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Филологические науки. Вопросы теории и практики Philology. Theory & Practice
2023. Том 16. Выпуск 7. С. 2197-2204 | 2023. Volume 16. Issue 7. P. 2197-2204
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Синестетические метафоры
в романе Д. Харрис «Мальчик с голубыми глазами»
Гацура Н. И., Акаева Э. В., Винокурова Т. Н.
Аннотация. В статье анализируется феномен синестетической метафоры в художественной литературе как новое метафорическое значение, возникающее в результате обработки данных, полученных по различным каналам восприятия. Цель исследования - определить механизмы того, как слова, обозначающие людей и предметы, становятся индивидуальными синестетическими метафорами в художественной литературе. Новизна исследования заключается в том, что синестетические метафоры рассматриваются не как сочетания слов, описывающие переживания, полученные по одному каналу, через восприятие другого канала, а как слова, приобретающие новое метафорическое значение с помощью механизмов синестезии. В исследовании продемонстрировано, что такая метафорическая оценка через синестезию характерна для главного героя: она передает его негативное отношение к описываемым вещам и людям. Результаты показали, что метафорические значения слов, выражающие эмоции персонажа, возникали благодаря механизмам синестезии, задействующим слух (первичный канал восприятия), зрение, обоняние, вкус, осязание. Существительные, обозначающие предметы, места, людей и их личные качества, цвета, приобретают индивидуальные метафорические значения в результате одновременного восприятия посредством разных каналов. Рассмотрение воплощения си-нестетического восприятия в литературных произведениях позволяет ученым изучить индивидуальный стиль автора, его концептуальную систему, работу познающего разума и результаты этой работы, творчески отраженные в языке.
Synaesthetic metaphors in J. Harris's novel 'Blueeyedboy'
Gatsura N. I., Akaeva E. V., Vinokurova T. N.
Abstract. The paper analyses the phenomenon of a synaesthetic metaphor in fiction as a new metaphorical meaning resulting from processing the data received through different channels of perception. The aim of the study is to determine the mechanisms of how words denoting certain things become individual synaesthetic metaphors in fiction. The novelty of the research is that synaesthetic metaphors are viewed not as a combination of words describing the experiences obtained through one channel by those of another but as words developing new metaphorical meaning through synaesthetic mechanisms. The study demonstrates that this metaphoric evaluation through synaesthesia is specific for the main character: it conveys his negative attitude to the things and people described. The results showed that the metaphorical meanings of the words expressing the character's emotions were developed through synaesthetic mechanisms such as hearing (primary perception channel) resulting in colour, smell, taste, touch. Nouns denoting objects, places, people and their personal qualities, colours acquire individual metaphorical meanings as a result of intersensory perception. Studying the embodiment of synaesthetic perception in fiction enables the scholars to examine the author's individual style and conceptual system, the work of cognizing mind and its results reflected in the language in a striking and creative way.
Introduction
The given paper addresses the phenomenon of a synaesthetic metaphor (hereinafter referred to as SM) and its functions in the narrative. The relevance of the research is in an interdisciplinary approach applied to linguistic phenomena in fiction viewed as intersensory and metaphoric experience through building models of original and target senses. Key notions of a metaphor and synaesthesia as phenomena are taken into consideration. Since the phenomenon of synaesthesia is primarily of psychological nature, the linguistic devices based on it need to be analyzed through consideration of the physiological mechanisms, their interrelation and description. Understanding
Научная статья (original research article) | https://doi.org/10.30853/phil20230335
© 2023 Авторы. ООО Издательство «Грамота» (© 2023 The Authors. GRAMOTA Publishers). Открытый доступ предоставляется на условиях лицензии CC BY 4.0 (open access article under the CC BY 4.0 license): https://creativecommons.orq/licenses/by/4.0/
how these mechanisms serve as a source of creative language in texts, especially fiction, reveals the speech-generating models based on intersensory perception. Moreover, that provides a new integrated approach to studying language phenomena, gives a key to a variety of psychological, and semantic associations resulted from senses. The summary of previous works related to synaesthesia shows that the phenomenon has been discussed as that of belonging only to one field. In addition, papers dealing with individual synaesthetic metaphors providing access to author's cognizing mind could determine the sources for language creativity in fiction.
The aim of the study determines the following tasks: 1) on the basis of theoretic background, to summarize the concepts of synaesthetic metaphor and determine its mechanisms; 2) to identify the mechanisms of how words become synaesthetic metaphors in the novel; 3) to analyze the effect of the new metaphorical meanings of the words developed due to the mechanisms of synaesthesia in the novel.
The study uses such methods as contextual analysis, descriptive and metaphoric analyses.
The research is based on the material of J. Harris's novel 'Blue Eyed Boy' (Harris J. Blueeyedboy. 2010. URL: https://onlinereadfreenovel.com/joanne-harris/36703-blueeyedboy_read.html) and the sources for definition analysis such as the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary (URL: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary) and Collins English Dictionary (URL: https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/English).
The phenomenon of synaesthesia implying that sensual perception through one channel is replaced by perception of another sense organ, a condition implying stimulation of one sensory modality (here used as a synonym for perception) that induces unusual experiences in a second, unstimulated modality, has been the focus of theoretical background in different sciences and art (Ramachandran, Hubbard, 2001; Cytowic, 2002; Cytowic, Eagleman, 2009; Ward, ThompsonLake, Ely et al., 2008; Лосева, 2018), cognition (Marks, 1975; 1978; Ramachandran, Hubbard, 2001; 2003a; 2003b; Shen, Aisenman, 2008; Day, 2005; Eagleman, Goodale, 2009; Pritchard, Rothen, Coolbear et al., 2013; Spence, Smith, Auv-ray, 2015), psychology (Лурия, 2006; Cytowic, 2002; Martino, Lawrence, 2001; Smilek, Dixon, 2002; Spector, Maurer, 2009; Simner, 2012), linguistics (Williams, 1976; Fainsilber, Ortony, 1987; Майданова, 1992; Rakova, 2003; Левчи-на, 2003; Молсдкина, 2010; Bagli, 2016; 2017; 2021), psycholinguistics (Воронин, 1983; Бардовская, 2002), cognitive linguistics (Day, 1996; Yu, 2003; Werning, Fleischhauer, Beseoglu, 2006); painting and music (Dann, 1998; Heyrman, 2005).
The latest studies of synaesthetic metaphors explore smell as source and target domains of synaesthetic metaphors in linguistics (Salzinger, 2019), discuss general characteristics of lingual synaesthesia and synaesthetic metaphor, interrelations between synaesthesia and language, revealing the origin of synaesthetic metaphor (Борисович, Чаюк, 2020), the translation of synaesthetic metaphors in Donna Tartt's novels from English into other languages (Zhulavska, Martynyuk, 2023). The examples found in Corpus Synamet based on natural speech, that is examples found in different genres and fields, are analyzed in the work of a Polish scholar M. Zawislawska (2019). The examples are classified according to source and target senses. Synamet is a Polish project, the first microcorpus of synaesthetic metaphors used in blogs on perfumes, wine, beer, music, coffee, etc.
The practical value of the study is the algorithm for analyzing synaesthetic metaphors as a result of senses transfer in different literary genres and the models of building synaesthetic metaphors. These outcomes can be used in literary analysis and interpretation, teaching different types of discourse, media advertising, psycholinguistics and cognitive linguistics.
First, let us determine how synaesthesia and metaphor are interrelated. According to James Geary, most of metaphors used daily are synaesthetic. They describe one sensory experience with vocabulary that belongs to another (silence is sweet, facial expressions are sour, sexually attractive people are hot). J. Geary adds that synaesthesia may be one of neurological building blocks of a metaphor (Kaal, 2012).
According to H. Heyrman (2005), who mostly views synaesthesia and metaphor with regard to art, synaesthesia refers to transfer of qualities from one sensory domain to another: texture to tone or tone to colour, smell or taste. The author underlines that a metaphor always involves a transfer between two different contexts, it is not only a figure of speech, but also a figure of thought whose poetic form counter-balances rational thinking with a creative potential highlighting sensual origin of words. Synaesthesia is one of most common types of metaphoric transfer; it expresses the complexity of our perceptual experiences. C. Bretones (2001, p. 128) stresses that synaesthetic metaphors are primary metaphors in human perception and expression. Thus, synaesthesia generates a cognitive phenomenon of a metaphor.
Synaesthesia can be two-sensory and multi-sensory (three or more senses are involved). Options for connecting five senses in synaesthetic experience seem endless, individual's form of synaesthesia is unique. As L. Marks (1978) notes, the most widespread form of synaesthesia is the translation of sounds to colours.
The previous studies of synaesthetic metaphor have addressed the most common metaphorical structures, i.e., the parts of speech that constitute synaesthetic metaphors, and examined the most common two-member or three-member chains representing shifts from one modality to another. M. Werning, J. Fleischhauer, H. Beseoglu (2006) argue that the common structure of synaesthetic metaphor features an adjective + a noun (cold smell) adding that a metaphor is synaesthetic if and only if its source domain, typically a modifier, is perceptual. The researchers also make a distinction between weak (cold heart - the noun does not refer to senses) and strong (cold smell) SM. Moreover, the mechanism of semantic composition lies entirely in the dark.
Other scholars investigated the order of sense modalities: touch-taste-smell/taste-sound-colour (Day, 1996). They focused on the mechanism of semantic compositionality, since the source and target domains make particular synaesthetic metaphor possible. While the effort to figure out if SMs can be reproduced according to a certain pattern is made, it has to be taken into consideration that there could be other factors affecting the produced SMs: the overall frequency of words used as modifiers or heads, the morphology of the words and such personal factors of the interpreter as age, gender and mother tongue. Moreover, the associations can vary from culture to culture.
In the given paper, we will address SM in a broad way; that is, all the cases where different senses are involved and used to convey some figurative meaning will be considered metaphorical. The focus will be on the mechanisms that lead to words developing metaphorical meanings through synaesthesia. Lexemes denoting different objects and people in the novel viewed as sounds (hearing as a channel of perception triggers other channels of perception) result in metaphorical associations as the source of semantic change and the creation of new meanings.
Discussion and results
To elicit what a synaesthetic metaphor has to do with a literary work, we should examine the plot of the novel under study. The novel is a gloomy psychological thriller set in the world of the Internet, where the users have false identities, which helps them to reveal their secret desires and plans.
B. B. (Blueeyedboy) is a man in his early forties living with his mother. His inner desire, which he translates into fiction and posts on the website badguysrock, is to kill his mother. His online diary enables us to explore his past, his tortuous relationship with his mother; his feud with two other brothers. The novel creatively employs multiple personalities and mind games played out on the Internet. Two characters, one of which is B. B., have synaesthetic perception of the world. Synaesthesia in the novel gives a key to understanding the dark world of the main character since being a synaesthete can be really challenging. The author highlights the fact that colours define people. Blueeyedboy sees people in colours, and he sees a lot in blue colour. Most times, blue is the colour of murder in his eyes. The author of the novel herself has always associated certain colours with tastes and smells; therefore, the idea what a person feels when faced with a series of stimuli and how this perception differs from that of other people is further explored. The way the phenomenon is explained in the novel by Dr. Peacock, one of the characters, is as follows: "Words can have colours; sounds can have shapes, numbers can be illuminated... words can translate as tastes or smells; or colours be triggered by migraine pain... a synaesthete might see music; taste sound; experience numbers as textures or shapes" (Harris, 2010).
The novel under study contains 102 examples of synaesthesia. The analysis focuses on certain types: prevailing synaesthetic metaphors with original sense of hearing/sound involving other senses, as well as the contexts with a symbolic use of colour targeting other senses. Table 1 shows the results of the analysis by primary modality and secondary/caused modalities (experiences obtained through perception channels).
Table 1. Intermodalities found in synaesthetic metaphors in the novel
Total number of SM SM with primary sound mechanism Other cases
102 (100%) 79 (77,5%) 23 (22,5%)
SM with primary sound mechanism 79 = 100%
Associated with COLOUR | Associated with SMELL | Associated with TASTE | Associated with TOUCH
Number of cases (percentage of the total 79)
28 (35,5%) 1 24 (30,4%) 1 23 (29,1%) 1 4 (5%)
The other cases of SM (22,5%) have colour as primary modality targeting other senses in 18% of cases. These include colour ^ (touch) ^ emotion SM. In 4% of the cases, hearing ^ colour ^ smell and taste ^ colour SM are found.
All metaphors with sound as the domain are given below, the predominance of hearing/sound can be explained by B. B.'s intricate mind and his habit of playing with words. Therefore, this type of metaphors is often accompanied by graphon as a stylistic device. First, let us consider the examples of words evoking in B. B.'s mind various metaphorical associations based on intersensory perception. The physical touch and touch as feelings or emotions will be used as counterparts. These examples contain the following metaphor-emerging structures involving two and more senses. They are the following:
1. Two-member SM: sound ^ colour SM, sound ^ touch/feeling SM, sound ^ smell SM.
2. Three-member SM: sound ^ colour ^ smell SM, sound ^ feeling/touch ^ colour SM, sound ^ smell ^ feeling SM, sound ^ colour ^ taste SM, sound ^ colour ^ touch/feeling SM, sound ^ taste ^ colour SM, sound ^ smell ^ vision (colour) SM; sound ^ touch ^ emotion/feeling SM.
3. Four-member SM: sound ^ smell ^ vision (colour) ^ taste SM, sound ^ colour ^ smell ^ taste SM, (sound) ^ smell ^ taste ^ colour SM, sound ^ taste ^ colour ^ smell SM.
4. Five-member SM: sound ^ taste ^ colour ^ smell ^ emotion SM.
All these examples reflect the mechanism starting with sound: the other links in the chain go in different order, some mechanisms of SM constituents include more links, some - less. The domain of this chain is always sound/hearing, the target differs. As the examples above show, sound/hearing generates a variety of chains.
B. B.'s characteristic feature is the ability to sense the words around him: Internet. A net for something that has been interred, or something as yet to be interred (Harris, 2010). In the example above, we deal with a sound ^ touch/feeling metaphor. "Malbry - pronounced Maw-bry. Even the word smells of shit. ...with people here shouting hiyaaa in shades of synthetic strawberry" (Harris, 2010). Thus, the name of the village acquires the meaning of a really unpleasant place to be; the association with the smell of something bad and artificial. The Internet is associated with a place to hide, seek shelter; the sound of the word generates the perception of the place through either touch or sight.
As it can be deduced from the sentence, we have a sound ^ smell ^ colour ^ taste SM. The next several examples reflect B. B.'s attitude towards his mother: "Mother is a difficult word. Sometimes its colour is Virginblue, like
the statues of Mary; or grey like the dust bunnies under the bed where I used to hide away as a child; or green like the baize of the market stalls; and it smells of uncertainty and loss, and of black bananas gone to mush, and of salt, and of blood, and of memory" (Harris, 2010).
In the example above, there is an emerging sound ^ colour ^ smell ^ taste SM structure. B. B.'s mother, who wants to have total control of her son, is also one of the blog users with a ridiculous username. The example below containing a sound ^ colour ^ smell SM shows her son's attitude to her: "Jenny Tricks. Genitrix. And its colour is sometimes Virgin-blue, and sometimes it's green, like market-stall baize, and it smells of L'Heure Bleue and Marlboros, and cabbage leaves and salt water..." (Harris, 2010). Genetrix is used as an epithet of Venus, who was the mother of Aeneas, the progenitor of the Roman nation. The vocabulary definitions of the word are "mother", "a female progenitor" (archaic) (Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary). The initial trigger bringing further associations is the sound form of the word. As a result, the mother, a relative, is associated with something rotten, unpleasant; the metaphorical meaning is based on sound triggering colours, smell and taste.
Another example shows his being oppressed by his mother, his mother's presence being too much in his world (a sound ^ touch/kinetics ^ emotion SM): "Motherlode. Mother. Load. Sounds like something you'd carry about - a heavy burden, a punishment" (Harris, 2010). Here also the sound form generates a language game: the word "mother lode" means "the principal vein or lode of a region", "a principal source or supply" thus indicating that B. B.'s mother should be a significant person in his life, yet she becomes a burden (a load) (Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary).
His hatred towards his mother and feeling like getting rid of her are demonstrated through a sound ^ colour SM in the following example: "Murder. Mother. Matriarch. Matricide. Parasite. Parricide, something used to get rid of parasites. All of them coloured in shades of blue, like the blue of the blanket she tucked around his bed every night when he was a boy, and smelling of ether and hot milk" (Harris, 2010). The idea of the mother being something threatening, ominous is developed through the lexemes containing morpheme "ma": "«Ma knows best.» Ma-ternal. Ma-stiff. Ma-stodon" (Harris, 2010). "Mother" and words with similar sounds trigger sight (blue colour) and result in feelings of hatred, desire to kill.
The following example with a sound ^ smell ^ feeling SM shows what disgust B. B. feels about the house: "Parlour. I always hated that word and its stink of citrus potpourri. Now I hate it even more... with her reek of desperation" (Harris, 2010). The next sentence contains a sound ^ colour ^ taste SM: "There are new paintings on the walls - a scarlet and brown Axminster carpet in the hall. Axminster. Ax. Minster. A red word. What does it mean? Axe-murderer. Axe. Minster. Murder in the Cathedral. ...that fruity, rotting sweetness that heralds the worst of his headaches. He concentrates on the colour blue; its soothing properties, its calm" (Harris, 2010). Most proper names that are used in the novel and whose meaning is further played around are laden with cultural connotations. Axminster is a market town and civil parish on the eastern border of the county of Devon in England, known for its carpets. The name is split into two lexemes: "axe" and "minster" evoking the murder theme. Thus, the main room in B. B.'s house, a parlour, is figuratively a stinky place in his perception, this metaphorical meaning is a result of hearing or sight targeting smell, colour and taste, the mechanism of synaesthetic metaphor.
When Dr. Peacock shows B. B. different distant places on the map, B. B. associates those places with different colours and smells. He considers these places as potential shelters he can hide away from his domineering mother. In the example below, a geographical place is described as a mental one having a smell: "Hawaii. Awayyy. The southernmost edge of his mental map, scented with distant spices. he likes the lullaby lilt of the word, a name that sounds like laughter. .I concentrate on the colour blue. Moon-blue, lagoon-blue, ocean, island, Hawaiian blue. Blue, the colour of innocence; blue, the colour of my dreams" (Harris, 2010). Blue is the dominant (most used and developed) colour in the novel. The next example (a sound ^ colour ^ touch/feeling SM) shows B. B.'s negative opinion about the Emily White Phenomenon, his doubts of her ability to hear colours: "Gift. Gift. A green and somehow ominous word, like radioactivity. Giffft (onomaetopia), like the sound a snake makes when it sinks its fangs into the flesh. Gift, like a nicely wrapped grenade, all ready to explode in your face" (Harris, 2010). The next sound ^ taste ^ colour SM refers to B. B.'s planning a murder and disguising it for an incident: "The incident - he likes that word, its lemony scent, its tantalizing colour" (Harris, 2010). The main character perceives the premeditated murder camouflaged as an incident through smell and sight. The following sound ^ colour ^ smell SM shows the sarcastic and as-a matter-of-fact way B. B. reflects on his brother Ben's murder: "Manslaughter... man's laughter coloured in shades of lightning-blue and scented with sage and violet' (Harris, 2010). The name of the island is metaphorically associated with bright life through sight, taste and smell. All channels of perception are interwoven.
B. B.'s perception of his original name, his dislike towards it can be traced through a hearing (sound) ^ smell ^ taste ^ colour SM: "Brendan has a sour smell. It makes my mouth go fuzzy-felt dry, and its colour is - well, you know what it is. Bethan is no better, with its snuffy scent of church incense. I preferred her as Albertine; colourless, immaculate" (Harris, 2010).
The example of a link between hearing (the sound of one's name), the colour and the mental reflection about his own place of an outcast in a prestigious school emerges in the following fragment: "He still didn't like St Oswald's. In spite of its navy-blue blazer and tie, he had already seen enough to be conscious of being unsuitable: unsuitable face, unsuitable hair, unsuitable house, unsuitable name. St Oswald's boys were not called Ben. A St Oswald's boy can pass off a name like Orlando, can make it sound like peppermint. Even Rupert sounds somehow cool when attached to a navy-blue St Oswald's blazer. Ben would be the wrong blue, smelling of his mother's house, of too much disinfectant and too little space and too much fried food and not enough books and the harsh, inescapable stink of his brothers" (Harris, 2010). St Oswald primary school also evokes a cultural connotation of the school where learning is based on Catholic values of love, trust and respect. Ben's not belonging there due to his background and virtues, rather vices, is obvious in the examples above.
The sound ^ smell SM indicates B. B.'s perception of Emily's name: "A name that smells of roses" (Harris, 2010). In addition, we find a sound ^ smell ^ vision SM inspired by the same name: "Emily. Em-il-y. The scent of roses everywhere. Em-il-y. A million lei". A sound ^ smell ^ vision (colour) SM is found in the sentence: "Emily. Em-il-y, three syllables, like a knock on the door of destiny. ...names that reeked of impulse and grease and stood out in gaudy neon colours - whilst hers was that muted, dusky pink, like bubblegum, like roses" (Harris, 2010).
As the examples above show, people's names are metaphorically either pleasant to taste (sweet), smell (delicate), sight (pink) or unpleasant to taste (sour), smell (musty, reeky), sight (flashy colours).
The sound ^ touch ^ emotion SM showing the range of B. B.'s perception of different things and states can be traced in the following example of play on words: "Champagne. Sham pain. It almost hurts for me to breathe" (Harris, 2010).
A sound ^ colour ^ smell SM is used to describe the way he feels when the mother locks him in in his room, he thinks of her having a sudden accident: "If. If. An ominous sound, tinged with the grey-green scent of trees and the dust that accumulates under his bed" (Harris, 2010). A sound ^ taste SM reflects the senses evoked by the music: "...the music sounds ominous... and it tastes sour-sweet like acid drops... and your mouth would fill with sweetness and blood, and that was the taste of childhood" (Harris, 2010). The words expressing B. B.'s possible actions through conjunctions (if) obtain metaphorical meaning of something sinister, ominous due to sound targeting smell and taste.
A sound ^ taste ^ colour ^ smell SM shows the perception of sweet things: "The word sugar is not sweet: it has a pink and gassy smell, like dentist's anaesthetic, dizzy and intrusive" (Harris, 2010). In the description of B. B.'s mood one evening, we find a sound ^ taste ^ colour ^ smell ^ emotion SM: "Alone. A bitter, brown word, like dead leaves caught in a wind trap. It tastes like coffee grounds and dirt, and smells like cigarette ash. Suddenly I feel scared' (Harris, 2010). The words expressing the state of the main character are metaphorically associated with something wasted, disposed of. It is done through sound targeting taste, sight, smell.
The local bar (its name) where the main character meets Albertine brings about some unpleasant associations too: ".the Pink Zebra. the name itself, that word, pink, has a most unfortunate pungency that takes me back to my childhood, and to our family dentist, Mr Pink, and of the smell of his old-fashioned surgery with its sugary, sickly odour of gas" (Harris, 2010). In the example above, we deal with a sound ^ emotion ^ smell SM.
The world of B. B. as a synaesthete to whom sounds translated to colours and smells (sound ^ colour ^ taste SM) interested Dr. Peacock very much: "...serenity is grey, though serene is dark blue, with a slight flavour of aniseed. Numbers have no colours at all, but names of places and of individuals are often highly charged, sometimes overwhelmingly
so, often both with colours and with flavours......the word scarlet, which to Boy X smells of chocolate, and a feeling
of dizziness associated with the colour pink, which to Boy X smells strongly of gas" (Harris, 2010). This is a detailed description of metaphorical meanings of words developed through synaesthesia involving colour, taste and smell.
As it is seen from all the examples above, sound is closely associated with smell, taste and colour; in most cases, we deal with a three- or four-member SM. SM, on the one hand, shows the intricate mind and inner world of a synaesthete. On the other hand, SMs account for his cruel actions and give a key to cracking (decoding) the secret work of B. B.'s insane dark consciousness.
Let us closely examine the colour-affective mechanism of SM.
The names of colours play an important role in the novel: in his blog, B. B. attributes colours to other characters, gives evaluation of his feelings linking a particular colour to a particular emotion. The blind girl Emily perceives music as colours. Each part in the novel is titled with a colour, which is a key to the emotions overwhelming the narration and felt by B. B. about a certain character or event. The names of colours, which actually serve as antonomasia and represent the three brothers at the beginning of the novel, determine their character and destiny. Each colour has a symbolic meaning and evokes certain associations as well as connotations. The blue colour in the passage is synaesthetically interrelated with vision, smell and touch: ".their names were Black, Brown and Blue. Black was the eldest, moody and aggressive. Brown was the middle child, timid and dull. But Blue was his mother's favourite. And he was a murderer... .The colour of murder is blue. Ice-blue, smokescreen blue, frostbite, post-mortem, body-bag blue... screaming blue murder all the way" (Harris, 2010). Here, the author of the novel gives metaphorical meaning of colours.
Blue murder here is used in both ways - as a set expression meaning a great outcry, noise; horrible din (Collins English Dictionary) and a dark secret murder (Harris, 2010): ".no colours - but one. No, not black, black is far too limiting. Black presupposes a lack of depth. But blue is creative, melancholy. Blue is the music of the soul (colour ^ affection/feeling emerging structure). And blue embraces all shades of villainy, all flavours of unholy desire (colour ^ taste emerging structure)" (Harris, 2010). In this example, we see the explicit synaesthetic metaphor as a combination of words reflecting one channel perception but used to describe a different modality. B. B.'s attitude towards his mother and other people is associated with the colour blue. Hatred towards his domineering mother is expressed through a taste ^ colour/vision metaphor, where blue is the colour of murder, of his cherished dream to kill: "He hates her with a passion that he has never felt for anything else; a passion that blooms within him like blood; that sweeps him away on a bitter blue wave" (Harris, 2010). This combination of an adjective denoting taste with the adjective denoting colour and the noun wave is also an explicit (traditional) synaesthetic metaphor. In the novel, we deal with the symbolic meaning of the colour blue: we cannot regard the examples below as colour or phonetic symbolism, as in that case, it has to be universal for all cultures; here we deal with individual associations of colour laden with other senses.
Feeling of impunity after B. B.'s first murder and freedom to do whatever he wants to do are compared to innocence which you lose only once. The association of blue with killing and a potential quarry is obvious. People around
B. B. are marks he has to get rid of, to erase: "Innocence, like virginity, is something you can only lose once... it should have turned out to be such a small thing, after all. A small thing, but potent; and now it colours every aspect of his life, like a grain of pure cyan in a glass of water, dyeing the contents deepest blue - He sees them all in blue now, each potential subject, quarry or mark. Mark. Black mark. Laundry mark... Mark is a blue word, like market; like murder. ...victim appears to him as a feeble eggy shade, or even prey, with its nasty undertones of ecclesiastical purple, and distant reek of frankincense (a sound ^ colour ^ smell SM). He sees them all in blue now, these people who are going to die." (Harris, 2010).
Committing the first murder is like throwing cyanide in a glass of water, which leaves a blue trail. After this, all potential victims are visioned in the blue by B. B.: "Ms Stonewash Blue, Mrs Electric Blue... the colours around him brightened a little, all merging together to make one blue - oxygenblue, gas-jet blue, circuit-board blue, autopsy blue" (Harris, 2010). The shades of blue described in the sentence are closely associated with home appliances and the dead body, as B. B. plans to kill the neighbour who is crazy about household appliances.
A colour ^ touch ^ emotion SM showing his delight in his own power and safe position as a murderer is emerging in the following example: ".he dreamed in blue. Blue, the colour of control. He had always associated it with power, power like electricity; he visualized himself encased in a shell of burning blue, untouchable, invincible. Blue was secure. Blue was serene. Blue, the colour of murder" (Harris, 2010).
Being a synaesthete was not easy for B. B., he suffered from terrible headaches unbearable to endure for long. As the novel goes on, B. B.'s mother constantly plies him with pills - the fact can indirectly point to B. B.'s mental disorder, his obsession with murdering others. In the passage below with Emily's playing a piece of music in public, B. B. gets sick and tries to visualize a blue capsule, which here means some kind of salvation for him, a remedy: ". his head was beginning to spin, a headache was coming; a bad one. He searched for the means to protect himself, imagining a capsule of blue, hard as iron, cold as stone, blue as a block of Arctic ice" (Harris, 2010).
B. B.'s mother is a domineering controlling mother, who is rather cruel to her son: her total control and a watchful eye are compared to B. B.'s "being under a microscope" like a blue tattoo, feeling as if he were in a hospital and prison painted blue: " I felt it like a fresh tattoo, like a graze on my bare skin ... it's bruise-blue, hospital-blue, faded prison-overall-blue. It marks me, inescapably - the mark of my mother; the mark of Cain, the mark that can never be erased" (Harris, 2010).
A hearing ^ colour ^ smell chain can be traced in B. B.'s thoughts about Nigel's killing their other brother: "Midnight Blue doesn't think of himself as a murderer. It was an accident, he says. His lawyer claimed there were special circumstances, and finally tried for a verdict of misadventure. A piebald word, half-red, half-black, that smells distinctly fishy to me" (Harris, 2010).
The synaesthetic uses of colour listed above show what crucial role such perception of the world plays for a synaesthete, how this vision affects the individual's actions. The synaesthetic use of colour demonstrates B. B.'s positive or negative attitude to other people and himself.
Conclusion
The study of synaesthetic metaphor and the way it functions in J. Harris's novel 'Blueeyedboy' shows that syn-aesthetic metaphor in a literary text is a complex phenomenon. The following conclusions can be made:
1. Evaluation of other characters through B. B.'s eyes, his perception of the world and things in it are given with the help of intersensory associations, which are the result of contamination - creative and individual word use and possession. The insight into intermodal perception of a synaesthete enables both the writer and the reader to view synaesthesia and synaesthetic metaphor mechanisms as a tool helping to unveil the behaviour of the character and his inner thoughts, his relationship with the others and his place in the world.
2. Moreover, it is an effective instrument of creating a dark gloomy atmosphere, confusing plot and narration with twists and multi-faceted characters. Intermodal associations employed by the author to convey the novel's theme (real and fake identity on the Internet and in life) and message (people are the products of background, upbringing and education, and some people are really a puzzle to be solved - their mind is inscrutable, they can be a constant danger to the people around) strike the reader by their individual and unusual character and associations network.
3. Synaesthetic metaphors create high imagery, emotion, brightness and strong effect. The synaesthetic metaphors analyzed in the paper are basically an implicit emerging structure when the whole passage (descriptions) appeal to a number of senses thus forming metaphorical associations. However, there are cases of traditional explicit (bitter blue wave world = adjective + noun) synaesthetic metaphors.
4. The study has shown a variety of linguistic means to convey synaesthetic perception, as well as the order of intermodal connections and the triggering mechanisms (here we dealt with sound and vision/colour). The mechanisms of intermodal perception involved to generate a metaphorical meaning of the words almost equally employ sight, taste and smell. The links between employed modalities and their function can be traced. Thus, the affective and mental states of the main character were given through synaesthetic metaphors with hearing/sound accompanied by other senses, such as taste, colour and smell. The attitude to other people was expressed through their names evoking smells, tastes, colours. If those perceptions were unpleasant, the general attitude was negative. Sight (colour) was closely associated with feeling and emotion, basically, hatred. The synaesthetic metaphors involved perception through different senses (modalities). Both inner (emotions and affective states) and outer (hearing, smell, taste, sight, touch) modalities were closely linked together.
5. The words denoting the people and objects in the novel developed metaphorical meanings as sound (hearing) triggered other modalities (experiences obtained through other senses). For instance, places (a village, house, faraway islands) were metaphorically and synaesthetically associated with smells and tastes; relatives (mother) -with sight (colour), taste and smell; talents (personal qualities) - with taste and sight (colours); other characters -with smells, tastes, colours; drinks and technologies - with touch. The mechanisms of generating metaphoric meanings involved more than two modalities.
Studying synaesthesia and synaesthetic metaphors in literary works enables scholars to explore the author's individual style, his/her conceptual system, the work of cognizing mind and the results of this work reflected in the language, as well as contributes to guided interpretation of fiction.
Further research perspectives could be the studies focusing on analysis of the models of synaesthetic metaphors in various functional styles besides fiction. However, the literary works of the same author containing the linguistic embodiment of this phenomenon could give more models and examples of creative language; the analysis could embrace films based on the author's works, thus becoming a transmedia project. The translation of individual synaes-thetic metaphors is another challenging area of research, and analyzing the ways of original synaesthetic metaphors in the discussed novel has already begun by the authors of this paper.
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Информация об авторах | Author information
RU
Гацура Наталья Игоревна1, к. филол. н., доц. Акаева Элеонора Вячеславовна2, к. филол. н., доц. Винокурова Татьяна Николаевна3, к. филол. н., доц. 1 2 3 Омский государственный университет им. Ф. М. Достоевского
EN
Gatsura Natalia Igorevna1, PhD Akaeva Eleonora Vyacheslavovna2, PhD Vinokurova Tatiana Nikolaevna3, PhD
1 2 3 Dostoevsky Omsk State University
1 nagatsura@mail.ru, 2 noraa@mail.ru, 3 vintan26@mail.ru
Информация о статье | About this article
Дата поступления рукописи (received): 16.04.2023; опубликовано (published): 10.07.2023.
Ключевые слова (keywords): senses; intersensory transfers; synaesthesia; metaphor; synaesthetic metaphor; чувства; межсенсорные связи; синестезия; метафора; синестетическая метафора.
