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Similes With an Extended Motivation
Extension of a motivation in similes is partly conditioned by such addressee-orientated factors as the transparency and expressiveness of an utterance. It has already been mentioned, that we view similes via intersubjectivity according to which the speaker/the author not only focuses on the metaphorical mapping of the world in similes but, while doing it, he/she takes into account the factor of the addressee. Accordingly, in cases
when the degree of the associative metaphorical vision of the TO is rather unexpected and subjective the author finds it necessary to expand and explain in details the features that serve as a motivation for such a poetical characterization of the subject matter. The research has enabled us to differentiate similes with an extended motivation into three subtypes: (1) similes with a detached motivation, (2) similes with a detached allusive
motivation, and (3) frame-structured similes. In the first subtype of similes with an extanded motivation, the author considers it necessary to extend the motivation of the comparison and single it out in a detached structure in order to ensure the transparency of the aesthetic message conveyed in the simile.
Example
Cora Jenkins was one of the least of the citizens of Melton. She was what people referred to when they wanted to be polite, as a Negress. She had been in Melton for forty years. Born there. Would die there probably. She worked for the Studevants, who treated her like a dog. She stood it. Had to stand it: Cora was like a tree—once rooted, she stood, in spite of storms and strife, wind and rocks, in the earth.
This microtext is devoted to Cora Jenkins, the main character of the story. From the very beginning, the author depicts her character sketch in a most impressive way employing different lexical and syntactical strategies which embody both Cora’s direct, i.e., objective, and metaphorical associative characterization. While doing it, the author uses two similes. We consider the first of them (they treated her like a dog) to be trite. Being a commonly reproduced lexical unit, it does not represent any difficulties for the perception. Hence, any
reader can make correct inferences concerning the humiliation Cora had to endure. Yet she stood it because, according to the author’s subjective evaluative vision, she was like a tree. The similarity between these two heterogeneous objects brought together is metaphorically explicated in a detached construction—once rooted, she stood, in spite of storms and strife, wind and rocks, in the earth—emphasizing such features of Cora as her vitality, adaptability and endurance. The second subtype of similes with an extended motivation is based on an allusive comparison. In order to characterize the TO, the author brings it against some heterogeneous object or event from mythology, the Bible, folklore, or literary sources, emphasizing the feature that stands for the motivation for such comparison. The full impact of an allusion and the idea it is employed to suggest, depends upon the cultural background knowledge of the reader which enables them to penetrate deeper into the subtleties of the aesthetic message encoded in the simile by the author. The knowledge and experience stored in our minds being different, the author finds it necessary to extend the allusive motivation in a detached form, thus creating a new image of the subject matter via his associative vision of the world
Example
There is nothing women love so much as the drunkard, the hellion, the roarer, the reprobate. They love him because, they—women, I mean are like the bees in Samson’s parable in the bible. They like to build their honeycomb in the carcass of a dead lion.
Out of the strong shall come forth sweetness.
In this textual segment, the author metaphorically characterizes women who love rough and reprobate men only, because they expect ardent love and acute pleasure and emotions from them. On the basis of this feature of women, i.e., their passion and craving for such men, the author associates them with the bees in Samson’s parable that liked building their honeycomb in the carcass of a dead lion. The motive for bringing together women and the
bees from Samson’s parable being only implied within the simile structure, the author finds it necessary to single it out in a new line in a detached construction, syntactically and graphically emphasizing its logical importance—out of the strong shall come forth sweetness. The third subtype, i.e., frame-structured similes consist of three parts that are interconnected semantically and structurally: (1) the introductory part where the simile is introduced for the first time; (2) the middle part which explains and extends the motivation of the associative comparison manifested in the simile; and (3) the final, concluding part in which the initial simile is repeated, thus framing and binding the textual fragment into
the structural whole.
2Example
I sat down and then an invisible door on the far side of the room slid open and a man stepped through and the door closed behind him. I looked him over. He might have been thirty-five or sixty-five. He was ageless. His eyes were deep, far too deep. They were depthless drugged eyes of the somnambulist, that were like the well I read about once. It was nine hundred years old, in an old castle. You could drop a stone into it and wait. You could listen and wait and then you would give up waiting and laugh and then just as you were ready to turn away a faint, minute splash would come back up to you from the bottom of the well, so tiny, so remote that you could hardly believe a well like that were possible. And his eyes were deep like that well.
This microtext represents a description of the main character. The author depicts his verbal portrait, focusing on his depthless drugged eyes of the somnambulist that were most striking and appealing in his appearance. To emphasize their depthlessness, the author compares the main character’s eyes with the well he read about once. He employs a frame structured simile which consists of three semantically interrelated segments. In the initial
part, the simile is introduced for the first time—“They were depthless drugged eyes of the somnambulist, that were like the well I read about once”. The use of the definite article before the noun, denoting the RO (the well) in the structure of the simile, implies that the speaker’s metaphorical association focuses on a concrete well and situation that constitute part of his cultural background knowledge and this information is explicated in the phrase—I read about once. Taking into account the factor of the addressee, the author considers it necessary to describe the well and depict in an impressive and extended way the details which substantiate the statement conveyed in the simile, thus making it transparent for the inferring. After such an extension of the motivation the reader is likely to lose the thread of the initial simile, so the author repeats it in the final part of the microtext, logically and syntactically binding the textual segment into a frame structure.
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