What is an Extended Metaphor?

A metaphor is a spark in your story. An extended metaphor sets your story ablaze!

Walt Whitman’s elegy “O Captain! My Captain!” is a masterclass in extended metaphor. It’s also one of my favorite poems!

On the surface, it’s about a ship’s captain who dies just as his ship reaches safe harbor. Whitman’s readers from both then and now hopefully know three things. They know the captain is Abraham Lincoln. They understand the ship is America. They recognize the stormy voyage is the Civil War.

It’s not just a poem. It’s a national tear-jerker. And even after a thousand classroom readings, it still brings tears to my eyes…

“O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done;

The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won;

The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,

While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring:

But O heart! heart! heart!

O the bleeding drops of red,

Where on the deck my Captain lies,

Fallen cold and dead.”

See what I mean? America’s mission to end slavery has been won. Now America is safe and sound. Yet, the leader, Lincoln, has been shot. Whitman and the rest of the North are mourning.

It also appears, powerfully, as an allusion in one of my favorite film endings: Dead Poets Society. After Mr. Keating is dismissed for “corrupting” the rigid traditions of a 1950s preparatory school, his students rise, literally, to honor him:

“O Captain! My Captain!”

They stand on their desks. They use Whitman’s extended metaphor to elevate their teacher into something more. The teacher becomes not just an instructor, but a mentor. The teacher is a leader and a symbol of freedom, rebellion, and truth.

An Extended Metaphor’s Purpose:

It can set tone (mournful, reverent, triumphant)

It can unify the theme across an entire work

It can convey emotional depth through sustained imagery

It’s also a doorway to our next literary devices: allegory, and then the following week, “allusion.” Because, yes, Whitman’s poem is an extended metaphor, but it’s also an allegory. And to truly understand allegory using a much broader piece of work, we’ll turn next week to Arthur Miller’s The Crucible. The Salem witch trials in the play aren’t just history. They’re a stand-in for the Red Scare and the dangers of propaganda and political hysteria.

After allegory, we’ll circle back to the companion of both: allusion. Sometimes, just a whisper of another text or event carries centuries of meaning. It did with Whitman’s “O’ Captain” in Dead Poets Society.

Happy Writing!

M.C. Convery