On Body Metaphors And Metaphorized Bodies In The Polished Hoe

Austin Clarke is recognized as one of the most outstanding contemporary Canadian novelists, essayists and short story writers. The Polished Hoe is one of his famous masterpieces which perfectly displays Clarke’s gift both in writing and in elucidating the truth of life. A salient feature of this novel lies in the "bodiliness" of its narrative. Yet, up till now, there are few studies on it both abroad and at home.This thesis provides a close study on this bodiliness in five parts.In Introduction, Clarke’s life and literary achievements are firstly introduced. Then, after a brief account of the story of The Polished Hoe and its prominent artistic features, the overall structure of this thesis and the key concern of this study are explicated at the end of this part.Chapter One renders a literary review on this novel both abroad and at home.Chapter Two explores the elaboration of body-mind philosophy and emphasizes the formation of post-modern philosophy of body characterized by embodiment originally inspired by Merleau-Ponty’s bodily Phenomenology, which prepares a theoretical foundation for the body criticism in the following parts. Meanwhile, some important theories borrowed from Cognitive Linguistics are introduced to establish an effective analytic framework for this body study in this thesis, among which the theory of Conceptual Metaphor and Mapping Structure are the most important ones. In the last section of this part, the feasibility of a body criticism or bodily aestheticism on The Polished Hoe is analyzed carefully.Based on the theoretical foundation and the analytic framework introduced in the previous chapter, Chapter Three focuses on the literary elucidation of metaphors of body and metaphorized bodies in the fiction. Metaphors of body refer to bodies in the target domain of the mapping structure while metaphorized bodies involve bodies functioning in the source domain. The literary interpretation of these metaphors uncovers that during Clarke’s ideation of this novel there must exist a sharp body consciousness in his mind. This body consciousness is internalized in the bodiliness of the fiction on the one hand. On the other hand, it highlights Clarke’s unique writing capability of implanting grand narratives of collective memories into a trivial individual’s bodily narrative.The significance of the body criticism focusing on body metaphors to study the bodiliness of the fictional text and the body consciousness of the novelist is clarified in the last part of the thesis. It draws a conclusion that the somatization of narrative manifested in Clark’s fiction is an inevitable result of the process of semioticization of narrative. Body, as both the subject and the object of fictional ideation, is not only the departure point and the prime motivation of the fictional creation but also the final destiny of the semioticization of narrative. Therefore, bodiliness is an inherent nature of the postmodern fictional text; body consciousness is the source of somatesthesia of the fictional narrative, and body metaphors are the best starting point to investigate the bodiliness of the text and the body consciousness of the novelist. The positive implication of such an investigation lies in the fact that it integrates the subjectivity with the objectivity in the study and makes it possible to interpret the multiple themes of the same text by circling round a single aspect, which is favorable in understanding its multiple profound postmodern implications.As the protagonist of this fiction, Mary owns a blacked female body which is sexually occupied and racially oppressed by the manager of a cane plantation on a colonized island far away form European mainland. It is a typical representative of thousands of exploited female bodies under the triple tyranny of colonialism, phallogocentrism and racialism. Therefore, the rebellious performance of this body embodies a historic significance. This is why this thesis gives more concern on its metaphorization. But this doesn’t mean the less importance of other bodies. In the probe of Clarke’s body consciousness, they have equal significance with the protagonist’s.Through the discovery of the bodiliness in the unique somatization of narrative and the revelation of the body consciousness of the novelist in this novel, this thesis finally figures out that in The Polished Hoe Clarke has not only created a revolutionary female image fighting for her own freedom and subjectivity in the patriarchic world, but also expressed an apparent abhorrence towards the colonialism and the hegemonic power, conveyed his ideal of decolonization, and proclaimed his feminism-oriented assertions.