Definition and Examples of Vehicles in Metaphors

In a metaphor, the vehicle is the figure of speech  itself--that is, the immediate image that embodies or carries the tenor (the subject of the metaphor). The interaction of vehicle and tenor results in the meaning of the  metaphor. For example, if you call a person  who spoils other peoples fun a wet blanket, wet blanket is the vehicle and the spoilsport is the tenor. The terms  vehicle  and  tenor  were introduced by British rhetorician  Ivor Armstrong  Richards in  The Philosophy of Rhetoric  (1936). Richards emphasized the tension that often exists between vehicle and tenor.   In the article Metaphor Shifting in the Dynamics of Talk, Lynne Cameron observes that the multiple possibilities evoked by a vehicle are both derived from and constrained by speakers experience of the world, their socio-cultural contexts, and their discourse purposes (Confronting Metaphor in Use, 2008).See Examples and Observations below. Also see: Dead MetaphorThe 100 Most Important Words in EnglishNew RhetoricSource DomainTenor13 Ways of Looking at a MetaphorWhat Is a Metaphor? Examples and Observations Tenor and VehicleBecause he was dissatisfied with the traditional grammatical and rhetorical account of metaphor, which he believed emphasized its merely decorative and embellishing powers, I. A. Richards in 1936 reintroduced this pair of terms . . . with the notion of a borrowing between and intercourse of thoughts. Since any metaphor at its simplest  gives two parts, the thing meant and the thing said, Richards used tenor to refer to the thing meant—purport, underlying meaning, or main subject of the metaphor—and  vehicle to mean the thing said—that which serves to carry or embody the tenor as the analogy brought to the subject. . . .The vehicle, [Richards said], is not normally mere embellishment of  a tenor  which is otherwise unchanged by it but . . . vehicle and tenor in cooperation give a meaning of more varied powers than can be ascribed to either.(Norman Friedman in  The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics, 4th ed., ed. by Roland Green e,  Stephen Cushman et al.  Princeton University Press, 2012)Time Bombs as Vehicles- Unambiguous vehicle terms are those that people agree about: there is consensus about what properties they represent. One example of an unambiguous vehicle is time bomb. People agree that time bomb epitomizes something that can cause considerable damage at some unpredictable time in the future.(Sam Glucksberg,  Understanding Figurative Language: From Metaphor to Idioms. Oxford University Press, 2001)- Some three decades after China launched its highly controversial policy restricting families to having one child, the  government  may soon allow a two-child policy to curb a demographic time bomb. . . .The law is believed to have resulted in millions of forced abortions, and has left China with the combination of a rapidly ageing population, a shallow labour pool and an imbalance in the sex ratio. The result is a demographic time bomb.(Kashmira Gander, China May Scrap One-Child Policy to Cur b Demographic Time Bomb. The Independent [UK], July 23, 2015)- Wedged in the narrow space behind us was the umbrella stroller that held Teddy, slumped over in exhausted, jet-lagged sleep. We’d carried him up the stairs like a drunken rajah.We were all ravenous from our morning walk through the greenery of Yoyogi Koen, but I was acutely aware that the ticking time-bomb of the slumbering 1-year-old could interrupt our meal at any moment.(Bonnie Tsui, Traveling to Tokyo With Three Generations. The New York Times, December 3, 2015)Tenor and Vehicle in A Blackbird SingingBy tenor, [I.A. Richards] meant the purport or general drift of thought regarding the subject of a metaphor; by vehicle the image which embodies the tenor. In these lines from R.S. Thomass A Blackbird Singing, the tenor is the birds song, its tune; the vehicle is the fine smelting image in the fifth and sixth lines:It seems wrong that out of this bird,Black, bold, a suggestion of darkPlaces about it, there yet sho uld comeSuch rich music, as though the notesOre were changed to a rare metalAt one touch of that bright bill.(Tenor and Vehicle, J.A. Cuddon, A Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory. Basil Blackwell, 1991)Tenor and Vehicle in William Staffords RecoilIn William Staffords poem Recoil, the first stanza is the vehicle and the second stanza is the tenor:The bow bent remembers home long,the years of its tree, the whineof wind all night conditioningit, and its answer-- Twang!To the people here who would fret me downtheir way and make me bend:By remembering hard I could startle for homeand be myself again.I.A. Richard and Vehicle and TenorA modern theory would object, first, that in many of the most important uses of metaphor, the co-presence of the vehicle and the tenor results in a meaning (to be clearly distinguished from the tenor) which is not attainable without their interaction. That the vehicle is not normally a mere embellishment of a tenor which is otherwise unchanged b y it but that vehicle and tenor in co-operation give a meaning of more varied powers that can be ascribed to either. And a modern theory would go on to point out that with different metaphors the relative importance of the contributions of vehicle and tenor to this resultant meaning varies immensely. At one extreme the vehicle may become almost a mere decoration or coloring of the tenor, at the other extreme, the tenor may become almost a mere excuse for the introduction of the vehicle, and so no longer be the principal subject. And the degree to which the tenor is imagined to be that very thing which it only resembles also varies immensely.(I.A. Richards, The Philosophy of Rhetoric. Oxford University Press, 1936)Criticism of Richards Theory- As Manuel Bilsky points out, if someone says his mind is a river, mind is the tenor and river the vehicle; but in I walked into the river, what is the tenor and what is the vehicle? This criticism does not vitiate Richards theory; it does indic ate the kinds of problems that remained to be clarified.(J. P. Russo, I.A. Richards: His Life and Work. Taylor, 1989)- In her brief assessment of [I.A.] Richards approach, [Christine] Brooke-Rose also notes that the very terms tenor and vehicle destroy the interaction Richards seeks to stress.(Brian Caraher, Intimate Conflict. SUNY Press, 1992) Pronunciation: VEE-i-kul