Reanimating the Body in Conceptual Metaphor Theory

This chapter critically reviews the traditional notion of embodiment in Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT), arguing that it is characterized by a somewhat inflexible view of the way the human body shapes one’s thinking. Probing more recent developments in CMT, including dynamic systems approaches and cross-cultural studies of metaphor, and confronting these with key theories from phenomenology, psychology, social semiotics, and media theory, the original notion of dynamic embodiment is developed. Accordingly, the degree to which people draw on their own bodies when producing and interpreting metaphors depends not only on the cultural practices and the specific actions in which they are engaged at any given moment, but also on the degree to which they are consciously aware of their physicality, as well as the affordances of the modes and media they are using to communicate.

Trapped in Spacetime

This chapter applies the notion of dynamic embodiment to graphic illness narratives about depression, a disease that typically involves a range of both mental/cognitive and physical symptoms, including low mood, feelings of worthlessness, and altered perceptions of time. These symptoms lead to an inability to engage actively in the world and a tendency to spend many hours in a prostrate position. Correspondingly, in comics depressed characters are frequently drawn lying down and at the bottom of panels and pages, which reflects the close links between feelings of hopelessness and the effects of gravity on the body (SAD IS DOWN). Many metaphors of depression in these works also convey a sense of what shall be termed “temporal entrapment.” This is due to the unique process of translating time into space in the comics medium, which foregrounds temporal aspects of the depression experience when artists are communicating through the graphic pathography genre.

Dynamic Embodiment and the Graphic Illness Narrative Genre

This chapter argues that some genres are more centrally concerned with the body than others, and that each genre exploits the affordances of its modes and media in unique ways. Thus, graphic illness narratives are characterized not only by their focus on the physical, social, and emotional impacts of disease, but also by their innovative use of the tools and materials of the comics medium, including inherent tensions between words and images, and between sequence and layout. These features impose particular constraints and offer unique opportunities to artists, influencing their choice of metaphors and the shape these metaphors take. For example, in many such works the expected direction of metaphorical transfer from sensorimotor experience to more abstract concepts is reversed, as the diseased body and the nature of visual perception are foregrounded in the artist’s consciousness.

Conclusion

The conclusion outlines how the notion of “dynamic embodiment” developed throughout the book may challenge traditional notions of embodiment in Conceptual Metaphor Theory, by revealing the complex, shifting nature of individuals’ experiences of their bodies. The new tripartite taxonomy for analyzing visual metaphors draws attention to the many different aspects of visual meanings that are capable of conveying metaphorical meaning, including spatial composition and the stylistic features of both drawings and written words. Another aim of the book has been to raise awareness of the many creative metaphors that tend to occur in graphic illness narratives, which makes this genre particularly well suited to the task of highlighting aspects of the illness experience that may otherwise go unnoticed. These findings have the potential to change the attitudes and practices of both patients and healthcare professionals, encouraging a more thoughtful and imaginative use of illness metaphors.

A Tripartite Taxonomy of Visual Metaphor in Graphic Illness Narratives

This chapter uses the analysis of 35 graphic illness narratives to identify the various forms that visual metaphor may take in this genre. A novel tripartite classification system that distinguishes between pictorial, spatial, and stylistic metaphors is proposed. Pictorial metaphors, which use images of concrete animate or inanimate objects to stand for something else, have received a lot of scholarly attention in recent years, but this study offers the first systematic description of the other two types of visual metaphor. Spatial metaphors exploit the relative size, arrangement, and orientation of elements on the page to convey more abstract meanings, whereas in the case of stylistic metaphors, features such as color, shape, level of detail, and quality of line are used to indicate an abstract concept or a nonvisual sense perception. These three categories can be further subdivided, and in many instances several distinct types of metaphor are used in combination.

Unseeing Eyes

This chapter focuses on visual metaphor in graphic illness narratives about cancer, which takes its course inside the body and is beyond the conscious control of the patient. Even when there are external, visible symptoms of the disease, we nevertheless require imaging technologies to see what is occurring beneath the surface of the skin. However, the images produced by these technologies are unfathomable to the untrained eye, which unsettles conventional metaphorical connections between human vision and knowledge. Issues of visibility and invisibility are, inevitably, always at the forefront of artists’ minds when they are creating work in this medium. Taken together, these factors motivate the prevalence in comics about cancer of metaphors that reflect people’s anxieties about internal physical processes, while also often functioning as a form of resistance against the all-powerful “medical gaze.”

Introduction

The Introduction sets out the book’s central theoretical concerns regarding the relationship between embodiment and metaphor, and presents the original concept of “dynamic embodiment,” using a page from a graphic illness narrative about Parkinson’s disease as an example. Dynamic embodiment refers to the idea that people’s relationship with their own bodies is never fixed and stable; rather, it is constantly shifting and changing in response to the aging process, physical or mental ill health, and the adoption of new bodily practices, including different ways of communicating. This chapter also introduces the argument that there are, in fact, three distinct forms of the phenomenon that is often subsumed under the collective term “visual metaphor,” namely pictorial, spatial, and stylistic metaphor. The data set and methods of analysis of the study are described and justified, and an outline of the five main chapters and the conclusion is provided.