How the penguin sees itself
Winkletter • 19 Jun 2025 •
I was browsing a book called Metaphor and Writing thinking it was going to be about using metaphor in writing, but no it’s actually about how we use metaphors to define writing. For example, what is a writer?
In some countries, the robin is the most common wild bird. So when someone thinks of a bird, they might picture a robin. But a penguin is also a bird–it just happens to be on the edge of most people’s mental map of birds. It’s no less a bird than the robin. In a similar way, people tend to have a particular image of a writer, perhaps a novelist like Earnest Hemmingway or Jane Austen. And this can lead to people discounting their own qualification as a writer.
I like this metaphor. I might be a penguin or a resplendent quetzal.
Comments
The resplendent quetzal is thought to be the inspiration for Quetzalcoatl. I know the word “quetzal” from the Scrabble list of words with Q and Z.
If you manage to play “quetzal” on a triple-word score, that’s pretty much game over, I would think.
I’d never seen a quetzal, but the word immediately made me think of Quetzalcoatl, the feathered serpent deity in the Aztec/Mayan lore.