Re: Simile vs. Metaphor [was: Re: Purely informal Balrog wings poll] more options Author: Steuard Jensen Email: sjensen -aaatt- hmc -daht- edu Date: 1998/04/18 Forums: alt.fan.tolkien more headers ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Quoth <<>> (Michael Martinez): > William argued that the wings were only shadow, so you're not > exactly agreeing with him. "Shadow" in Tolkien does not refer to > "shadow created by an object standing in the light". Perhaps, then, I've found a better way of phrasing the position than he did; his recent post seems to suggest that he agrees with the implications of my wording, at any rate. As for the meaning of "shadow" in Tolkien, you're right; Tolkien often uses shadow in a different way than we normally do. However, I think that his usage still fits within the definition of metaphor. In this context, "shadow" has a meaning that nobody in our world has any direct experience with, so using a consistent metaphor to describe it makes a lot of sense. > Whatever you call the darkness, Tolkien said quite clearly the wings > were spread from wall to wall, and that's that. If you want to say > the wings and the darkness were the same thing you'll have fewer > arguments, perhaps, but it's not clear from the text (which > distinguishes between them) that they were. I can't pretend to claim that my interpretation of the text is the One True Interpretation (TM), but I'll try to explain it a bit, anyway. As it is, in fact, my interpretation, I obviously think it's got a fair bit of merit, but that's really an individual decision. At any rate: When Tolkien first introduces the Balrog, he uses the following description: Something was coming up behind them. What it was could not be seen: it was like a great shadow, in the middle of which was a dark form, of man-shape maybe, yet greater. Note that here, the term "shadow" is used in a simile. From this point on in the scene, however, Tolkien uses "shadow" exclusively in metaphorical constructions. The first of these is after Boromir blows his horn: "...and the fiery shadow halted." More significantly, he uses it that way in the first of the now-infamous wings passages: His enemy halted again, facing him, and the shadow about it reached out like two vast wings. Once again, the term "shadow" is used in a metaphorical construction. Also, we see here that the term "wings" is introduced in a simile, just as "shadow" was before. When we next encounter the term "wings", it is after the Balrog steps onto the bridge: ...suddenly it drew itself up to a great height, and its wings were spread from wall to wall... Now here, Tolkien uses the word "wings" without the qualifiers used in simile. This means that one of two things is true about this last phrase. Either 1) Tolkien is using the word "wings" for two different concepts, or 2) Tolkien is using the word "wings" in a metaphorical sense, following the same pattern that he already used with "shadow" in the same scene. I believe that the pattern does hold, and that in fact it is a characteristic element of Tolkien's descriptive style. Given this interpretation, the "wings" spread from wall to wall refer to the same thing that the initial use of "wings" did: the shadow (or rather, shadow-like thing) which surrounded the Balrog's body. What precisely this shadow _was_ we don't know. Steuard Jensen