LIFE IS A PLAY: reading David Mamet's sexual perversity in Chicago and Glengarry Glen Ross through Cognitive Poetics
One of the concerns of Cognitive Poetic critics has been with the issue of how literary authors make meaning by means of metaphor. Building on the Cognitive Linguistic theories of metaphor, the field of Cognitive Poetics has been concerned, among its many diverse areas, with the studying of metaph...
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| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia
2016
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| Online Access: | http://journalarticle.ukm.my/10693/1/8989-39658-1-PB.pdf http://journalarticle.ukm.my/10693/ http://ejournal.ukm.my/3l/issue/view/807 |
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| Summary: | One of the concerns of Cognitive Poetic critics has been with the issue of how literary authors make meaning by
means of metaphor. Building on the Cognitive Linguistic theories of metaphor, the field of Cognitive Poetics has
been concerned, among its many diverse areas, with the studying of metaphor in literary texts. Proposing the
Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT), cognitive linguists George Lakoff and Mark Johnson argued in
Metaphors We Live By that our conceptual system is metaphorically shaped. In addition, they claimed that the
metaphoric linguistic expressions are the manifestation of the fundamental conceptual metaphors forming
individuals' cognitions. Conceptual metaphors were defined as the underlying structures of these expressions by
means of which people comprehend intangible concepts through more tangible ones. Using the Conceptual
Metaphor Theory (CMT), the present essay explores the conceptual metaphor of LIFE IS A PLAY in David
Mamet's Sexual Perversity in Chicago and Glengarry Glen Ross. In these plays, Mamet depicts a world in
which performance, in its theatrical sense, becomes the characters' survival strategy and a manner of living. As
one of the most influential playwrights of his time, Mamet has always been concerned with the issues which
most afflict America. He finds the ills of his society manifested in the relation among people. An attempt is made
to explain the ways in which life-as-play finds expression both linguistically and thematically in the different
contexts of these works. |
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