Metonym: Figurative Technique in Metropolis

Freder builds a bridge between Grot (the unofficial leader of the workers) and Joh Fredersen (the architect and de facto ruler of Metropolis)

Being a silent film, Metropolis is primarily a visual text - a piece of cinema reliant on the audience's ability to read film grammar. If a silent film cannot convey its narrative in this way then it will die on its feet and, thankfully, Metropolis is highly effective to this end. Visual literacy aside though, I wanted to get my students to tap into the core message of the film by examining the epigraph that precedes the action:

"The mediator between Head and Hands must be the Heart"

...which is a quote that skews towards literary analysis rather than the visual. In this case it's a piece of figurative language, making use of the metaphorical device known as metonymy.

I start by showing the epigraph to the students via a worksheet as an example of a metonym and ask if anyone would like to venture a guess as to what exactly this technique is (or how it works). I then go on to explain it on the worksheet:

Metonymy is a metaphorical/rhetorical device in which a thing or concept is not called by its proper name but instead referred to by a part of the overall whole, or something associated with the whole. In other words, metonyms are usually parts of a thing/concept that are used to stand-in for the bigger idea. 

Examples:

• Washington refers to the American Government.
• The King's Hand (in Game of Thrones) refers to an actual person designated to do the King's work, not just their hand.
• The bush refers to Australian forest. Not just one bush!
• Chili is an American dish made up on beans, mince and chili peppers, yet it is only referred to by the one defining ingredient.
• The Crown refers to the British royal family.
• A hired gun isn't just a gun, you're paying for the whole assassin who holds the gun.
• Chernobyl is a city in Ukraine but the word on its own has also come to refer to the nuclear disaster that occurred there in 1986, EG. "We don't want another Cheynobyl".

Students can examine a few more by explaining them on their own, and could even come up with some of their own identified examples:

1. 9/11
2. "Going down the street"
3. "We've got 10 000 boots on the ground"  

Then, to bring it all full circle, the big question is:

Explain the example from Metropolis, as seen in the epigraph.

Students should at first address it on the most immediate level, that the Heart refers to Freder operating as the 'mediator' (the figure foretold by Maria when she sermonises the workers). In addition to this, though, students should connect the epigraph on a figurative level to the class system in Metropolis. The Hands are the workers, with the metonym connecting to connotations associated with the working class and the sort of labour they undertake, and the Head is Joh Fredersen - a sole figure who controls all else, cold and calculating.

The worksheet can be found here.