About the use of metaphorical language

Question

I understand that when being metaphorical you're saying that something IS something, for example: "The moon is a ball of cheese". Because I'm saying that the moon IS a ball of cheese it is of course metaphorical.

Would this count as metaphorical language?:

"He fell down the bottomless pit to his death".

(Of course, a pit can't be bottomless, that's impossible). So, although this isn't necessarily saying that the pit is bottomless as opposed to appearing bottomless, could it still be classed as metaphorical explanation of the pit? Could this bottomless pit be classed as metaphorical? Could one interpret the sentence into saying that the pit is bottomless?

Answer 1

No, your bottomless pit is not metaphorical.

To be metaphorical, X has to spoken of as Y. For example, in "Juliet is the sun", Juliet is spoken of as the sun. In Ovid's "Time is the devourer of all things", time is spoken of as a devouring beast eating all things. In your "The moon is a ball of cheese", the moon is being spoken of as a ball of cheese.

In "He fell down the bottomless pit to his death", the pit is spoken of only as a pit.

Answer 2

It's an interesting case, because the phrase "bottomless pit" could here be a metaphor or an hyperbole in the mind of the speaker and the audience depending upon whether they got the reference or not.

If they think of the bottomless pit mentioned in several verses in the Book of Revelations then it's a metaphor, as the pit is not that pit. (Like many phrases, it's idiomatic in English due to it being used in the King James Bible).

If they just think of it as being very deep and that being exagerated as "bottomless" then it's a hyperbole.

And there's no reason why these shouldn't both be working at the same time. So it can be a metaphor and a hyperbole at the same time.

Of course, if there's no literal pit, then it's definitely a metaphor ("He fell into a bottomless pit, and the anti-depressants his doctor prescribed failed to help").