Mixed metaphors combine two different metaphors or concepts that don’t work well together, resulting in confusion and lack of meaning. Well-constructed metaphors can be expanded upon to reinforce numerous ideas, but a mixed metaphor occurs when too many images are used or the language doesn’t support the initial metaphor.
A mixed metaphor is a type of metaphor where the metaphorical picture includes two different metaphors together, which don’t work well together, or different concepts which ultimately make the metaphor confusing. Such metaphors are generally considered poor or inappropriate, mainly because they can ultimately result in a lack of meaning and render the desired images or concepts useless to a reader or listener. A mixed metaphor usually comes from too many ideas used together – “his eyes were stars floating on a light breeze” – or from a single metaphor stretched in a way that ultimately corrupts the image – “that man is a dog, crawling about and hissing.”
The basic structure of a mixed metaphor is much like any other type of metaphor, except that images and ideas used together don’t work very well. A metaphor is simply a literary or rhetorical device in which two objects are directly compared to each other, often to make an unknown object more recognizable through comparison with a known object. Some simple metaphors include “it’s a dog” or “my heart is a bird in a cage.”
One of the powerful things about metaphors is that, when well constructed, they can be expanded upon and used in a longer image to reinforce numerous ideas. “He is a dog”, for example, can be followed by “always chasing cars” or “faithful to the mistake” and express different ideas quite complexly. Similarly, the metaphor “my heart is a caged bird” could be further extended by “beating against its bars and singing to be free”, which continues the image of a bird and expresses longing.
If metaphors are not extended properly, however, an utterance can turn into a mixed metaphor where the meaning is obfuscated by the language used. This usually occurs due to too many images being used together or a chosen language that doesn’t really reinforce the initial metaphor. A mixed metaphor could come from “my heart is a bird in a cage” continuing with “calling the rising sun every morning”. While this extends the bird image of the metaphor, it seems to point to a rooster, which is usually not associated with a caged bird but with a free-ranging or barnyard bird.
Many times, a mixed metaphor occurs due to stretching the images in the metaphor with language that does not support the initial metaphor. “He Has slithered across the room,” seems to indicate that a man behaves like a snake, using the man and the snake to create the initial metaphor. If this metaphor is extended as “He crawled across the room, panting and calling to the cat as he went,” then the metaphor falls apart. The initial image of a man and a snake is strong, but the introduction of ideas associated with cats and dogs transforms it into a mixed metaphor and it just becomes confusing.
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