Communicating with Metaphors, page 15

Oxymorons and Paradoxes, continued

An oxymoron is actually a special case of the paradox. A paradox is a self-contradictory statement. There is some element of truth, or common sense, to be gleaned from the apparent contradiction.

Some examples of paradoxes:

• The child is the father of the man.

• Youth is wasted on the young.

• I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now.

• More haste, less speed.

• As a Cretan, I can truly say that all Cretans are liars.

Generally, it’s tricky to use a paradox since you must be careful that your reader’s know what you are doing, and can’t misunderstand. Paradoxes are best used as a rhetorical flourish for emphasis, or perhaps with tongue firmly in cheek; or to convey a truth that cannot be put across in any other way.

Take a look at the related Stretch Your Brain excercises.

The Importance of Metaphors

In his essay “Why Bother?” Jonathan Franzen writes about the novel Catch-22:

Joseph Heller [Catch-22’s author] had figured out a way of outdoing the actuality, employing the illogic of modern warfare as a metaphor for the more general denaturing of American reality.

Whoa! Hold on just a Godfrey Daniel minute here! Warfare is a pretty big topic to be used as a vehicle for a metaphor. It is perhaps even a larger topic than the metaphoric tenor (“American reality”).

What’s even more interesting about this observation is that the concept of metaphor is being applied to entire large book (Catch-22), and not merely to a rhetorical flourish within a larger work.

In fact, there is a great deal of justification for employing the concept of metaphor in this broader sense.

Even used in a more narrow sense, metaphors are very important. Essentially, a metaphor allows the expression of something swiftly in shorthand that would otherwise take many words.

Metaphors also act to lead readers down the correct path of thought without rigidly forcing the reader into compliance. Used this way, metaphors can be far more persuasive than literal wording.

Continued next page

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