Ray Bradbury The Metaphor Is The Medicine Sparknotes

The Metaphor is the Medicine Acclaimed American author and screen writer of over 200 stories, Ray Bradbury, in his compilation of essays, Zen in the Art of Writing, endeavors to inspire would-be writers with personal anecdotes and advise from his own successful writing career. Bradbury adopts a kind and mentor-like tone to inspire and encourage the would-be-writers who read his book. Ray Bradbury uses an elaborate metaphor to explain what the following essays will be about in his preface. “So that, one way or another, is what this book is all about. Taking your pinch of arsenic every morn so you can survive to sunset. Another pinch at sunset so that you can more-than-survive until dawn” (Bradbury XIII). In his metaphor the “pinch of arsenic” is writing. He claims

The entire essay follows an analogy about the ancient Greek goddesses, The Muses. Bradbury starts off with a series of rhetorical questions on the muse and what to do with her. His personification of the muse is rather abstract. he compares the muse first to the concept of love by using a modified Oscar Wilde poem. Then to the specks of light that float in one’s eye. Bradbury claims a muse is something that must be ignored to work. He continues the work by discussing what to feed a muse. “… We stuff ourselves with sounds, sights, smells, tastes, and textures of people, animals, landscapes, events, large and small” (Bradbury 33). Bradbury goes on to claim these sensations are what makes a muse grow. The essay continues with Bradbury’s assessment that every person has a muse because everyone sees and witnesses’ events differently. “… when a man talks from his heart, in his moment of truth, he speaks poetry” (Bradbury 34). The discussion of everyone’s personal muse concludes with a story about Bradbury’s dad and the poetry he has spoken. This whole section functions to encourage the reader and help him/her to consider his/her own