Blog #4

In chapter 5, Jonathan Culler describes synecdoche and metonymy as using a word to refer to another bringing out the idea of it. I find this absolutely fascinating that thanks to milestones thought history, and even nowadays, in pop culture, so many references can be inferred. It brings the public to a closer relationship with the author. Like a secret hand check or wink, available to everyone, yet no one, if not cultured about the subject. Dereck Walkot uses many of them all along his poem to refer to historical events, only calling the name of an object appearing in biblical events or implicitly referring to history’s past actions. Jonathan Culler also teaches us about metaphors. How describing something can bring us to visualize something but actually refer to something else. Dereck Walkot uses metaphor in his first paragraph, referencing the sea as a ” grey vault” that would keep in “the monuments and the battles” the author asks to see. It can be easily visualized that the monuments are boats that sank from battles, trapped forever and preciously kept by the sea. For Adrienne Rich, her poem is full of metaphors toward her own introspection of her life, like we would dive into ourselves thought meditation or therapy.

4 thoughts on “Blog #4

  1. Xu Ye

    Hi Lamboley,
    I totally agree with what you mentioned that the author used metaphor to describe all historical events about his Island sank deeply into the ocean and gradually disappeared, and it was tough to investigate them again.

Comments are closed.