Metaphor In 'Rhetorical Criticism'

827 Words4 Pages

The method I used to explore my research question is Metaphor criticism, which is employed by scholars to analyze texts by locating metaphors with texts and evaluating those metaphors in effort to better understand ways in which authors appeal to their audiences (Gerianne Merrigan, 2004). Metaphor is a primary means by which phenomena in the world become objects of reality or knowledge for us. It’s also a way of thinking, offering the listeners and the readers fresh ways of examining ideas and viewing the world (FOss, 2004). A number of theories describe metaphor through different aspects. In the book Rhetorical criticism: Exploration & practice, Foss (2004) mentioned that metaphors are nonliteral comparisons in which a world or phrase form …show more content…

A number of theories in various fields have analyzed the perfect society—utopia in film Zootopia and believe that utopia is a direction of human pursuit. For example, Irus Braverman (2012) mentions that utopia is more than an amalgam of these connections in Kumar’s description, each makes an elemental contribution to it. In his research, he adopts the term “zootopia” to express both utopian and the dystopian impulses at work in the zoo and to allude to their tightly intertwined nature (Braverman, 2012). Specifically, he explores zootopia as a paradise, a place where people may enjoy the illusion of living in harmony with a romanticized nature. Simultaneously, it’s a rational project involves careful planning and detailed control of over both animals and their habitat, which is commonalities with kumar’s ideal city. Also, the zoo is a theme park: as a garden for human entertainment and consumption it evokes Cockaigne—the land of abundance, enjoyment and the pleasure (Braverman, 2012). He analyzes the perfect image of zootopia through observing the relationship between people and nature. I think he is inspired by Sir Ebenezer Howard’s book in 1898 named Garden Cities of To-morrow. This book gives a description of a utopian city in which people live harmoniously together with nature. Howard split the word “tomorrow” into “to—morrow” intentionally seems to emphasize that utopia is always a direction that people trying to pursue. These two theories above seem to analyze utopia