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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
Metaphors
Explanation and Analysis—Light in Darkness:
Near the end of the story, when the narrator is at the jazz club listening to Sonny play the piano alongside a group of other musicians, the narrator has the sense that the men are getting at something important about their suffering with their music. In this moment he starts to contemplate suffering himself in his narration, using a metaphor in the process:
[W]hile the tale of how we suffer, and how we are delighted, and how we may triumph is never new, it always must be heard. There isn’t any other tale to tell, it’s the only light we’ve got in all this darkness.
Here the narrator metaphorically refers to a person’s story as a “light” that shines “in all this darkness.” He implies in this passage that, while people cannot keep themselves from suffering, they can at least turn that suffering into a story that can be witnessed (or "heard") by others and that bearing witness can unburden them of some of their pain.
While it's possible to read the narrator as speaking about human suffering broadly here, it's also likely that he is specifically commenting on the deep suffering that Black Harlemites (like himself and all the musicians in the club) experience in their day-to-day lives, given the economically challenging and dangerous conditions in which they lived. Notably, the narrator indicates in the passage that it’s important for such people to tell tales of their suffering alongside stories of being “delighted” and “triumph[ing],” suggesting that life is never just suffering, even for this marginalized population.
Related Themes:
Explanation and Analysis—Low Ceilings:
Near the beginning of the story, the narrator reflects on the lives of the high school students he teaches—comparing their lives to his brother Sonny’s—using a metaphor in the process:
I was sure that the first time Sonny had ever had horse, he couldn’t have been much older than these boys were now. These boys, now, were living as we’d been living then, they were growing up with a rush and their heads bumped abruptly against the low ceiling of their actual possibilities. They were filled with rage.
Here the narrator metaphorically describes how the heads of the young men he teaches “bumped abruptly against the low ceiling of their actual possibilities,” and that they were (naturally) angry as a result. Though the narrator doesn’t state it explicitly, the reason that his students’ possibilities are “low” is because of their race and socioeconomic status—young Black men in Harlem in the 1950s typically came from poor families and, due to a mixture of racism and classism, did not have access to jobs that would help them climb the economic ladder.
This passage is significant because it demonstrates the narrator’s awareness that his brother’s “horse” (or heroin) usage was not a personal failing of his, but a natural response to the oppression that he faced as a young Black man in the United States.
Related Themes:
