The effect of a metaphor is not as simple as it seems but that doesn’t mean there is a right definition for it. Instead, metaphors, I believe, solely depend on how the author writes it and what they want to get across to the readers. The way that I look at a metaphor is by thinking of metaphors as if they are hiding something from the readers. This “something” that they are hiding is portrayed through a component that is completely different from that “something,” essentially allowing the readers to have their own meaning for that “something.” It sort of applies to the good old classic phrase, “show, don’t tell.” This is because the author wants to get their point across without completely telling the reader which adds a bigger (or not so big) effect to the plot. The interesting part about metaphors is that it can be used in many ways. By this, I mean that metaphors can highlight the importance of a component or it can very much highlight the unimportance of a component. It can add a strong meaning to something or it can be demeaning of some sort. It has endless meanings and that is how much effect metaphors have. Take for example, Illness as a Metaphor by Susan Sontag where she criticizes the metaphor that was born a long time ago where they said illness is like war – disease is the enemy, the treatment are weapons, the doctor is the general, and the patient is the soldier. Sontag argues that using war as a metaphor is wrong because it negatively portrays the patients going through an illness. For instance, she questions, does a patient “losing battle” against cancer mean that the patient lost a battle? Does it mean they gave up? Or that they weren’t good enough to beat it? While I won’t go much deep into this example, this is the way I am able to get a feel of how metaphors are. Not all metaphors are necessarily supposed to be nice or bad, that all depends on how the author/creator wants to write it.
In Sula by Toni Morrison, we see a metaphor when Sula returns to the Bottom and begins to sleep with the men of her neighborhood. Her actions however seem to be offensive to the women in her neighborhood. She then criticizes the jealous women by calling them spiders. The metaphor goes as follows, “Nel was one of them. One of the spiders whose only thought was the next run of the web, who dangled in dark dry places suspended by their own spittle, more terrified of the free fall than the snake’s breath below.” From this metaphor, we can sort of puzzle out what Sula means by this. Since spiders are usually quiet and scared of any sense they feel, the metaphor is covering that Sula essentially blames the women for their husband’s actions of adultery. However, spiders can also be vicious and poisonous as we all know which explains why these women in her community are very harsh and strongly opinionated about Sula sleeping with the men in the neighborhood. This metaphor creates the mood and feelings that Sula has towards these women in her community which is what I believe the main function of this metaphor.