A Study Of Roads Of Destiny From The Perspective Of Conceptual Metaphor

Roads of Destiny by American writer O.Henry is generally recognized as a semi-biographical fiction which can be analyzed from many different angles.In order to study Roads of Destiny from a conceptual,metaphorical perspective,this thesis will first briefly introduce the plot and the author’s writing background.From there,this thesis will explore Roads of Destiny from the perspective that it is a fiction made up of conceptual metaphors.There are three main conceptual metaphors prevalent in Roads of Destiny: these are “life is a journey”,“life is a dream” and “fate is a road”.The conceptual metaphors in Roads of Destiny are the systematic mappings of O.Henry’s life experiences and entire cognitive consciousness.They are also the conscious and unconscious expression of O.Henry’s understanding of the world and the concept of fate.O.Henry’s literature ideology,religious feelings,life experiences and cognitive consciousness form the basis of all conceptual metaphors in Roads of Destiny.Due to the limitation of space,the author seeks only to analyze the representative conceptual metaphors and illustrate how they interact.On the basis of these analyses,this thesis focuses on identifying the reasons for these conceptual metaphors appearing in Roads of Destiny,as well as their significance.