‘개념적 은유’를 통해 본 토니 모리슨 사랑 담론의 상투성

Abstract

What is love? Why are there so many love stories that endlessly reproduce the joys and the pains of love? Moreover, why do so many love stories depict such similar, stereotypical images of love? One of the reasons for the overflowing of love stories is, needless to say, that 'love' is one of the most fundamental and intense experiences which leave so unforgettable traces to human beings physically as well as mentally. But more important reason is that love is, according to G. Lakoff and M. Johnson, basically 'conceptual metaphor.' In spite of the realness and richness of love experience, it is not easy at all to arrange our experiences of love as a coherent whole without using various metaphors. For example, we usually straighten out our experiences of love by engaging words such as fever, war, journey. Hence, "love is fever," "love is war"-the old and traditional conceptual metaphors of love. The main purposes of this paper are twofold. The one is, by using the notion of conceptual metaphor as an analysis tool, to find answers to the questions of what love is and how human beings systemize their love experience. As a result, it will be shown that the conventional love metaphor that has been continued from the ancient Greece is that love is a double-edged sword which can redeem, but at the same time, destroy yourself. The other purpose is, by scrutinizing Toni Morrison’s novels, especially Sula, Song of Solomon, and Jazz, to prove that she does not overcome this conventional image of love. At the same time, however, it will be emphasized that the true power of Toni Morrison is to reveal and emboss the inhumane social conditions of the Black, by using ‘love story’ as a narrative tool.