Metaphor: Gentility

The elderly patriarch of the family at the center of the play provides a rather
unique metaphorical definition of the concept of gentility and manners to his
somewhat dull-witted nephew, Stephen: "Nor stand so much on your gentility, / Which
is an airy and mere borrowed thing, / From dead men's dust and bones" (10). With
these words he reminds his nephew that gentility is something inherited; it says
nothing about the man himself.

Simile: Jealousy
Poor Kitely is consumed by jealousy over his wife. Fortunately for him, she is true
and faithful. Unfortunately for him, though, he is well past the point where
fidelity matters. At least he is self-aware enough to know his jealousy possesses
him and gifted enough to put it in perhaps the play’s most beautifully executed
extended metaphor when he describes it thusly:

A new disease? I know not, new, or old,

But it may well be called poor mortals' plague;

For, like a pestilence, it doth infect

The houses of the brain. (31)

Simile: Kitely's Brain

Kitely reveals himself to be very gifted with figurative language. It helps that he
is self-aware but also naive, the former perhaps to the point of narcissistic self-
centeredness. One of his many asides to the audience to allow them a glimpse into
this sense of awareness involves a description of how his own brain works: "My
brain, methinks, is like an hour-glass, / Wherein my imaginations run like sands"
(46).

Simile: Clement the Wise

Justice Clement is situated in opposition to Knowell, the patriarch doling out
advice like a sage, but revealed to be rather gullible and easily confused.
Clement, on the other hand, is capable of seeing right to the truth of what is
happening with those involved in such machinations, but his character is also one
that gets a kick out of sitting back and watching things unfold. However, when
Knowell gets into particularly despondent mood, Clement is quick to turn to
metaphor to give the old man a jolt of cold reality: "Your cares are nothing: they
are like my cap, soon put on, and as soon put off" (59).