从隐喻角度解读《少年派的奇幻漂流》中的象征意义_英语论文

Symbolic Meanings in Life of Pi from the Perspective of Metaphor

摘要

众所周知，隐喻是属于语言学中比喻修辞的一种。而在西方，自两千多年前的古希腊哲学家亚里士多德在其著作《诗学》中提出了“隐喻”的概念以来，“隐喻”已经越来越多的引起关注。文学作品中的隐喻随处可见，隐喻就是用我们所熟悉的事物去表达我们所不熟悉的抽象事物。在《少年派的奇幻漂流》中，到处充满了隐喻的表现手法，其中几个主要的象征意义对小说的理解起着至关重要的作用。特别的人物命名塑造了小说中主要人物和动物的形象与命运；故事情节的设定等又进一步揭示了小说的主题思想。象征含义的探究对理解小说很有帮助，因此本文将从文化元素的隐喻、人物命名、神话原型和人物间相互映射的象征等方面出发来分析《少年派的奇幻漂流》中隐喻的丰富内涵，进而在这些隐喻中认识到人性与兽性、人类与自然、人类与宗教之间的关系。

关键词：少年派的奇幻漂流；隐喻；人性和兽性；自然；宗教信仰

Abstract

As is known to all, metaphor is a metaphorical rhetoric in linguistics. About 2000 years ago in the West, since the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle put forward the concept of “metaphor” in his book Poetics, “metaphor” has attracted more and more attention. Metaphors can be seen everywhere in literary works. Metaphor is the use of familiar things to indicate something abstract which we are not familiar with. Life of Pi is filled with metaphorical expressions, and some of the major symbolic meanings play a vital role in understanding this novel. The innovative character-naming has created the character image and the fate of the main characters and animals. The settings of the story have also further revealed the theme of this novel. The exploration of symbolic meanings helps us understand this novel more deeply. This paper aims to analyze the rich connotation of metaphors in Life of Pi from the metaphors in cultural elements, character-naming, mythological archetype, and the mutual mapping on characters. Through these metaphors, we can recognize the relationship between humanity and brutality, human and the nature, human and the religion.

Keywords: Life of Pi; metaphor; humanity and brutality; nature; religion

Contents

1 Introduction 1

1.1 A Brief Introduction to Life of Pi 1

1.2 Studies on Life of Pi at Home and Abroad 1

2 Metaphors in Character-Naming 4

2.1 Pi’s Original Name and Pi’s New Name 4

2.2 Tiger Richard Parker 4

3 Metaphors in Cultural Elements 5

3.1 Metaphors in the Japanese Cargo Ship “Tsimtsum” 6

3.2 Metaphors in Colors: Orange 6

4 Symbolism in Myth-archetype: the Algae Island 7

5 Symbolism in the Multiple Story: Mutual Mapping on Characters 8

5.1 Pi and Richard Parker 9

5.2 The Sailor and the Zebra 9

5.3 The French Cook and the Hyena 10

5.4 Pi’s Mother and the Orangutan 10

Conclusion 11

References 12