How Does Raleigh Use Extended Metaphor in His Attitude Towards Life in on the Life of Man

How does Raleigh use extended metaphor to reflect his attitude towards life?

In ‘on the life of man’, Raleigh uses extended metaphors with life to compare it to a play. In the line ‘what is our life? A play of passion’, he uses the metaphor to say that our lives are like plays that are temporary and full of different kinds of emotions such as happiness i.e. comedy and depression i.e. tragedy. In the line ‘our mirth the music of division’, Raleigh uses the metaphor to imply that in the beginning, our lives are full of happiness and laughter because ‘music of division’ is the musical opening of a play and ‘mirth’ is children’s laughter.

In the line ‘our mother’s wombs the tiring houses be’; our mother’s wombs refers to us as unborn children and the tiring houses are what they called dressing rooms in the olden days. This metaphor insinuates that our mother’s wombs are where we got ready for our lives in the real world or like the tiring houses; where the actors and actresses got ready to go on stage for their roles in the play. These link because Raleigh says that our lives are like a stage in a play where the action takes place. The line ‘where we are dressed for this short comedy’ refers to being ready for the short duration that our lives are because a short comedy is a short play and a play is being referred to in the poem as our lives.

The extended metaphor Raleigh used in line 5 and 6 ‘Heaven the Judicious sharp spectator is’ and ‘that sits and marks still who doth act amiss’ suggests that God is the Judicious sharp spectator because a spectator is someone who watches something or others, while ‘who doth act amiss’ refers to the audience of people who do wrong things because amiss means something wrong or a feeling of bad things. This overall means that God watches and judges everyone including the people that do bad things.

‘Our graves that hide us from the searching sun’ means that when we die, there will be no more for us and we...