Metaphor

Saying one thing through another, without a word of comparison: instead of saying that something is like another thing, one says that it is. The image transfers to the subject the qualities of the thing it has been identified with.

In Demons

That is so, she said: the Mother of God is the great mother, the damp earth, and in that there is a great joy for man. And every anguish of the earth and every tear of the earth is joy for us.

The damp earth is called the "great mother" and the Mother of God. The image turns the ground that Marya kisses into a maternal body, and it is in that body that pain turns into joy.

Part One: Threads Come Together, Marya Timofeyevna, repeating an old penitent

The people are the body of God.

Part Two: The Night of the Creditors, Shatov

When I saw your face lowered, the moment I fell and you caught me, it was as if a worm had gone into my heart: it is not him, I thought, it is not him! My falcon would never be ashamed of me before a society lady!

Part Two: The Night of the Creditors, Marya Timofeyevna

I thought you yourself were seeking the burden.

Part Two: The Night of the Creditors, Kirillov

My God, so many borrowed words! Learned lessons! And they have already put their uniform on you! You too are in joy, you too are in the sun; chère, chère, for what plate of lentils did you sell them your freedom!

Part Two: The Waiting Town, Stepan Trofimovich

The essence of the Russian revolutionary idea lies entirely in the denial of honor. [...] For the Russian, honor is only one more burden. And it has always been a burden, throughout its entire history. It is by the open "right to dishonor" that he can be dragged along most quickly.

Part Two: The Waiting Town, Karmazinov

The fire is in minds, not on the roofs of houses.

Part Three: The Party and the Fire, Lembke

It has always seemed to me that you would take me to some place where there lives an enormous, evil spider, the size of a man, and that we would spend our whole lives there looking at it and being afraid of it.

Part Three: The Party and the Fire, Lizaveta Nikolaevna

What is needed here is a single magnificent will, of an idol, despotic, supported by something that is not accidental and lies outside... Then the quintets will tuck in the tail of obedience and, with servility, will be useful on the occasion.

Part Three: The Party and the Fire, Pyotr Stepanovich

If the laws of nature did not spare even Him, did not spare even his own miracle, but forced Him too to live amid lies and die for a lie, then, it follows, the whole planet is a lie and stands on a lie and a stupid mockery. It follows that the very laws of the planet are a lie and the devil's vaudeville. Why live, then, answer me, if you are a man?

Part Three: The Last Decision, Kirillov

Only we will remain, who from the start are destined to receive power: the intelligent ones we will take in with us; the fools, we shall ride. You must not be ashamed of this. The generation must be re-educated to make it worthy of freedom.

Part Three: The Last Decision, Pyotr Stepanovich

These demons that come out of the sick man and enter the swine are all the sores, all the miasmas, all the filth, all the demons and little demons that have piled up over the centuries, over the centuries, in our great and beloved sick man, in our Russia.

Part Three: The Last Wandering, Stepan Trofimovich

My immortality is necessary already for this: God will not want to commit an injustice and put out entirely the fire of love for him that was lit in my heart. And what is dearer than love? Love is higher than being, love is the crown of being, and how could being not be subject to it? If I loved him and rejoiced in my love, is it possible that he would extinguish me and my joy and reduce us to zero? If there is a God, then I too am immortal! Voilà ma profession de foi.

Part Three: The Last Wandering, Stepan Trofimovich

Love is "the crown of being," which places it above existence, as a crown sits above the head. The image gives love the final word, and it is by this that the argument holds.