A study investigated whether metaphors help or hinder prose comprehension. The subjects, 71 college students, read eight short stories and rated their quality and the effectiveness of the writing. Approximately half of the subjects received stories that contained metaphors, while half received the same stories in which the metaphors had been replaced with literally equivalent statements. After reading the stories, subjects were given either a delayed or an immediate cued recall test. Analysis of recall protocols indicated an increased memorability for passages with metaphors. Not only were the metaphors themselves recalled better than the equivalent literal statements, but there was also an increase in memory for the context preceding the metaphors. (FL)