| Conceptual metaphor is the basic cognitive mode of human beings.Conceptual metaphor in literary works maps the conceptual characteristics of the source domain to characters,which is used to express the character,the theme of the novel and the social status quo reflected in the works.As the female representative of “evil” in Shakespeare’s works,conceptual metaphor plays an important role in constructing Lady Macbeth’s tragic fate.This thesis analyzes the tragic fate of the heroine Lady Macbeth in Macbeth from the perspective of conceptual metaphor in order to probe the following two questions: 1)What are the conceptual metaphors that represent Lady Macbeth’s tragic fate? What aspects of conflicts do they highlight? 2)What role do these conceptual metaphors play in constructing Lady Macbeth’s tragic fate?There are two research findings: 1)The conceptual metaphors used to represent Lady Macbeth’s tragic fate mainly include container metaphor,animal metaphor,ontological metaphor,color metaphor,plant metaphor and personification.Container metaphor highlights the conflict in Lady Macbeth’s personality;animal metaphor,ontological metaphor and color metaphor are used to highlight the conflict between Lady Macbeth and social environment;personification and plant metaphor highlight the conflict between Lady Macbeth and fate.2)All these conceptual metaphors are involved in the construction of Lady Macbeth’s tragic fate:container metaphor strengthens the conflict between deliberately amplifying evil and suppressing humanity and shows the inevitability of Lady Macbeth’s character tragedy;animal metaphor,ontological metaphor and color metaphor reflect the foreshadowing of allusion and the breakup of marriage which deeply imply the predictability of Lady Macbeth’s social tragedy;personification and plant metaphor aggravate the magnitude of Lady Macbeth’s fate tragedy by comparing two different characters and disclosing the real sorrow of Lady Macbeth.This study is a useful attempt to apply conceptual metaphor theory to the interpretation of the fate of characters in Shakespeare’s plays,hoping to be helpful to the interdisciplinary research of linguistics and literature,especially the research of conceptual metaphor and the appreciation of Shakespeare’s characters. |
