How Does Diderot Use Metaphors In D Alembert's Dream

French philosopher Denis Diderot uses metaphors to enhance the reader’s understanding of the text in his work, D’Alembert’s Dream. In one metaphor, a swarm of bees fly to the tip of a branch and cluster together until they no longer resemble the individuals which compose it. Now forming one being, they will all move and change in position and shape together rather than as the single life forms that they previously were. It is thought that if the bees were in fact homogeneous, then they would be forming one continuous being. However, in Diderot’s mind, the bees are still heterogenous individuals that would simply make up the sizable matter with heterogeneous parts. By using this textual feature, Diderot proposes that matter is heterogeneous and not homogeneous. …show more content…
Not one specific bee is especially important, but as a whole, they carry out jobs that enable them to function as an apparatus of nature. D’Alembert states, “…he will tell you that this second bee will pinch its neighbor and that throughout the cluster as many individual sensations will be provoked as there are little creatures, and that the whole cluster will stir, move, change position and shape…” (Diderot, 168-169). When one bee moves, the rest of them follow in a similar manner because they are all dependent on each other in that moment. This demonstrates the continuity that is taking place in the complex interaction throughout the single organism that it has become. One can clearly see that the author’s tone in this passage proves his complete belief that these masses and physical interactions are all meant to belong to a process that eventually makes them whole. It’s similar to drops of mercury fusing together as a unified whole. The bees connect to one another, therefore, causing