In other texts, it is the other way around
According to the metaphor concepts which I suggest are relevant in this context, the explosion is a concrete presentation which signifies the abstract meaning: how A feels about B and C’s love affair
I call this type of blend reverse metaphor because the cognitive task here is to arrive at a metaphorical interpretation of literal meaning. In Portrait of the Artist, for instance, literal meaning is arrived at through metaphor, which is the opposite interpretive operation. The myth of Icarus, the major theme in the book, signifies Stephen’s ‘life project’. By analyzing the metaphor we get a literal understanding of Stephen’s situation. The result is a revenge that is particularly meaningful.57 The water theme is exploited to the fullest. At a first glance the title suggests a nominal meaning of the word ‘water’ but it turns out that the only time it occurs in the text (in sentence 6) it occurs as a transitive verb. While water has nominal meaning in the HeC space (“the river”), suggesting stability, the meaning is verbal in the HoC space which is action oriented. This difference emphasizes the contrast between the two spaces; one serves as background for the other. In a sense, water ‘flows’ from the HeC space into the HoC space where the agreement between A and C that A water his plants is the premise for A’s 57 See Mark Turner’s The Literary Mind for an analysis of a similar instance: the man with the severed head in Dante’s Divine Comedy, Turner 1996.
Two aspects of comparison need to be distinguished: the intertextual aspect (comparison with other texts) and the aspect having to do with the textual meaning as relating to some intersubjective domain of experience
revenge scheme. (more…)
