In order to first learning how to add, examples with apples and bananas are helpful. Learning happens by relating some new concepts to something you already know; that applies also to monads.<p>Those monad metaphors provide the same benefit. Even if some intuitions are wrong and you still need to learn the match to get the whole picture, at least you get a sense of (partial) understanding and purpose during the whole learning process thanks to the metaphor, instead of feeling lost the whole time.