Online Reporter
Elliot Ziwira
At the Bookstore
Stripped of figurative expression, art is like a sky without stars; present, but devoid of sparkle.
Writers, poets, and dramatists reach for metaphors, symbols, and images not as embellishments, but as the inner pulse of their craft. Through them, they interpret human experience, extend meaning across time, and turn the page into a mirror that reflects both the individual and the collective.
In its literal form, language communicates facts; and in its figurative form, it communicates life.
This is why literature, whether prose, verse, or drama, relies on these devices to deepen understanding. In African settings in particular, scarred by displacement, colonialism, and the search for self-definition, metaphors and symbols are more than aesthetic choices. They are survival tools, cultural memory banks, and channels of resistance.
In metaphor, for example, the familiar meets the unknown. The metaphor, from the Greek metaphora (transfer), is among the oldest of literary tools. It refuses to compare with “like” or “as”, and instead, insists on identity.
A metaphor does not say “life is like a journey”; it declares, “life is a journey.” By collapsing distance between disparate things, metaphors open new spaces of imagination.
We use them daily without noticing. When we say “time is running out” or “their relationship is dead,” we invoke metaphors that shape thought and behaviour. The journey, death, and water motifs have become so embedded in speech that their metaphorical roots are often forgotten.
Yet in the hands of the artist, metaphor reclaims its freshness, challenging the reader to discern connections between visible reality and hidden truth.
In African literature, metaphors often carry the burden of collective memory. Charles Mungoshi’s “Waiting for the Rain” does not simply narrate a family’s story. The rain becomes the metaphor for stalled hopes of a nation awaiting renewal. Dambudzo Marechera’s “The House of Hunger” transforms personal trauma into a metaphor for postcolonial disillusionment.
Ayi Kwei Armah’s “Two Thousand Seasons” frames the historical journey of African peoples through metaphors of seasons and cycles.
These metaphors transcend individual psychology; they become collective cries. Hunger, blood, drought, and disease are not just literal conditions but metaphors for betrayal, poverty, and fractured identities.
African writers on the continent and the diaspora, from Ngugi wa Thiong’o to Richard Wright, know that metaphor is a way to write against erasure, to carry pain into permanence.
Poetry, however, sharpens metaphor into either a fleeting spark or an extended current. Chidiock Tichbourne, awaiting execution in 1586, encapsulates futility through concrete metaphors in “Written The Night Before His Execution”: life as “a frost of cares,” “a dish of pain,” “a field of tares.”
Grace Nichols, by contrast, uses tender metaphors in “Praise Song for My Mother” to elevate motherhood into elemental force: water, moon, sunrise. Maya Angelou stretches metaphor across the whole of “Caged Bird”, making the image of clipped wings and tied feet stand as universal testimony of oppression.
The metaphor, then, is never mere ornament. It is transformation.
However, if the metaphor collapses distance, the symbol extends meaning beyond the page. A symbol is not confined to the text. It points outward, carrying layers of cultural, religious, or universal resonance.
Some symbols are timeless, while others are confined to time.
Across literary genres, the crown evokes authority, and the spade conjures labour. The sun and moon mark cycles of life and death, hope and despair.
When poets and novelists rely on these universal codes, they create instant recognition. But when they draw from idiosyncratic or culturally specific symbols, interpretation becomes layered, demanding knowledge of context. Writers like Wole Soyinka, Jake Mapanje, or John Keats often employ such dense symbolic registers, inviting readers into deeper excavation.
James Shirley’s “Death the Leveller” shows the enduring force of symbolism: sceptre and crown fall beside scythe and spade, and all are rendered equal in dust.
Shirley writes:
“The glories of our blood and state
Are shadows, not substantial things;
There is no armour against fate;
Death lays his icy hand on kings;
Sceptre and crown
Must tumble down,
And in the dust be equal made
With the poor crooked scythe and spade.”
Death here becomes the ultimate leveller, a force beyond human pretensions.
In African contexts, symbols often emerge from landscape, tradition, and spiritual cosmologies. The drum, for instance, is more than an instrument. It is a symbol of collective memory, rhythm, and communal voice.
The river is not just water but the passage of time, the site of cleansing, or the boundary between life and death. A baobab tree can be a literal landmark, but symbolically it stands for resilience, ancestry, and rootedness.
Symbols, therefore, are repositories of culture. They carry the power of continuity, linking past with present, private life with collective destiny.
Still, if metaphors and symbols provide meaning, imagery provides experience. It appeals to the senses, pulling readers into worlds they can see, smell, touch, taste, and hear. Literature becomes more than read. It is felt.
For example, William Wordsworth’s poetry is renowned for visual and tactile imagery drawn from nature.
In Zimbabwean writing, Chenjerai Hove, Roland Mhasvi and Musaemura Zimunya achieve similar effects, summoning the soil, rain, and texture of everyday life.
Denis Scott’s “Marrysong” collapses these sensory streams, as images of shifting landscapes become metaphors for marriage itself, while simultaneously serving as symbols of instability and discovery.
Imagery’s strength lies in convergence. A single image may hold metaphorical and symbolic weight at once. A burning candle, for example, may symbolise faith or mortality, serve as a metaphor for fleeting life, and create visual and tactile imagery simultaneously.
The richest literature thrives in such layered evocation.
Why do metaphors, symbols, and images matter?
They turn literature into an instrument of interpretation. The artist is not merely a storyteller but a guide through complexity. Fusing language with figurative devices, the artist helps society make sense of trauma, celebrate resilience, and articulate hope.
This role is especially pronounced in societies emerging from struggle. In Zimbabwe and much of Africa, where histories of colonialism, dispossession, and cultural disruption weigh heavily, artists translate pain into metaphor and renewal into symbol.
To them, hunger is not just empty stomachs but betrayed promises; rain is not just water but restoration; and the caged bird is more than an animal but the citizen yearning to sing.
Through figurative expression, the artist carries memory where history books falter. Metaphors and symbols become bridges between what is endured and what is dreamed. They open dialogue across generations, cultures, and geographies.
Although artists separate metaphor, symbol, and image for clarity, in practice they converge.
A metaphor often doubles as an image; an image may hold symbolic charge; a symbol can unfold metaphorically. Their interplay creates the layered texture that gives literature its durability.
Consider again Maya Angelou’s “Caged Bird”. The bird is an image — vivid, tactile, audible. It is also a metaphor for the oppressed. At the same time, it becomes a symbol of resilience, for even clipped wings cannot still the song.
Such convergence explains why the poem echoes across cultures. It is not bound to one reading but multiplies meaning.
On the whole, metaphors, symbols, and images are not luxuries of style. They are the very essence of literary art. They make the word bloom, carrying weight of history, depth of feeling, and breadth of imagination. They enable literature to move from description to revelation.
Without them, prose becomes flat, poetry becomes mechanical, and drama loses breath. With them, literature becomes what it is meant to be: a living dialogue between writer and reader, past and present, the seen and the unseen.
Therefore, reading metaphors, symbols, and images is unlocking literature’s soul. Wielding them as an artist is interpreting the world, reminding society of its wounds, its dreams, and its possibilities.
For an immersive reading experience, visit Typocrafters (DigiHub) Book Shop at Herald House, corner George Silundika Avenue and Sam Nujoma Street in Harare.
