Masked Metaphor

"Her game is on fire!"

This image was taken in the game center of Flagler College's Student Center. The girl dressed as a campfire is sitting on one of the red pool tables, pretending she is playing pool. The costume and red table accent each other in a very aesthetically stimulating way, due to all of the warm tones. Her position on the table is very aggressive and focused, which compliments her costume. This position seems very fiery and fierce, which plays well into the fact that she is literally dressed as a fire.

The metaphor I came up with for this image is "Her game is on fire". Obviously, this girl is not on fire. The reading, Genealogy of Post Modern Theory, simplifies a metaphor as "descriptions that are not literally true". A metaphor is essentially painting a picture, with a little bit of flare. When making a metaphor, one is substituting one word for something else. Saying "her game is on fire" means that she is playing the game extremely well, without actually saying it. The Metaphoric Order breaks down into substitution and selection. Essentially this theory has created a formula to making a metaphor: find something to describe and exaggerate.

One of the most classic metaphors, "I'm so hungry I could eat a horse" is a very clean example of this formula. The something to describe would be your level of hunger, your exaggeration is the fact that you could eat an entire, full grown horse, and only then would you be content. Obviously, you can't eat an entire horse, and you probably aren't even hungry enough to do so, but you want people to know just how hungry you really feel. Describing something so large compliments how large your appetite is at the time, therefore clarifying to people how hungry you are.

For my metaphor, the something to describe was how great she was at playing pool. A common way, in today's era, is to say something great is to say it is "fire. Since her costume was fire, it fit well to have her playing the game as fire in such an aggressive position.