[[metonymy|Metonymy]], or metonymic inferencing, is what allows [[concrete detail|concrete details]] to suggest or point to larger wholes. An individual detail speaks to a larger whole and larger chain of referential knowledge. If the only detail you give about someone is that they "tightly-combed, slicked back brown hair" that creates a certain image. You suggest a very different image if you have a character who drives a black Mercedes Benz SUV versus one who drives a beige 20-year-old Saab. This is (partly) why [[Roman Jakobson]] associates metonymy with the [[realist novel]]: > "Following the path of contiguous relationships, the Realist author metonymically digresses from the plot to the atmosphere and from the characters to the setting in space and time. He is fond of synecdochic details. ([[Jakobson 1956 - Two Aspects of Language and Two Types of Aphasic Disturbances|Two Aspects]], p. 78) ^a0065b [[John R. Reed]] writes, “In the realist tradition, metonymic connections help to identify characters with social place, occupation, and mental and emotional ability” ([[Dickens's Hyperrealism|Dickens's]] 424). [[J. Hillis Miller]] refers to "[t]he metonymic reciprocity between a person and his surroundings, his clothes, furniture, house, and so on” ("[[Miller 1991 - The Fiction of Realism|Fiction]]" 128). (Miller is talking about how [[Dickens's style blurs metaphor and metonymy]].) Referring to Edwardian novelists, [[Virginia Woolf]] alluded to this idea: > “They have laid an enormous stress upon the fabric of things. They have given us a house in the hope that we may be able to deduce the human beings who live there." ### A teaching exercise for this You can understand this for yourself with a simple #teaching exercise I use with students for understanding how to use concrete details just like [[realist novel|realist novelists]] do: ![[an exercise for teaching metonymy and realism]]