Reference no: EM133660859
Question
Writers use figurative language such as imagery, similes, and metaphors to help readers visualize and experience what is happening in a story. Usually, when metaphors are extended over several sentences or even paragraphs, the metaphor stays the same throughout the passage and often communicates some sort of symbolic meaning. However, Steinbeck sometimes uses a mixture of sensory images from multiple metaphors to introduce an idea, as in this passage about the change that occurred in the Hudson River as a result of the drought.
"The ancient Hudson, with bent and scarred radiator screen, with grease in dusty globules at the worn edges of every moving part, with hub caps gone and caps of red dust in their places--this was the new hearth, the living center of the family."
In this passage Steinbeck starts by developing the metaphor of the Hudson river as a (dilapidated) car, and then makes the car into "the new hearth."
What do you think Steinbeck accomplishes by mixing metaphors in this way? What is the effect of each metaphor on the reader, and what effect is the shift in metaphors likely to have on a reader?