Fire and Flame
Read enough books and it is likely you will read more metaphorical imagery connected to fires and flames than almost anything else, except darkness of course. Something flames and heat and burning and smoke just really gets to some writers. In this case, the author takes a different path:
“That was the great thing about Miyake’s bonfires. The spread of the flames was soft and gentle, like an expert caress, with nothing rough or hurried about it.”
The Darkness
Yeah, look around hard enough in almost any piece of fiction written since the turn of the 20th century it almost guaranteed that a metaphor about darkness will pop up. Often, such turns of phrase occur more than once:
“I was living in a deep darkness in my teen years. My soul was in chaos as deep as a newly formed ocean of mud. The true light was hidden behind dark clouds.”
“What I was chasing in circles must have been the tail of the darkness inside me.”
“Komura felt as if he had been imprisoned in a washing machine.”
Take a moment to try guessing what this simile is making a comparison to. What could make a person feel like they were trapped inside a washing machine? Somewhere claustrophobic. And loud. And probably wet because, after all, if moistness isn’t an issue would a clothes dryer be more appropriate? Okay, time’s up. Did anyone come up with the cramped back seat of a small four-wheel-drive Subaru with bad suspension, a transmission that slips gears and a heater blowing both cold and warm air? No water, however.
Menopause
Another popular subject for engaging metaphorical imagery is menopause. Of course, its popularity tends to be limited to about half the active writers in the world at any given time. Despite being part of its very name, men tend to avoid the subject as fodder for figurative language. Usually either because they don’t really understand it well enough or they are afraid they will be attacked for not understanding it as well as they think they do. Murakami, however, is fearless:
“Menopause: it had to be the gods’ ironic warning to (or just plain nasty trick on) humanity for having artificially extended the life span.”
Robotic Humanity
It used to be that metaphors alluding to robotic behavior among humans was pretty much limited to the genre of science fiction. That ship has long sailed and today it is wide open for writers in any genre or those who indulge in no genre at all. The computer age has made it clear that robotic behavior not only can’t be limited to science fiction, it can’t even be limited to fiction.
“The man never looked up after leaving his cab but walked straight ahead alongside the concrete wall at the same slow, steady pace as on the subway platform. He looked like a well-made mechanical doll being drawn ahead by a magnet.”
