| The metaphor of the quilt is examined in specific contemporary Asian Indian and American Indian literary texts, including Rohinton Mistry's A Fine Balance, Bharati Mukherjee's Jasmine, Louise Erdrich's Love Medicine, and William S. Yellow Robe, Jr.'s The Star Quilter. Drawing upon the contemporary metaphor theories of scholars such as George Lakoff, Mark Johnson, Zoltan Kovecses, and others, basic ideas in certain conceptual metaphor theories are presented, and ways in which the quilt can be associated with metaphor in literature are considered. I incorporate, for example, Lakoff and Johnson's theories which focus on the manner in which a person can conceptualize one mental domain in terms of another. I also utilize a model presented by Kovecses that CONCEPTUAL DOMAIN A IS CONCEPTUAL DOMAIN B, in which a target domain is understood through a source domain. Although certain mappings occur at the sentence level in language, I analyze them in a broader sense in which the conceptual metaphor is an underlying presence throughout a particular passage or throughout an entire literary work.; I present three conceptual metaphors for each of the four works discussed, which results in a total of twelve metaphors related to quilts and quiltmaking. The quilt is usually the source domain which helps to illuminate other target domains, such as a woman's mind, tradition, identity, a community, wholeness, a mixedblood, a text, history, an autobiography, and love. However, the quilt is also used in one case as a target domain, in which it is better understood through the source domain, text. Moreover, in one instance, specific focus is on the quiltmaker as the target domain rather than the actual quilt, in which the source domain, builder, further clarifies her role. This analysis not only highlights references to quilts and quiltmaking in certain passages, but it also elucidates the multifaceted qualities of the quilt as it serves as a powerful metaphor in both Asian Indian and American Indian society and literature. |
