METAPHOR AND SIMILE IN JEAN WEBSTER’S DADDY-LONG-LEGS
Metaphor
Metaphor – which asserts a correlation or resemblance between two things that are
otherwise unrelated - is used quite often by Jean Webster, making the novel more appealing.
Below, I’ll provide examples of metaphors and interpret each based on the context.
Example 1: “I'm finding Mrs. Semple's conversation pretty unseasoned food.”
What the author wants to say is that Judy finds Mrs. Semple’s conversation very
uninteresting. Judy writes this after Jervis leaves the farm. This implies that for Judy, Jervis
was an interesting person to be around and in comparison, whatever Mrs. Semple says is
bland.
Example 2: “She is such a jelly-fish.”
Jelly-fish implies that the person mentioned doesn’t have a backbone, a strength of will. Judy
writes this to express her annoyance and anger at the mother of the poor girl who’s the only
one trying to help her family, while the mother does nothing.
Example 3: “He's a queer old duck; he goes about with his head in the clouds and blinks
dazedly when occasionally he strikes solid earth.”
In this sentence, Judy talks about her Philosophy professor. Queer old duck implies that he’s
a weird old man who daydreams most of the time (head in the clouds) and is disoriented
when he becomes aware of his surroundings (strikes solid earth).
Example 4: “The cat was almost out of the bag when I grabbed it by its tail and pulled it back.”
The whole sentence is a metaphor. To let the cat out of the bag means to reveal a secret. The
Cat represents secret, while I grabbed it by its tail and pulled it back can be interpreted as ‘I
held back myself from revealing my secret’. Judy writes this when she first gets to the college
and wants to express how far more exciting it is, compared to the asylum, but since she
doesn’t want to reveal her past, she holds herself back.
Metaphor
Metaphor – which asserts a correlation or resemblance between two things that are
otherwise unrelated - is used quite often by Jean Webster, making the novel more appealing.
Below, I’ll provide examples of metaphors and interpret each based on the context.
Example 1: “I'm finding Mrs. Semple's conversation pretty unseasoned food.”
What the author wants to say is that Judy finds Mrs. Semple’s conversation very
uninteresting. Judy writes this after Jervis leaves the farm. This implies that for Judy, Jervis
was an interesting person to be around and in comparison, whatever Mrs. Semple says is
bland.
Example 2: “She is such a jelly-fish.”
Jelly-fish implies that the person mentioned doesn’t have a backbone, a strength of will. Judy
writes this to express her annoyance and anger at the mother of the poor girl who’s the only
one trying to help her family, while the mother does nothing.
Example 3: “He's a queer old duck; he goes about with his head in the clouds and blinks
dazedly when occasionally he strikes solid earth.”
In this sentence, Judy talks about her Philosophy professor. Queer old duck implies that he’s
a weird old man who daydreams most of the time (head in the clouds) and is disoriented
when he becomes aware of his surroundings (strikes solid earth).
Example 4: “The cat was almost out of the bag when I grabbed it by its tail and pulled it back.”
The whole sentence is a metaphor. To let the cat out of the bag means to reveal a secret. The
Cat represents secret, while I grabbed it by its tail and pulled it back can be interpreted as ‘I
held back myself from revealing my secret’. Judy writes this when she first gets to the college
and wants to express how far more exciting it is, compared to the asylum, but since she
doesn’t want to reveal her past, she holds herself back.
