Dr. Gregory House, Metaphorically Speaking

Don't bother asking if there's a metaphor in the house. Before you can say "trope," Dr. Gregory House will oblige:

Have you guys heard any of my metaphors yet? Well come on, sit on grandpa's lap as I tell you how infections are criminals; immune system's the police. Seriously, Grumpy, get up here: it'll make us both happy.
(Dr. Gregory House in the "Mirror, Mirror" episode of House, M.D.)

Over the past four years, the names of a dozen writers have appeared in the credits to the Fox TV program House, M.D.. Each, it appears, owns a well-thumbed copy of the Merck Manual of Medical Information. And by now all must be collaborating on a new edition of the Dictionary of Metaphors. As regular viewers are aware, the show's deeply disturbed protagonist (played by Hugh Laurie) is inclined to deliver inflammatory eructations of festering figures of speech.

In some cases, House relies on metaphors to translate complex medical conditions into language that his colleagues (and other "true idiots") can understand:

• Saying there appears to be some clotting is like saying there's a traffic jam ahead. Is it a ten-car pile up, or just a really slow bus in the center lane? And if it is a bus, is that bus thrombotic or embolic? I think I pushed the metaphor too far.
  ("Euphoria, Part 1")


• The tumor is Afghanistan, the clot is Buffalo. Does that need more explanation? OK, the tumor is Al-Qaeda. We went in and wiped it out, but it had already sent out a splinter cell--a small team of low-level terrorists quietly living in some suburb of Buffalo, waiting to kill us all. . . . It was an excellent metaphor. Angio her brain for this clot before it straps on an explosive vest.
  ("Autopsy")


• Dr. Cameron: Idiopathic T-cell deficiency?
  Dr. House: Idiopathic, from the Latin meaning we're idiots 'cause we can't figure out what's causing it. Give him a whole body scan.
  Dr. Cameron: You hate whole body scans.
  Dr. House: 'Cause they're useless. Could probably scan every one of us and find five different doodads that look like cancer. But, when you're fourth down, 100 to go, in the snow, you don't call a running play up the middle. Unless you're the Jets.
  Dr. Cameron: I hate sports metaphors.
  ("Role Model")

But House is generally more intent on frightening than on edifying. As he once said, "The point of metaphors is to scare people from doing things by telling them that something much scarier is going to happen than what will really happen. God, I wish I had a metaphor to explain that better" ("All In").

At other times the House metaphor is nothing more than a comic exercise in doctor-patient incivility. Once, after discovering that a young man had attempted self-circumcision with a utility knife, House snapped, "Stop talking. I'm going to get a plastic surgeon. To get the Twinkie back in the wrapper."

Of course, House himself is a walking, or rather limping metaphor--his crippled leg an emblem of his deformed spirit. And his acerbic metaphorical remarks may be read as symptoms of a yet undiagnosed malady:

• No, there is not a thin line between love and hate. There is, in fact, a Great Wall of China with armed sentries posted every twenty feet between love and hate.
  ("Occam's Razor")


• You know me. Hostility makes me shrink up like a . . .. I can’t think of a non-sexual metaphor.
  ("Spin")


• You know it's all nice when people start to dig these holes, but then they start to live in these holes and get angry when someone pushes dirt into those holes. Come out of your holes, people!
  ("House vs. God")


• Dr. House: I'm a night owl, Wilson's an early bird. We're different species.
  Dr. Cuddy: Then move him into his own cage.
  Dr. House: Who'll clean the droppings from mine?
  ("Sleeping Dogs Lie")

Every now and then, however, House finds himself on the wrong side of a metaphor, as in this exchange with a young patient:

Dr. House: Are you going to base your whole life on who you're stuck in a room with?
Eve the Patient: I'm going to base this moment on who I am stuck in a room with! It's what life is. It's a series of rooms, and who we get stuck in those rooms with, adds up to what our lives are.
("One Day, One Room")

And how does House respond to the woman's metaphor? As he must, by silently--and literally--walking out of the room.

More About Metaphors:

• What Is a Metaphor?
• Using Similes and Metaphors to Enrich Our Writing
• Susan Orlean's Extended Metaphor: "Super-Duper"

Image: Hugh Laurie as Dr. Gregory House in House, M.D. © courtesy Andrew Macpherson/FOX