Figurative language—metaphor, simile, and symbolism—enhances literal meaning by implying abstract ideas through vivid images and by evoking feelings and associations.
Metaphor implicitly compares two different things by identifying them with each other. For instance, when King calls the white moderate “the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom” (par. 1), he does not mean that the white moderate literally trips the Negro who is attempting to walk toward freedom. The sentence makes sense only if understood figuratively: The white moderate trips up the Negro by frustrating every effort to achieve justice.
Simile, a more explicit form of comparison, uses the word like or as to signal the relationship of two seemingly unrelated things. King uses simile when he says that injustice is “like a boil that can never be cured so long as it is covered up” (par. 2). This simile makes several points of comparison between injustice and a boil. It suggests that injustice is a disease of society as a boil is a disease of the skin and that injustice, like a boil, must be exposed or it will fester and infect the entire body.
Symbolism compares two things by making one stand for the other. King uses the white moderate as a symbol for supposed liberals and would-be supporters of civil rights who are actually frustrating the cause.
How these figures of speech are used in a text reveals something of the writer’s feelings about the subject. Exploring possible meanings in a text’s figurative language involves (1) annotating and then listing the metaphors, similes, and symbols you find in a reading; (2) grouping and labeling the figures of speech that appear to express related feelings or attitudes; and (3) writing to explore the meaning of the patterns you have found.
The following example shows the process of exploring figures of speech in the King excerpt.
Listing Figures of Speech
“stumbling block in his stride toward freedom” (par. 1)
“law and order . . . become the dangerously structured dams” (2)
“the flow of social progress” (2)
“Like a boil that can never be cured” (2)
“the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion” (2)
“the quicksand of racial injustice” (4)
Grouping and Labeling Figures of Speech
Sickness: “like a boil” (2); “the disease of segregation” (10)
Underground: “hidden tension” (2); “injustice must be exposed” (2); “injustice must be rooted out” (10)
Blockage: “dams,” “block the flow” (2); “Human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability” (4); “pent-up resentments” (8); “repressed emotions” (8)
Writing to Explore Meaning
The patterns labeled underground and blockage suggest a feeling of frustration. Inertia is a problem; movement forward toward progress or upward toward the promised land is stalled. The strong need to break through the resistance may represent King’s feelings about both his attempt to lead purposeful, effective demonstrations and his effort to write a convincing argument.
The simile of injustice being “like a boil” links the two patterns of underground and sickness, suggesting that something bad, a disease, is inside the people or the society. The cure is to expose or to root out the blocked hatred and injustice as well as to release the tension or emotion that has long been repressed. This implies that repression itself is the evil, not simply what is repressed. Therefore, writing and speaking out through political action may have curative power for individuals and society alike.
Exploring the Significance of Figurative Language