Learn English Through Songs: Breaking Down Metaphors from “The Fate of Ophelia” by Taylor Swift

If you have been listening to Taylor Swift’s new album, The Life of a Showgirl, on repeat for the past month, you’re not alone. Even if you aren’t a “Swiftie” (a Taylor Swift fan), you have surely been finding it hard to escape the catchy melody of “The Fate of Ophelia.” That song is more than just a “banger” (a really good, high-energy song), though. Thanks to Taylor’s love of metaphors, it also gives language learners a great way to learn English through songs. 

Why Should I Learn English Through Songs?

Learning English through songs is a great way to get a better grasp on the language. Thanks to their melody and repetition, listening to songs is a memorable exercise to practice vocabulary and sentence structure.

Learning a language through music also makes the learning process more fun. Sitting down with a heavy textbook or even an audiobook where the speaker just talks can get boring for some learners. Songs, however, make learning entertaining — so much so that you may not even realize that you are learning! 

Takeaway: Learning English through songs is a fun, entertaining way to memorize new vocabulary and practice pronunciation.

What Is a Metaphor in English?

Metaphors are Taylor Swift’s bread and butter – and that sentence itself is a metaphor. 

A metaphor is a figure of speech that compares two (usually very different) things by saying that one thing is the other, usually for the purpose of making sentences sound more interesting. 

In my example, I am saying that metaphors are Taylor Swift’s source of income by saying that they are her “bread and butter.” Money is not literally bread and butter, but I am saying it is to create an image in the mind of the reader using a phrase that compares it with two necessary things you would buy with your paycheck.

Metaphor vs. Simile

Take note, though, that metaphors are different from similes. Both make comparisons between two things, but metaphors say that something is something else while similes use the words “like” or “as” to show that something is similar to something else, but not literally that thing. Here are two examples from other Taylor Swift songs to clear things up:

Metaphor: “He’s the song in the car I keep singing, don’t know why I do.”
(from the song “Teardrops on My Guitar”)

We know this is a metaphor because Taylor says that her lover is the song she keeps singing. We know that he is not literally a piece of music, but this creates the image that he is something the singer can’t get out of her head.

Simile: “Loving him is like driving a new Maserati down a dead end street.”
(from the song “Red”)

In this case, Taylor is comparing loving her significant other to driving a car down a road with no exit. She is saying that their relationship is thrilling (because Maseratis are fun to drive), but ultimately will end badly.

Takeaway: Metaphors compare two dissimilar things without using “like” or “as.”

Breaking Down the Metaphors to Learn English with “The Fate of Ophelia”

Any Swiftie can tell you that most of Taylor Swift’s songs are about Taylor’s life. “The Fate of Ophelia” is no exception. In this case, the song is about how her new love saved her from dying from madness and melancholy like Ophelia from William Shakespeare’s famous play, Hamlet.

Here is a look at four of the most important metaphors in the song.

1. “The Fate of Ophelia”

We can start with the biggest and most obvious metaphor in the song: “the fate of Ophelia.” As I mentioned, Ophelia is a character in Hamlet by Shakespeare. In that play, Hamlet kills her father and Ophelia goes mad (crazy) with grief, which leads to her accidental drowning. 

So, the “fate of Ophelia” is to literally or figuratively die from sadness, which is what Taylor is saying would have happened to her if her new love hadn’t shown up. In Taylor’s words:

“You dug me out of my grave and
Saved my heart from the fate of Ophelia”

Her lover didn’t actually dig her out of a grave, but he did pull her out of a state of serious emotional upset and saved her heart (in this case, Taylor herself) from meeting the same end as Ophelia.

2. The Megaphone

The song starts with the line:

“I heard you calling on the megaphone.”

This line is a reference to the fact that Travis Kelce, Taylor’s now-fiance, reached out to her by mentioning on his podcast that he would like to meet her. A megaphone is a device used to amplify (make louder) one’s voice, so the metaphor here is that Taylor heard Travis “calling” because he used his podcast to get the message out loudly, so everyone could hear it.

3. “A Cold Bed Full of Scorpions”

The second verse features some scary but poetic imagery that would make Shakespeare himself proud.

“But love was a cold bed full of scorpions
The venom stole her sanity”

In Hamlet, Hamlet keeps playing mind games with Ophelia, making her wonder if he loves her or not. Taylor, who has had many bad relationships, can relate, which is shown by her saying that “love was a cold bed full of scorpions.” This means that love often led her to things that hurt her.

The “venom” in this case is not literally the poison from a scorpion sting, but the emotional damage that these lovers inflicted on her that made her feel crazy and lost.

4. Drowning

As we now know, the Ophelia in Shakespeare’s play died from drowning. So, Taylor says:

“And if you’d never come for me
I might’ve drowned in the melancholy.”

She doesn’t mean that she would literally have drowned like Ophelia (hopefully!), but instead means that she might have been so overwhelmed by her sadness that she would have felt terrible for a long time.

FAQs

Who is Ophelia in “The Fate of Ophelia” by Taylor Swift?

Ophelia is a character in William Shakespeare’s play, Hamlet. She was the on/off love interest of Hamlet, but ultimately died as a result of her grief after Hamlet killed her father.

Does Taylor Swift use a lot of metaphors in her songs?

Yes! Taylor Swift has described herself as “your English teacher” because she loves playing with language and using figures of speech like metaphors in nearly all of her songs.

Final Takeaway

If you want to learn English through songs, Taylor Swift’s “The Fate of Ophelia” is a great one to start with. You can use Jolii.ai to create personalized lessons and subtitles based on the song to help you hear those metaphors in action.