If you are familiarized with Bulwer-Lytton ‘s “the pen
is mightier than the sword”, from Richelieu
you can probably understand this cartoon. If you also know quite a bit about
literature you’ll identify it as a basic example of a figure of speech called
metonymy.  A figure of speech that works
by calling one object/concept by the name of another object/concept that
is related to the first one in a certain way.

The concept of metonymy is not that hard to understand when
it is used in everyday life as a simple figure of speech. For example, when someone
says ‘this is an interesting Picasso’ or ‘tacos are my favorite dish’.

But what happens when, as Crary argues based on Marx’s ideas,
the human subject is, by means of a metonymic relationship, part of a mechanism
the operates within a machine that we can’t even see (131). This is when we
realize that the word metonymy applies to us humans of the modern society and that
it will tag us for the rest of our lives.

Here’s how it works (just one of the many ways in which it
does): click on the page if you want to see it.