What drives the need for metaphors? Jorge Luis Borges says, 'Censorship is the mother of metaphors'.
Censorship, a tool of authority, especially totalitarian, enforces a no tolerance policy against criticism. How to express dissent in such circumstances? Find a more convoluted way. Enter the metaphor. Thus, writers use metaphors as tools to express dissent and other unfashionable notions when prevailing authority censors speech, a stark example of the many ways we use metaphors.
Simply put, metaphors are how we navigate through life. In the process, Kundera says, we end up submitting to their edict. How? Kundera explores some of this process through Tomas and Tereza's love story in 'The Unbearable Lightness of Being'
An authority figure in our lives, love is or can be absolute. Unlike totalitarianism which imposes censorship externally, love imposes a state of mind that serves to self-censor, something Kundera describes as Tomas' poetic memory'.
Early on in Kundera's novel, Tomas casts his nascent feelings for Tereza in the metaphor of protector-dependent. Why? Because shortly after they meet, she falls sick while with him and he takes care of her. Kundera writes, 'He had come to feel an inexplicable love for this all but complete stranger; she seemed a child to him, a child someone had put in a bulrush basket daubed with pitch and sent downstream for Tomas to fetch at the riverbank of his bed'. This is how Tereza enters her first word in Tomas' poetic memory or how Tomas lets her, by letting the circumstance of her falling sick in his house, her transient incapacitation, her vulnerability, lower his defenses.
A little later still, 'Again it occurred to him that Tereza was a child put in a pitch-daubed bulrush basket and sent downstream. He couldn't very well let a basket with a child in it float down a stormy river!'. Teresa's place within Tomas' poetic memory strengthens as his metaphor for her takes deeper root.
It's after this that Kundera writes, 'Tomas did not realize at the time that metaphors are dangerous. Metaphors are not to be trifled with. A single metaphor can give birth to love'. According to Kundera, in the process of creating a metaphor to explain Teresa's presence in his life to himself, Tomas falls in love with her. Is Tomas really in love with Tereza or in love with the idea of the role of protector that his metaphor for her helps him create for himself? Is it the one or the other or a little of both?
So when we come to much later in the book where Kundera writes, 'I have said before that metaphors are dangerous. Love begins with a metaphor. Which is to say, love begins at the point when a woman enters her first word in our poetic memory', Tomas is a prisoner of the metaphor he created for Tereza.
Ian Beacock considers the power of metaphors from an angle that reverberates strongly in our time, 'Since the 1970s, the free market has slowly become our master metaphor. Its benchmarks of efficiency and profit have become ours. Our capacity to respond to the world and engage with one another as citizens has eroded, and instead we’ve become consumers in all things, rational actors seeking competitive advantage.' (Why we need Arnold Toynbee's good life – Ian Beacock – Aeon). In this digital age of constant, ephemeral and dubious quantification through likes and views, who could argue against this self-evident truth?
Kundera's insight is far more profound than the simple proposition that metaphors are dangerous. Rather it's about how they are dangerous. He warns us that the power metaphors exercise over us is through our imagination, and that this power is very real and very consequential. Metaphors can help foster a giddy feeling of revolt against the prevailing order even as they help keep us in thrall to authority, be it internal or external.
https://www.quora.com/Metaphors-are-dangerous-Love-begins-with-a-metaphor-Which-is-to-say-love-begins-at-the-point-when-a-woman-enters-her-first-word-into-our-poetic-memory-How-can-I-understand-the-sentences-by-Milan-Kundera/answer/Tirumalai-Kamala
Censorship, a tool of authority, especially totalitarian, enforces a no tolerance policy against criticism. How to express dissent in such circumstances? Find a more convoluted way. Enter the metaphor. Thus, writers use metaphors as tools to express dissent and other unfashionable notions when prevailing authority censors speech, a stark example of the many ways we use metaphors.
Simply put, metaphors are how we navigate through life. In the process, Kundera says, we end up submitting to their edict. How? Kundera explores some of this process through Tomas and Tereza's love story in 'The Unbearable Lightness of Being'
An authority figure in our lives, love is or can be absolute. Unlike totalitarianism which imposes censorship externally, love imposes a state of mind that serves to self-censor, something Kundera describes as Tomas' poetic memory'.
Early on in Kundera's novel, Tomas casts his nascent feelings for Tereza in the metaphor of protector-dependent. Why? Because shortly after they meet, she falls sick while with him and he takes care of her. Kundera writes, 'He had come to feel an inexplicable love for this all but complete stranger; she seemed a child to him, a child someone had put in a bulrush basket daubed with pitch and sent downstream for Tomas to fetch at the riverbank of his bed'. This is how Tereza enters her first word in Tomas' poetic memory or how Tomas lets her, by letting the circumstance of her falling sick in his house, her transient incapacitation, her vulnerability, lower his defenses.
A little later still, 'Again it occurred to him that Tereza was a child put in a pitch-daubed bulrush basket and sent downstream. He couldn't very well let a basket with a child in it float down a stormy river!'. Teresa's place within Tomas' poetic memory strengthens as his metaphor for her takes deeper root.
It's after this that Kundera writes, 'Tomas did not realize at the time that metaphors are dangerous. Metaphors are not to be trifled with. A single metaphor can give birth to love'. According to Kundera, in the process of creating a metaphor to explain Teresa's presence in his life to himself, Tomas falls in love with her. Is Tomas really in love with Tereza or in love with the idea of the role of protector that his metaphor for her helps him create for himself? Is it the one or the other or a little of both?
So when we come to much later in the book where Kundera writes, 'I have said before that metaphors are dangerous. Love begins with a metaphor. Which is to say, love begins at the point when a woman enters her first word in our poetic memory', Tomas is a prisoner of the metaphor he created for Tereza.
Ian Beacock considers the power of metaphors from an angle that reverberates strongly in our time, 'Since the 1970s, the free market has slowly become our master metaphor. Its benchmarks of efficiency and profit have become ours. Our capacity to respond to the world and engage with one another as citizens has eroded, and instead we’ve become consumers in all things, rational actors seeking competitive advantage.' (Why we need Arnold Toynbee's good life – Ian Beacock – Aeon). In this digital age of constant, ephemeral and dubious quantification through likes and views, who could argue against this self-evident truth?
Kundera's insight is far more profound than the simple proposition that metaphors are dangerous. Rather it's about how they are dangerous. He warns us that the power metaphors exercise over us is through our imagination, and that this power is very real and very consequential. Metaphors can help foster a giddy feeling of revolt against the prevailing order even as they help keep us in thrall to authority, be it internal or external.
https://www.quora.com/Metaphors-are-dangerous-Love-begins-with-a-metaphor-Which-is-to-say-love-begins-at-the-point-when-a-woman-enters-her-first-word-into-our-poetic-memory-How-can-I-understand-the-sentences-by-Milan-Kundera/answer/Tirumalai-Kamala
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