JAC Volume 3, Issue 1/2

A student of mine recently did some writing which made an impact on her, and consequently on me. She was writing about her relationship with her older sister; she began by presenting her sister as a wisdom figure, a benevolent guide and adviser. As she wrote more, however, her sister began to change. The writer became aware that she was angry with her sister, that she felt manipulated and controlled by her, that in fact she hated her. The wisdom figure turned into an enemy who was standing between the writer and an independent identity. My student felt profoundly changed by what she had written; the shape of her world was significantly altered; her relation to her world was dramatically different.

I am interested in understanding what happened to this writer on this occasion because I would like it to happen to other students. What happens in writing which changes our understanding of the world, which changes us? What brings about new understanding?

In his book The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicarneral Mind, Julian Jaynes identifies metaphor as our main instrument of understanding:

Metaphor entails thinking of something less well known in terms of something more well known, thereby finding a "handle" on the unfamiliar. We use what we know to give us purchase, leverage on what we don't know; advances in knowledge take place through the discovery of new metaphors.

Let me check this view of discovery against the experience of my student writer. What is harder to know than a human being? My writer initially understood that incredibly complex phenomenon, her sister, as guide in the course of writing, she replaced that metaphor with the metaphor of controller. Controller seemed like a more accurate description of the situation; the writer felt that she had captured better the reality of her sister and their relations; from the release of feeling, she knew she was closer to the truth. Controller will probably not be my writer's final understanding of her sister; I think she will work through a number of metaphors for her sister and their relationship over the years. But on this occasion metaphor led to new understanding. Metaphor was the instrument of discover and the discovery itself, both the means and what was discovered.

If writing which alters understanding hinges upon the discovery of metaphor, how can we teach such writing? Can we teach students to become metaphor-makers?² My student writer hit upon her change of metaphor through the process of writing itself. But is it possible to offer students more systematic help in finding the right metaphor?

It is notable that of the four current schools of invention listed in Richard Young's "Invention: A Topographical Survey," two are strongly based in metaphor.³ Rohman and Wlecke's "pre-writing" system places heavy emphasis on metaphor, and their program includes exercises in the analysis and generation of metaphor which should help create a metaphoric habit of mind. Tagmemics (Young, Becker, and Pike) investigates subjects through the lens of three metaphors: x is seen as a particle, as a wave, and as a field. I think these systems have opposite limitations. Pre-writing doesn't offer sufficiently specific guidance in the application of metaphor to subjects of one's own choice; tagmemics is much more concrete and specific, but is limited to three powerful metaphors, whereas writers need access to the infinite number of possible perspectives that metaphor can offer. I don't see clearly how pre-writing or tagmemics would have helped my student in writing about her sister.

I think the most important and practical work connecting invention and metaphor has been done outside the field of writing. Though William J. J. Gordon's book Synectics (1961; rpt. New York: Collier, 1968) is occasionally mentioned in the literature about invention and in some recent composition texts, I'm not sure that its potential value to our discipline has been realized.

Gordon's work has been done through the Cambridge Synectics Group, funded by the government, foundations, Harvard and M.I.T., and business. It was founded in 1944 with the goal of reaching an operational understanding of creativity. Its method has been to assemble small groups of people from various disciplines and to observe what happens as the groups try to solve problems in applied technology. Over the years, the Group has studied what happens in successful problem-solving. It has concluded that creativity depends on metaphor, and it has identified four kinds of metaphor which can be applied to situations to produce new thinking.

Gordon's four kinds of metaphor are called personal analogy, direct analogy, symbolic analogy, and fantasy analogy. In personal analogy, one identifies with one element in a problem—a pathologist might identify himself or herself with a virus or white blood cell, temporarily becoming the virus or the cell. In direct analogy, one finds an existing analogue for the problem (or some part of it). Gordon uses the example of Sir March Isumbard Brunel solving the problem of underwater construction by watching a shipworm tunnel into a timber, and of Alexander Graham Bell inventing the telephone receiver on the model of the human ear. Symbolic analogy requires an imaginary analogue of the problem. For example, a vision of a snake swallowing its own tail gave the Dutch physicist Kekule a key insight into the benzene molecule. In fantasy analogy, the problem-solver projects an image of an ideal solution, and then returns to the problem in light of the solution. Gordon tells about a Synectics group faced with the problem of inventing a vapor proof closure for a space suit. One participant fantasized trained insects performing the closure on orders, and this possibility generated a productive train of thought.

Could Gordon's four kinds of metaphor be used systematically to help writing students with invention? Let us imagine that my student writer was starting to write about her sister. Say that she had no conscious metaphors for the relationship, however; all she knew was that the relationship was important to her. Ask her to apply personal analogy: if she became her sister, what would being her sister feel like? Apply direct analogy: what in the real world does she think of when she thinks of her sister and their relationship? Apply symbolic analogy: if she were to imagine something that would represent her sister (or the relationship), what would it be? Apply fantasy analogy. what would the ideal older sister be like?

My hunch is that Gordon's kinds of metaphor would be helpful to many students in finding new ways of seeing and understanding. My guide/controller example may suggest that Gordon's heuristics would apply mainly to expressive writing. Remember, however, that the Synectics Groups were using this system to solve problems in applied technology; this approach to invention should be at least equally helpful in composing transactional or referential discourse. If metaphor is the key to new understanding, if the most important kind of writing creates new understanding, then invention is a matter of finding metaphors, and the teaching of writing is a matter of helping in that search.