What is an anger-as-fire metaphor?

A conventional metaphor in which anger is represented as fire, such that

• the consumed object is the angry person
• the amount of fire is the amount of anger, and
• the danger of the fire to the thing burning and to things nearby is the danger of anger to the angry person and those around him.

Here are some examples in English:

• Those are inflammatory remarks.
• She was doing a slow burn.
• What you said inflamed him.
• He was breathing fire.
• Your insincere apology just added fuel to the fire.
• After the argument, Dave was smoldering for days.
• That kindled my ire.
• Boy, am I burned up!
• He was consumed by his anger.

• What is a metaphor for anger?

Kovecses 1986

• Concept module: anger-as-fire metaphor
• In modular book: Metaphors in English, by Eugene E. Loos (general editor), Susan Anderson (editor), Dwight H. Day, Jr. (editor), Paul C. Jordan (editor), and J. Douglas Wingate (editor)
• In bookshelf: Lexicon

This page is an extract from the LinguaLinks Library, Version 4.0, published on CD-ROM by SIL International, 1999. [Ordering information.]

Page content last modified: 18 September 1998

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