Month: April 2023

Metonymy

Etymology and Meanings of Literary Device of Metonymy

Etymologically, the term metonymy has been derived from the Latin term metonymia. It also exists in the Greek language as metonymia which means changing the name. Another relevant term in Greek is metonomazein which means to take up a new title, or name instead of the old one. The word is made up of two terms meta which means change and onyma which means name. Therefore, it literally means to change the name.

In grammar, it is a singular noun with plural metonymies. It is mostly used in rhetoric.

Definition of Literary Device of Metonymy

In literature, metonymy is a figure of speech that refers to a term used to replace another term based on an attribute or adjunct to an idea or thing.

Metonymy, Synecdoche, and Metaphor

Metonymy, as a figure of speech, is closely associated with synecdoche. The reason is that synecdoche means to replace a host of terms with a single one, while metonymy is a single term and finds its replacement with a single term.

As far as a metaphor is concerned, it is similar to metonymy but it involves analogical relations between two ideas, things, or persons. However, a metonymy is based on contiguity or association and not analogy.

Common Examples of Metonymy
  1. Labor
  2. Cabinet
  3. Administration
  4. Management
  5. Bouregiouse
  6. Club
  7. Gulid
  8. Hand (for helping)
Literary Examples of Metonymy
Example # 1

From Hamlet by William Shakespeare

Than the main voice of Denmark goes withal.
Then weigh what loss your honour may sustain,
If with too credent ear you list his songs,
Or lose your heart, or your chaste treasure open
To his unmaster’d importunity.

Laertes, brother of Ophelia, speaks these lines in Hamlet, a popular play of William Shakespeare. He compares Denmark, the country, to the people of Denmark and states that Prince Hamlet represents the people of Denmark. Therefore, in both cases, she would lose it as this is an “unmastered opportunity.” This is an excellent use of metonymy of associating the nation with the name of the country.

Example # 2

From A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway

“Like what?”
“Like our home.”
“Hang out the Allied flags.”
“Oh shut up.”
“Say it again.”
“Shut up.”
“You say it so cautiously,” I said. “As though you didn’t want to offend any one.”

This conversation occurs between Herny and Catherin in the popular novel by Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms. Here she does not respect the allied flags which mean allied troops. At this, Henry explains that she has yet not offended anybody as she has said it too cautiously. This is also a metonymic use of allied as she means troops and yet she stays euphemistic.

Example # 3

From Hard Times by Charles Dickens

To his matter-of-fact home, which was called Stone Lodge, Mr. Gradgrind directed his steps. He had virtually retired from the wholesale hardware trade before he built Stone Lodge and was now looking about for a suitable opportunity of making an arithmetical figure in Parliament. Stone Lodge was situated on a moor within a mile or two of a great town – called Coketown in the present faithful guidebook.

This passage has been borrowed from Hard Times, a novel of Charles Dickens. He has beautifully named the city Coketown which is metonymic of the industrialization of England. It encompasses several things including the burning of coal as well as the town of laborers. Therefore, this association of the town with industries is metonymic.

Example # 4

From Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut

I deeply regret that British and U.S. bombers killed 135,000 people in the attack on Dresden, but I remember who started the last war and I regret even more the loss of more than 5,000,000 Allied lives in the necessary effort to completely defeat and utterly destroy Nazism.

Here are two terms that show the use of metonymy by Kurt Vonnegut in famous postmodern novel, Slaughterhouse-Five. He has used allied and Nazism. Here allied shows the forces from the allied countries whom he could not name due to space and feelings and Nazism shows the Germans of those times.

Example # 5

From The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne

“We impute it, therefore, solely to the disease in its own eye and heart, that the minister, looking upward to the zenith, beheld there an appearance of an immense letter,-the letter A,- marking out in lines of dull red light …. that another’s guilt might have seen another symbol in it.

This passage has been taken from The Scarlet Letter, a novel by Nathaniel Hawthorne. The color red or Letter A is a new metonymy that Nathaniel Hawthorne uses to show sin and its details. This letter and its color are metonymic in that they would symbolize the same crime against religion that she has committed.  

Example # 6

From The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood

This is the heart of Gilead, where the war cannot intrude except on television. Where the edges are we aren’t sure, they vary, according to the attacks and counterattacks; but this is the centre, where nothing moves. The Republic of Gilead, said Aunt Lydia, knows no bounds. Gilead is within you.

Although Gilead or The Republic of Gilead is a metonymy, it depends on the understanding of what type of society a reader perceives it. However, Margaret Atwood has painted this as a dystopia where anti-feminism is on the rise with the support of feminism. Therefore, this is a new and fresh metonymic use of such words.

How to Create Metonymy
  1. Think about the idea, thing, person, or gadget.
  2. Think about their attributes or adjuncts.
  3. Use that adjunct or attribute quote often in the plan.
  4. Make it a common word from a specific one, and refer to it instead of the original ideas or things to make readers familiarize with it and its meanings.
Benefits of Using Metonymy
  1. It makes writing concise and metaphorical.
  2. It makes writing easy to understand, stylish and smooth.
  3. Metonymy makes readers understand different shades of meanings.
  4. It popularizes associative terms.
Literary Device of Metonymy in Literary Theory
  1. Roman Jakobson, a Russian formalist, argues that language possesses a bipolar structure; metaphorical and metonymic. This happens through similarity and contiguity. His major contention is that poetry is metaphorical and prose is metonymical. Therefore, it is an integral part of formalism as well as structuralism.
  2. It is important in psychoanalysis as both Freud and Lacan have used them. Freud considers metonymy integral for dispensation and metaphor for identification, while Lacan uses them for binary opposition. Therefore, it is part of structuralism as well as psychoanalytic literary theory.
  3. Metonymy, therefore, has adopted its own theory which is the theory of metonymy. It is because it is an integral part of the discourse and discursive analysis with which it is compared.
Suggested Readings

Baldick, Chris. The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms. Oxford University Press, 1996. Print.

Barcelona, Antonio. Metaphor and Metonymy at the Crossroads. De Gruyter Mouton, 2000. Print.

Johnson, Barbara. Metaphor, Metonymy, and Voice in Their Eyes Were Watching God. Duke University Press, 2014. Print. Matzner, Sebastian. Rethinking Metonymy: Literary Theory and Poetic Practice from Pindar to Jakobson. Oxford University Press, 2016. Print.

You may also read: In Medias Res or Adage

Oxymoron

Etymology and Meanings of Literary Device of Oxymoron

Etymologically, the literary device of oxymoron finds its roots in a Greek term, oxymoros. Both have almost the same spellings except the last ‘s.’ In Greek, it is an adjective that means foolish, pointed, or sharp. As far as its roots are concerned, it comprises ak- which means sharp, and moros which means stupid.

It is also stated that a Latin term, oxymorum, also means the same thing. Therefore, that, too, could be its real root. Whatever the case is, its meanings are that an oxymoron is a pair of words having contradictory meanings.

In grammar, it is a noun having oxymorons as its plural.

Definition of Literary Devic of Oxymoron

In literature, it is a rhetorical term. It means two opposite terms, words, or ideas put together despite having contradictions in their meanings.

Types of Literary Device of Oxymoron

There are three major types of oxymorons.

  1. Comic Pairs
  2. Serious Pairs
  3. Antonymic Pairs
Common Examples of Oxymorons
  • Disciplined mob
  • Organized crowd
  • Public announcement
  • Living death
  • Wisely foolish
  • Foolishly wise
  • Terribly pretty
  • Awfully nice
  • Small crowd
Literary Examples of Oxymorons
Example # 1

From “Astrophil and Stella” by Philip Sidney

O, absent presence, Stella is not here;

    False flattering hope, that with so fair a face

    Bare me in hand, that in this orphan place

Stella, I say my Stella, should appear.

What say’st thou now? Where is that dainty cheer

    Thou told’st mine eyes should help their famished case?

These verses are from Philip Sidney’s poem “Astrophil and Stella.” The very first line shows the use of an oxymoron that is “absent presence.” This is an apt oxymoron to show that if Stella is not present there, then everybody takes notice of her absence and Astrophil sees that although she is not present, she has become conspicuous through her absence. It is because she has attracted the attention of everybody.

Example # 2

From Devotions by John Donne

O miserable abundance, O beggarly riches! how much do we lack of having remedies for  very disease, when as yet we have not names for them? But we have a Hercules against these giants, these monsters; that is, the physician; he musters up all the forces of the other world to succour this, all nature to relieve man. We have the physician, but we are not the physician. Here we shrink in our proportion, sink in our dignity, in respect of very mean creatures, who are physicians to themselves. The hart that is pursued and wounded, they say, knows an herb, which being eaten throws off the arrow: a strange kind of vomit.

This passage occurs in Devotions by Johbn Donne. In this passage, he addresses abundance, calling it miserable. The first two pairs show the beautiful usage of an oxymoron. This oxymoronic prose shows his mastery in demonstrating how different words could be paired to be used to manage one’s message to religious audiences.

Example # 3

From One Door Away from Heaven by Dean Koontz

Change isn’t easy… changing the way you live means changing what you believe about life. That’s hard… When we make our own misery, we sometimes cling to it even when we want so bad to change because the misery is something we know. The misery is comfortable.

This passage from the novel, One Door Away from Heaven, byKoontz shows that Koontz is very skillful in using oxymoronic pairs. He has used it here as misery that is comfortable. Although it could have been discomforting misery, he has beautifully turned it into a subject with comfortable as its complement.

Example # 4

From Paradise Lost by John Milton

No light, but rather darkness visible

Serv’d onely to discover sights of woe,

Regions of sorrow, doleful shades, where peace

And rest can never dwell, hope never comes

That comes to all; but torture without end

Still urges, and a fiery Deluge, fed

With ever-burning Sulphur unconsum’d:

These verses from the popular English epic, Paradise Lost, show Milton at his best in using a beautiful oxymoron such as “darkness visible.” Although it is unnoticeable, a close reading shows how darkness becomes visible when a person becomes habitual of darkness. Therefore, this oxymoronic use of the pair shows his mastery in using literary devices such as oxymoron.

Example # 5

From “Sonnet XL” by William Shakespeare

Although thou steal thee all my poverty:
And yet, love knows it is a greater grief
To bear love’s wrong, than hate’s known injury.
Lascivious grace, in whom all ill well shows,
Kill me with spites yet we must not be foes.

Shakespeare has used two major oxymorons here; the first one is stealing poverty which is an impossible task as a poor person has nothing worth stealing. The second is lascivious grace as a lascivious person does not have any grace. Both show his mastery of the usage of this term.

Example # 6

From Don Juan by Lord Byron

Of melancholy merriment, to quote
Too much of one sort would be soporific; —
Without, or with, offence to friends or foes,
I sketch your world exactly as it goes.

Lord Byron has used an oxymoron in the very first line of this verse from “Don Juan.” This is “melancholy merriment” which seems that both words are opposite to each other and yet both have supported each other in clarifying the position of Byron about his views about Don Juan.

How to Create Oxymorons

  1. Plan the context and use contradictory terms. Such as if you are in the darkness, use visible with it.
  2. Reader the full sentence within the context.
  3. Evaluate the meanings and impacts.
  4. Evaluate the reader’s response.
Benefits of Using Oxymoron
  1. Oxymoron makes ideas complex for the readers.
  2. It adds depth to a concept or idea.
  3. It makes the concept beautiful.
  4. It makes readers alert about the complexity of the situation described through words.
Literary Device of Oxymorons in Literary Theory
  1. Although oxymoron is a simple term used in figurative language, it mostly applies in formalism literary theory where figures of speech create tension or conflict and make thematic strand clear. Besides this, it also helps in understanding a piece of literature when seen from different lenses.
  2. Other than formalism or New Criticism, it does not specifically help in a critique from specific literary perspectives such as postmodernism or postcolonialism, or indigenous critical theory. Yet, its significance does not lose its luster, for it is an integral part of structuralism, post-structuralism, and deconstructionism. Even in feminism, this tops the list when comparing patriarchy and femininity.
Suggested Readings

Abrams, Meyer Howard, and Geoffrey Harpham. A Glossary Of Literary Terms. Cengage Learning, 2014. Print.

Flayih, M. “A Linguistic Study of Oxymoron.” Journal Of Kerbala University 5.1 (2009): 30-40. Hameed, Hind Tasheen, and Hind Tahseen. “Oxymoron in Day-to-Day Speech.” The Asian ESP Journal (2020): 140.

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