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
- Labor
- Cabinet
- Administration
- Management
- Bouregiouse
- Club
- Gulid
- 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
- Think about the idea, thing, person, or gadget.
- Think about their attributes or adjuncts.
- Use that adjunct or attribute quote often in the plan.
- 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
- It makes writing concise and metaphorical.
- It makes writing easy to understand, stylish and smooth.
- Metonymy makes readers understand different shades of meanings.
- It popularizes associative terms.
Literary Device of Metonymy in Literary Theory
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
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