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A Cognitive Approach to Metaphor in Prose: Truth and Falsehood in Leo Tolstoy's "The Death of Ivan Il'ich"

Slavic Languages and Literatures, Wisconsin–Madison

ABSTRACT

Russian has two words corresponding to English truth and four words corresponding to English lie. While studies have detailed the semantic and pragmatic differences between these two terms, how these domains are metaphorized in everyday language—and exploited in literature—has yet to be examined. In the first half of the article, I present an analysis of everyday metaphorical expressions for Truth and Falsehood in contemporary Russian. Linguistic evidence suggests that these domains are understood via a small set of interrelated conceptual structures. Metaphorical expressions in Russian cluster around one basic metaphor (KNOWING IS SEEING) and three image-schematic structures (STRAIGHT, PATH, and CONTAINER). This network of everyday metaphors serves as a point of reference for an examination of Tolstoy's aesthetic representations of the same domains. In the second part, I examine Tolstoy's extensions and elaborations of metaphors for Truth and Falsehood in his postconversion works, and I argue that they comprise a central metaphorical motif, the full complexity of which has yet to be appreciated, in his novella "The Death of Ivan Il'ich."