I can hear you yelling at the screen now “Shaun of the dead is a film, you muppet!”
And I have to give it to you, you’re not wrong. Yet it has some amazing metaphors in it. Not in dialogue, or description, but in story. Let’s have a look shall we?
*Spoilers for Shaun of the Dead here, but it came out 16 years ago: it’s really on you at this point*
Our hero Shaun is a lazy man-child in a dead-end job who spends his days playing video games. He’s afraid of growing up, and his girlfriend breaks up with him for it.
This sets up his need: Grow up and leave the comforts of man-childhood behind.
He has a clear desire: Get his girlfriend back
So throughout the film he’s going to struggle with the thematic question: is it worth letting go of man-childhood, for love?
Sounding all a bit familiar now isn’t it, could easily be a non-zombie rom-com movies. In fact it’s the exact same thematic question as Ghosts of Girlfriend’s Past…
But of course our character’s internal struggle with this question has to be externalised, and how better to externalise it, than with zombies. Wait, what?
We need a metaphor for man-childhood, a safe place. A place that he really should have left by now, but just can’t bring himself to do it, even when it’s closing…
Oh, right. A pub.
In fact even when the world is collapsing, all Shaun can think about is going to the pub.
So eventually, inevitably they do. He even manages to bring his girlfriend with him into his metaphorical safe space to be a man-child.
You reckon they can hole it out there?
Of course not, his man-child fort must be destroyed in order to him to meet his inner need: grow up.
So the pub’s invaded and he has to chose to abandon his safe haven, his man-child pub. But that’s not enough.
There has to be a man-child relationship that dies so that his relationship with his girl can start anew. He has to sever ties with his best friend, the symbol of his childish-ness.
His best friend is bitten, infected. He’ll drag Shaun down and kill him too if he stays with him in the Wincester.
Isn’t that a great metaphor for childishness? How bad friends drag you down to their level and keep you from what you want?
So Shaun has to decide to leave him to die, and of course as he leaves the pub, the army come. With his final decision to accept his need, to give up childishness and embrace responsibility, Shaun is literally saved.
Brilliant.
That’s dope, but how does that help me?
When you want to represent an internal struggle, use things in the world as a metaphor for them. This is especially true in screenwriting, where I can’t just say “He wasn’t sure to go with Bella or Rachael”, instead I have to have a metaphor for each choice that he deliberates between, maybe a red ribbon for Rachael and a bluebell for Bella.
This really takes your writing to a whole other level of depth. Especially if you can think of ways to externalise your characters internal struggles and internal demons.
Seeing an alcoholic staring at a bottle and contemplating his marriage for a while is boring. Seeing an alcoholic fight a brewery kingpin for the love of his ex-wife is riveting. That’s the power of metaphor.
The Fellowship Of Ink 