I loved all of Annie Dillard’s metaphors—they bring her point across in a vivid way, and I’m seriously envious of the way that she can make metaphors come together so nicely! I had to think for a long time about my metaphor for Assigned Blog Post #7, and I think it might only make sense to some people (others might not get it). Annie Dillard’s metaphors, however, aren’t the least bit forced, and I feel that they are pretty universal—the connections are pretty obvious in her metaphors. What really helps is that she often uses multiple metaphors to drive in the same point—that way, she’s bound to hit on something that the reader can grasp and clearly understand.
Another thing I really admire about her is her eloquence in expressing the metaphor. Her metaphors are concise and powerful—there are no superfluous words that could serve to muddle the meaning. For example my favorite metaphor from her: “How many gifts do we open from which the writer neglected to remove the price tag?” It’s very simply stated and very concise, but it almost instantaneously drove home her point in my mind. There’s that instant where you realize her point, and it’s almost like there’s some sort of telepathy going on—and invisible thread linking together your brain and her brain, and you can only nod and mouth an “Ohhhh”. I thought it was really rewarding to not only read about each metaphor, but actually think and try to figure out the ones that I couldn’t immediately understand, because I liked the moment of epiphany when I finally realized what she was talking about.
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