LessonsDefinitions of Literal and Figurative Use and the Technical Divisions of MetaphorQuiz

Death is not literally an animal whose body has claws. The particular configuration of death equipped with claws is created by imaginative representation. Yet death itself is real, and actual predators may have real claws.

These are three distinct layers: death is an actual event; a claw is an actual bodily feature of some animals; assigning claws to death is a rhetorical supposition.

Without this distinction one may mistakenly treat imaginative metaphor as nothing more than a false proposition. The intended effect is to make the force and inescapability of death vividly perceptible.

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The peculiar imagined quality of death’s claws

Definitions of Literal and Figurative Use and the Technical Divisions of Metaphor

Death is not literally an animal whose body has claws. The particular configuration of death equipped with claws is created by imaginative representation. Yet death itself is real, and actual predators may have real claws.

These are three distinct layers: death is an actual event; a claw is an actual bodily feature of some animals; assigning claws to death is a rhetorical supposition.

Without this distinction one may mistakenly treat imaginative metaphor as nothing more than a false proposition. The intended effect is to make the force and inescapability of death vividly perceptible.