THE USE OF METAPHOR IN
EDGAR ALLAN POE’S SHORT STORY
THE BLACK CAT
Faizal Risdianto,S.S,M.Hum
STAIN Salatiga
Abstract
This study is aimed to elaborate
the uniqueness of Edgar Allan Poe’s short story entitled The Black Cat.
This research is a (qualitative) bibliographical study. The object of the study
is the use of metaphor in Edgar Allan Poe’s short story The Black Cat.
There are 21 sentences chosen
to represent all the metaphorical sentences of Edgar Allan Poe being the object
of the study. Having analyzed the data by the perspective of George Lakoff and
Johnson’s conceptual metaphor, the researcher can draw a conclusion that Edgar
Allan Poe has succesfully used effective and creative metaphorical expressions
in depicting the psychological
ambnormality of the main character in his short story. His remarkable metaphorical expression shows his distictive position as one of the
greatest American man of letters.
Keywords:
Metaphor, Source Domain, Target Domain,
and Short story.
I. INTRODUCTION
One
of interesting problems in language study is the use of metaphor in all walks
of life. One of its mysteries is the public confusion in encountering
metaphorical expression that says something that is different to what it really
means. Hawkes says “Language which doesn’t mean what it says” (1980:1). This
fact creates the impression that the user of metaphor looks like a liar or
deceiver. When Juliet said to Romeo “The lights that shines from your eyes” she
did not mean to say that from Romeo’s eyeballs radiating or shining on the
chamber they stayed. When a poet says,” A poem is a bird”, he did not mean to
state that the poem can flap its wings and tail. Those two instances is only
part of many examples that creates the impression of metaphor as the expression
full of “absurdity” and ‘falsity” (Max Black in Ortony, 1993:21).
