An Analysis Of Conceptual Metaphors In The Buried Giant

Ishiguro Kazuo,the Nobel Prize winner in 2017,is one of the three immigrants of the British literary world."Memory" is the throughout theme in his works.In his latest fantasy novel The Buried Giant(2015),Ishiguro Kazuo still starts from "memory" and focuses on historical memory and trauma as well as some sub-themes like love and peace,hatred and war.The abundant conceptual metaphors in the novel reflect the novelist’s way of cognitive thinking,and help him a lot to carry his themes.Yet few studies have ever found in this aspect.Therefore,the present thesis aims to analyze the themes of the novel within the theoretical framework of conceptual metaphor put forward by Lakoff and Johnson.Lakoff and Johnson classified conceptual metaphor into three types,--structural metaphor,orientational metaphor and ontological metaphor.This thesis will identify what types of conceptual metaphors are used in the novel,and will explore how these conceptual metaphors help the expression of the themes in The Buried Giant.After a careful study,the findings mainly include the following points:Firstly,as a skillful writer,conceptual metaphor has been soaked in Kazuo Ishiguro’s way of thinking,and has permeated into his literary expression.In The Buried Giant,there are 31 kinds of conceptual metaphors being found,including 13 kinds of structural metaphor,3 kinds of orientational metaphor and 15 kinds of ontological metaphor.Orientational metaphor is the least used among the three metaphor types because most of the orientational metaphors have become the writer’s unconscious expression,even a way of natural thinking in daily life,so it has little obvious or direct connection with the revealing of the themes.In contrast,structural and ontological metaphors are more liable to carry implications,and are more closely connected with the themes.Secondly,conceptual metaphors are integrated in the representation of the novel’s themes and help readers understand the themes in a natural and traceless way.In this novel of searching for both individual and collective memory,Ishiguro uses a variety of conceptual metaphors to describe memory and past.Take structural metaphors for instance,the concept of memory is metaphorically structured in the terms of“Jigsaw Puzzle(拼图)”,“Treasure”or“Sleeping Animal”.In this way,the novelist defines memory as something needed to be fragmented,cherished,and awakened,implying that the sleeping memory will come into consciousness and people will remember their past finally and regain theirpersonal spiritual belonging and construct their ethical and racial identity.In the period of lost memory,structural metaphors are effective to conceptualize love as“Bond”or“Medicine”,suggesting trauma will loose the connection between the lovers and only forgiveness can heal their love.Concerning the theme of the racial peace,ontological metaphors are effective,like‘Peace as a person’regarding peace as a living being that can always accompany people as a friend;“Peace is a construction”,implying the characters’peace is constructed on amnesia,and the way they find back their memory is actually the way they deconstruct their peace.In the period of memory recovery,when people remembered the hatred and war,the use of structural metaphors is again impressive,like in“Hatred is wound”,and“Hatred is flame”,which actually hints a hidden hope that trauma can be healed some day,and hatred,like flame,can burn but can also quench when people choose to forgive.Unfortunately,the Saxons seem to prefer revenge,which gives a danger of war to their race.A typical orientational metaphor is‘Much is Deep’,regarding quantity as depth,it suggests the density of the hatred between the races.As for the war theme,the novelist has the cognition of‘War as a container’,an ontological metaphor that conceptualized war as a huge container full of massacre and cruelty,into which the brave warriors and the innocent women and children of both Briton and Saxon races are all dumped and lose their control of their fates in it.This thesis provides a new research direction for the study in The Buried Giant,and the analysis of conceptual metaphor help readers get a better understanding of the background,content and theme of novel.In this way,it is a significant try.