible, and undetectable, unlike the polluting, noisy factories of Coketown.
This contrast underscores Louisa’s helplessness in the face of time passing; the terms in which she might understand it are insufficient to describe it. In addition, the metaphor casts Louisa in the role of being the product of Time’s weaving, rather than a participant in shaping her own life.
