The Figure In The Carpet Metaphor

In a way i understand the joke s on me the reader.

The figure in the carpet metaphor.

At first sight the story s title seems to have nothing in common with its plot since it deals with a critic s desperate. Pdf on jan 1 2002 yanna popova published the figure in the carpet find read and cite all the research you need on researchgate. The narrator a writer prides himself on his astute review of hugh vereker s latest novel. The occurring metaphors in both stories make a contribution to the reader s need of detecting the stories meanings.

James just gives me the impression of being too clever for his own good. The problem of metaphor is inscribed in the oldest critical text of the western literary tradition. After reading the figure in the carpet i was left shrugging. Complete summary of henry james the figure in the carpet.

The figure in the carpet has become a short hand or idiom for the key to understanding a writer s work. Nearly every subsequent commentator has found aristotle s terse definition in some way inadequate. In james s the figure in the carpet the leading metaphor of a figure in a carpet is striking. And yet the story in which the idiom was born henry james s 1896 tale the figure in the carpet refuses to open itself up to easy interpretations or analysis.

I enjoyed the ride and naïvely enough waited for a satisfying unveiling of the mysterious figure in the carpet. Enotes plot summaries cover all the significant action of the figure in the carpet. As karsten harries has. Metaphor aristotle tells us is the application of an alien name by transference poetics 99.