15!!! Kimmel - Macro Structure in Heart of Darkness

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From Metaphor to the"Mental Sketchpad": LiteraryMacrostructure and CompoundImage Schemas in Heart ofDarknessMichael Kimmel

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To cite this article: Michael Kimmel (2005): From Metaphor to the "MentalSketchpad": Literary Macrostructure and Compound Image Schemas in Heart ofDarkness, Metaphor and Symbol, 20:3, 199-238

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From Metaphor to the “MentalSketchpad”: Literary Macrostructure

and Compound Image Schemasin Heart of Darkness

Michael KimmelAustrian Academy of Sciences

Institute for European Integration Research, Vienna

My case study of Heart of Darkness analyzes the role of image schemas in shapingnarrative macrostructures and in organizing literary metaphor systems. Assumingthat we can reconstruct global story meaning from local image-schematic metaphors,I propose a model in which compound gestalts represent major aspects of the plot-de-fining macrostructure. It emerges as salient textual cues progressively add up to ascaffold of image-schematic elements that represent the event’s overall texture, its“plot-gene”. The rich metaphor system of Heart of Darkness throws into relief theamazing range of literary functions rooted in this image-schematic plot-gene, includ-ing plot mnemonics, inference, metaphor networks, and clustering of propositionalknowledge, megametaphor, focalizing and viewpoint effects, irony, as well as moodcontours. Progressing toward a cognitive model of narrative, I will argue that readinginvolves a mental simulation of how image schemas interact topologically to produceemergent effects. I dub the imagistic substrate of this simulation the “mental (story)sketchpad,” following Baddeley (1986).

Story comprehension involves a level of macrostructure representing a story’sglobal meaning, that is, what we may call its plot, theme, or gist (Zwaan,Radvansky & Whitten, 2002). Discourse psychology, building on van Dijk andKintsch (1983), has a long tradition of modeling macrostructures and global textcoherence through propositional analysis. This view sees meaning as a complexhierarchy of propositions and has recently spawned sophisticated vector-mathe-

METAPHOR AND SYMBOL, 20(3), 199–238Copyright © 2005, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.

Requests for reprints should be sent to Michael Kimmel, Schallergasse 39/30, A-1120 Vienna, Aus-tria. E-mail: [email protected]

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matical models using abstract representations in a high-dimensional semanticspace (Burgess & Lund, 2000; Kintsch, 1998; Landauer & Dumais, 1997). Withliterary narrative in view, the present case study presents an alternative view inwhich not macropropositions but image-schematic macrogestalts account for im-portant cognitive aspects of global story structure. Image schemas do not only havethe general virtue of explaining the grounding of meaning in ordinary percepts andexperiences, I will argue that a number of global effects in reading literature are in-deed difficult to explain without them.

STORY MACROSTRUCTURE ANDTHE ROLE OF IMAGE SCHEMAS

Choosing the highly multilayered and polyvalent symbolist novel Heart of Dark-ness for study allows illustrating that conceptual metaphor analysis can be under-taken at some level of complexity. Conversely, it shows that narrative macro-structure can be validated through an analysis of metaphor systems (cf. Steen,1994) and their global structuring. I here continue metaphor- and image-schemarelated work in cognitive poetics (Freeman, 1993, 1995; Stockwell, 2002; Werth,1999) and related approaches to image-schematic structure in narrative (Johnson,1993, chapter 7; Talmy, 2000; Turner, 1996) by advancing toward a more explicitemphasis of metaphor’s contribution to story macrostructure.

Macrostructures and Imagery

Discourse psychology indicates the importance of narrative macrostructures notonly in story recall but also in achieving coherence during reading itself. Macro-structures involve thematic abstraction into “adages that succinctly capture con-flicts, planning failures, solutions, and resolutions” (Graesser, Pomeroy & Craig,2002, p. 26). Such summarizing statements compress inferential structures andhold a salient status in event memory (Guindon & Kintsch, 1984) in that they cre-ate inferences almost matching those of a full story (Graesser, Bowers, Olde,White, & Person, 1999).

I will develop the idea here that such compressed macrorepresentations involveimage schemas. We may start by setting off my topic from another kind of narra-tive imagery, that of key scenes. When we imagine literary episodes, film, ordrama, these involve conjuring up more or less vivid imagery like Bogart andBergman on the airstrip or Anna Karenina on the train platform. When asked to re-produce a novel’s or film’s gist, most people will report images not unlikescreen-shots or miniclips, for example those of a glass slipper or a royal ball forCinderella. Such rich images form major mnemonic pegs in episodic recall(Sadoski & Paivio, 2001, p. 106). My topic here, however, is the compressed repre-

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sentation of plot that involves a more schematic kind of imagery. This occurs intextural images of narrative structure (Reinhart, 1984), as images of “circles,” “azigzag,” a “sandwich” that authors not seldom intuit (Sadoski & Paivio 2001,p.152–159), or as abstract, compository temporal architecture, for example, onethat contrasts adagio and prestissimo (Kundera, 1988). This type of imagery cre-ates topological skeletons out of summarized plot structure. Cognitive poetics em-phasizes the role of such dramatic topologies in understanding causal, intentional,and temporal “event shape”:

“We appear to understand an event as having its own “internal” structure: It can bepunctual or drawn out; single or repeating; closed or open; preserving, creating, ordestroying entities; cyclic or not cyclic, and so on. This internal structure is im-age-schematic; it is rooted in our understanding of small spatial stories.” (Turner,1996, p. 28)

Especially force-dynamic image schemas have been held to underpin narrativecausality (Brandt, 2002; Herman, 2002; Talmy, 2000) or to constitute a story’s “en-gine” (Turner, 1996, p. 134). Image schemas may also have the power to structureplot in more specific ways than temporal and causal event shape, as Freeman(1995) observes for Macbeth:

“PATH and CONTAINER image-schemata (…) constitute the terms in which we un-derstand not only Macbeth’s language, but its central characters, crucial aspects of itsvarious settings, and the sequence and structure of its unitary plot.” (p. 691)

In this kind of analysis (cf. Freeman, 1993; Stockwell, 2002, p. 111) a theme is col-lapsed into one or several clearly circumscribed image schemas when local inputaccumulates in the recipient’s mind to produce a global structure. In other words,these image schemas have a thematic function and fulfill some role related tomacrostructure compression.

Plot Compression Through Image Schemas

A prerequisite for macrostructures are conceptual compressions and schema-tizations of narrated content. For example, readers may compress Anna Kareninaencountering her lover Vronsky at the train station in the beginning and throwingherself in front of a train in the end into a single meaning, in particular because thetwo scenes frame a causally related sequence. This relates to the capability of theimagination to synthesize into a single awareness contents that cannot be per-ceived simultaneously (Iser, 1978, p. 138). A theory of macrostructure should bothaddress how readers mentally represent the organizing principles or dramatism of

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a story as well as the process of theme-compression and theme-schematizationleading to this.

As to the compressed gist of a story itself we may call this its plot-gene, borrow-ing from Lotman (1990). I define this as an (a) summary representation of narratedevents, (b) readers distill against a background of expectational schemas, (c) func-tioning as a mnemonic device around which less salient aspects of the story se-quence crystallize as soon as we “unpack” it in recall, and (d) facilitating or feed-ing into various dynamic processes of story construal. In reading the expectedmacrostructure is constantly reevaluated, crosschecked with genre knowledge andupdated from on-line cues. Note that the reason for specifying macrostructure asplot-gene, thus as generative rather than fixed, is that stories are dynamic arrays ofevent-related knowledge that can partitioned and construed in various ways.

The process of macrostructural compression has been explained by discoursepsychology as encoding a textbase into a string of conceptual propositions andthen feeding salient local representations—usually corresponding to overlaps be-tween propositions—into a macrorepresentation, while deleting less important lo-cal material (van Dijk & Kintsch, 1983). This bottom-up distillation process, sup-plemented by top-down knowledge, is an assumption I share. However, in myalternative view a plot-gene encodes a portion of the macrostructure through imag-ery. It uses a small set of images by which we remember a novel (a drama, a ritual,a piece of music, etc.) in an economic way. Although this will usually include keyscenes or even storyboards in which several key scenes are lined up, my topic herewill be the image-schematic aspect of this. The image-schematic plot-gene resultswhen story content becomes schematized as overall texture, say, a FORCE imageof a linear story development or a BLOCKAGE-REMOVAL image for an obstaclethat is overcome. By virtue of schematic compression such image schemas are dis-tinct from (but may stand in continuity with) rich images of key scenes. Imageschemas represent the story flow or dramaturgy from a global viewpoint and there-fore function not so much as entry point for the recall of episodic details but as abasis for compressing an extended theme. Imagistic transformations are responsi-ble for the compression process: We may imagine this as filtering salient featuresfrom several mental “miniclips” and blending them into a multiscene image, a pro-cess similar to cross-fading between static images—only that we now merge dif-ferent episodes into one meaningful structure. Thus, the texture of events may gointo a “one-shot” gestalt in our memory trace, when it is construed, or asLangacker (1987) calls it, “scanned,” in a summary fashion.

Several global story “tracks” (cf. Talmy, 2000) may be image-schematic,including spatiality, temporality, causality–intentionality, transition betweenstates, and protagonist interaction: In the spatial dimension, locations are repre-sented as CONTAINERS that are discrete, overlapping or coinciding. In the tem-poral dimension the texture of an event is represented as PATH, BLOCKEDPATH, CYCLE topology, etc. The causal dimension may be superimposed on

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the temporal one through FORCE imagery (notably as IMPETUS CHAINS).The intentionality of protagonists or quasi-personified agents may also be di-rectly subsumed here, because causality is ipso facto invested with one inten-tionality or another. Thus, DIRECTIONAL VECTORS, PUSH/PULL IMAGES,or SELF-PROPELLING/EXTERNALLY-PROPELLING VECTORS may be “seeninto” a mental scene (e.g., intentionality may define a landmark as attractor orrepellant vis-à-vis an agent). In the ontological dimension, transition betweenstates or qualities is understood as movement, for example, conceptualizedas PATHS between container-like REGIONS. Finally, in the protagonist di-mension the interplay of protagonists and the basic Greimasian actant rolessuch as helper, opponent, or subject are understood as force configurations(e.g., AGONIST–ANTAGONIST, ACTION CHAINS, FORCE ENABLEMENTschemas).

Aspects such as spatiality, temporality, causality–intentionality, transition be-tween states, and protagonist interaction may be inherently connected as part of asingle image-schematic story logic. The following case study of Heart of Darknesswill show how these different conceptual tracks are forged together to produce acomplex plot. I will develop the idea that simple image schemas become progres-sively “inscribed” in a sketchpad-like mental substrate. This sketchpad is a kind of“elaboration site” (Langacker, 1987) for the globally perceived story dramatism inwhich all these tracks cospecify each other. The sketchpad supports the construc-tive attempt to create a global plot topology in the reader’s mind by interrelat-ing salient textual force-dynamic and image-schematic elements. This happensthrough superimposition (cf. Holmqvist & Holšanová, 1997) of topological ele-ments interrelated by the story’s logic. All the elements together configure a com-pound gestalt constituting the novel’s image-schematic plot-gene. My aim will beto show that this plot-gene functions not only as a story mnemonic but that aspectsof it produce combined constraints on interpretation, lets us infer relational fea-tures between them and subserve various more complex literary functions.

A SURVEY OF METAPHORS IN “HEART OF DARKNESS”

Plot Overview

Joseph Conrad’s symbolism-saturated novel Heart of Darkness exploits as its cen-tral, although highly polyvalent theme a journey that penetrates into the dangerousunknown. In the novel, Marlow, a seaman and wanderer, recounts a steamboat ex-pedition into deep African territory in search of the enigmatic Mr. Kurtz who is thecompany’s agent at the “Inner Station,” a trading outpost. The story is situatedaround the turn from the 19th to the 20th century in the Congo, which was at thattime a private property of the Belgian King Léopold and marked by rampant forced

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labor and vicious exploitation of the natives. The narrative’s thrust goes quite liter-ally toward Kurtz who is the goal of the gradual intrusion into a strange, dangerousand unfathomable territory. Kurtz has imposed a surreal order of terror and cha-risma among the natives. He is a troubled man of captivating and demonic forcewho has signed a Faustian pact and is being worshipped as a god. When Marlowfinds him, he is on the verge of madness and death and experiencing great innerturmoil. Marlow himself is changed in the struggle to comprehend his experiencewith this once exceptional and now tormented man who has looked into his ownnature, the dark side of his passions. Having succumbed to alien and yet strangelyfamiliar forces in the zone of proximity between culturalized humanity and an ar-chaic “Other,” Kurtz dies with the words “The horror! The horror!” on his lips.Back from his experience, Marlow pays a visit to Kurtz’s fiancée in Brussels butconceals the truth about Kurtz’s fall from grace and his last words from her. It is ap-parent that although the tale’s overall structure is that of a real journey, metaphori-cally it is a journey to the limits of the human soul, a double entendre that becomesevident in the very title. The story is, in the words of Bill Harrell (1982, p. 231),about “a crossing of a boundary from the well-defined self, the soul, the domain oforder and grace, into the unchartered abyss of the appetites, the crossing over fromprudence to greed and lust.”

Five Major Categories of Metaphor

The fact that Conrad’s symbolist novel abounds in striking metaphors, often in richmixes of five or more, makes them obvious “points of crystallization” of literaryprocessing (Steen, 1994, p. 36). I have identified linguistic metaphors based ontextual recurrence and my intuition about their salience. The conceptual metaphorsdistilled from these can be grouped into five clusters (fully summarized inKimmel, n.d.) depending on their different narrative task:

1. Penetration: Metaphorizing the event sequence. A host of metaphorsdefine the causal nature of the plot. Part of this is a FORCE-interaction scenario inwhich Marlow feels attraction and Africa’s beckoning, followed by an act of intru-sion, progression, captivation, and retribution (wilderness is depicted as an inter-acting agent throughout). In effect, a coherent spatial layout emerges from thesemetaphors: Africa and Europe relate to each other as in-space–out-space, Africa isdepth; entering is crossing a threshold or barrier; entering invites counterforce,then a breakthrough; knowing is moving outward from self and into the other, mys-tic attraction is a pull force; curiosity and passion are push forces (examples willfollow).

2. Wilderness: Multiple metaphorizing of a target domain. Wilderness isthe one most richly metaphorized theme of all. Wilderness interlaces a number ofattributes by acting as a single target domain into which these are projected. Thus,

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calling it a “nodal target domain” (cf. Kimmel, 2004, p. 278) seems appropriate.Overall, wilderness is conceived of as:

A WILD ANIMAL“the playful pawstrokes of the wilderness” (p. 71), “conquered monster”

that has broken free (p. 62).A LOVER OR SEDUCTRESS“it had caressed him, (…), it had taken him, loved him, embraced him, got

into his veins, consumed his flesh” (p. 81); “its whisper has proven irresist-ibly fascinating” (p. 95), “appealing, suggestive” (p. 39).

A SORCERESS“heavy, mute spell of the wilderness” (p. 106), “till you thought yourself

bewitched and cut off forever” (p. 59), “a thrall to strange witchcraft” (p. 64).AN ATTRACTOR AND DRIVING FORCE“seemed to draw him to his pitiless breast” / “driven him out to the edge of

the forest, to the bush, toward the gleam of fires, the throb of drums, thedrone of weird incantations…” (pp. 106–107).

AN AGGRESSIVE OR EMOTIONAL AGENT“the assaulted by the powers of darkness” (p. 82) or “great human passion

let loose” (p. 73). “incomprehensible frenzy” (p. 62).AN ENIGMA OR INSCRUTABLE PERSON“unfathomable enigma” (p. 71), “mysterious life (…) that stirs” (p. 19),

“enchanted princess” (p. 99) “inscrutable intention” (pp. 60, 99).AN AVENGER“had found him out early, and had taken on him a terrible vengeance” (p.

95), “the stillness of an implacable force (…) looked at you with a vengefulaspect” (p. 60).

A MIGHTY ANTAGONIST“A frightful clatter came out of that hulk, and the virgin forest on the other

bank of the creek sent it back” (p. 53); “wilderness burst in to a prodigiouspeal of laughter” (p. 81).

A DOMINATOR AND CONQUEROR“how many powers of darkness claimed him for their own” (p. 81), “What

were we who had strayed in here? Could we handle that dumb thing or wouldit handle us?” (p. 49), “the heart of a conquering darkness” (p. 117).

A PERSON IN SORROW“tragic and fierce aspect of wild sorrow and of dumb pain” (p. 99) with

great grief that may vent itself as violence or apathy in a “great human pas-sion let loose” (p. 73).

A STILL, PATIENT, AND BROODING PERSON“The woods were unmoved, like a mask (…) looked with an air of hidden

knowledge, of patient expectation, of unapproachable silence” (p. 93).

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A BRINGER OF STRANGE DREAMS OR NIGHTMARES“the dream-sensation that pervaded all my days” (p. 71); “being captured

by the incredible that is of the very essence of dreams…” (p. 50); “choice ofnightmares” (p 101).

A CAPTIVATING PLACE“heavy like the closed door of a prison” (p. 93).A PRIMEVAL AND TIMELESS PLACE“travelling up to the earliest beginnings of the world” (p. 59), “we were

wanderers on a prehistoric earth” (p. 62).A SPIRITUAL PLACE“wall of a temple” (p. 49), “as profound a meaning as the sound of bells in

a Christian country.” (p. 39).A SENSUOUS PLACEThere are recurring metaphors of fecundity, shininess, glistening, throb-

bing, and graceful movement.

Overall, metaphors of wilderness as an animal, lover, sorceress, avenger, domina-tor, vital, sorrowful, etc., relate both to power and to emotion and seem to reinforcea single generic-level force metaphor “WILDERNESS IS A PASSIONATE ANDVIGOROUS BEING.” The aspects that do not harmonize straightforwardly withthis are timelessness, spirituality, silence, and patience, although the latter two mayindirectly add to the image of wilderness as brooding menace, if we interpret it asnonactualized force. Note also that although synesthetically connected attributesof “dark,” “deep,” “hot,” and “silent” lend a feel of embodied presence to the forest,a plethora of words such as “throbbing,” “murmur,” “glitter,” “creeping,” “dim,”“hazy,” “faint,” or “distant” (e.g., p. 49) are not easily interpreted as personifica-tions. Yet, a number of passages explicitly depicts these sensorial attributes as animpinging FORCE: Africa impinges on the intruders through their exposed sensesand transforms their souls, much like a physical impact deforming an object.

3. Darkness: Multiple metaphorizing of a source domain. Darkness isa highly multivocal source domain, even if we bracket out the extremely vividsynesthetic texture of light–dark effects. It seemingly serves as a node to inter-weave many meanings into a key symbol. Darkness characterizes Kurtz and thecomplex psychic state of those under his spell, or it is a specifying attribute inte-grated into several wilderness metaphors. Within the following complex tropes,darkness appears either as sensory attribute, or as a location agent with certainattributes:

A POWERFUL SENSORY IMPRESSION THAT CHANGES MAN“smell of the damp earth, the unseen smell of victorious corruption”

[characterizing the wilderness] (p. 101).

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A PASSIVE FORCE OR BARRIER“the darkness of impenetrable night ” (p. 101).AN ACTIVE AND OMINOUS POWER“triumphantdarkness fromwhichIcouldnothavedefendedher”(p.121).“The dusk was repeating them in a persistent whisper … that seemed to

swell menacingly” (p. 123).PAIN AND DEATH“buried in a vast grave full of unspeakable secrets … intolerable weight”

(p. 101)The meeting with the mourning fiancée is set at dusk, involves a mahog-

any door, a piano with “dark gleams,” she is “all in black,” has “dark eyes,”etc. (pp. 118f).

MADNESS OR NIGHTMAREThe “abyss of insanity” into which Kurtz has fallen is dark (p. 111);

“loyal to the nightmare of my choice … I was anxious to deal with thisshadow … the peculiar blackness of that experience” (p. 105).

DANGER AND FEAR“They were men enough to face the darkness” (p. 19; that blends

“KNOWING IS SEEING” and “DANGER IS DARKNESS”).LOSS OF ORIENTATION, DESPAIR AND EVILA fiend-like black sorcerer in the darkness is associated with Kurtz’s be-

ing “utterly lost” (p. 106).COMFORT, SENSUOUSNESS, AND CURIOSITYAs a general mood, the dark may invoke mystery, sensuousness, and

something comforting; faint lights and sounds stir the curiosity.

Many of these expressions circumscribe the inner state of Kurtz, now taking holdof Marlow. An emergent generic-level metaphor is “GENUINE MALEKNOWLEDGE IS DARKNESS,” which inverts “KNOWLEDGE IS LIGHT” byironically combining it with “EVIL IS DARK” and “DEATH IS DARKNESS.”Dark knowledge is deep, but also overpowering, altogether monstrous, a night-mare (p. 104).

4. Initiation: Symbolic meaning and the cultural metaphysics of plot.A higher level of metaphorical complexity rises above the attributes, scenario, andspatial layout just discussed. It involves a matrix of symbolism conceptualizingthemes of a metaphysical kind that perhaps escape simple metaphor formulas.Specifically, it intertwines the topics of knowledge, initiation, eros, madness, anddeath in a scenario of a Faustian pact or fall from grace.

KURTZ AS A SEMIGOD“emissary of pity, and science, and progress,” a “special being” (p. 47).

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KURTZ AS DEVIL“kicked himself loose of the earth” (p. 107); “taken a high seat among the

devils of the land” (p. 81); the scenery of Kurtz’s rule of terror has all the at-tributes of a Dantean inferno.THE FAUSTIAN PACT

“no fool ever made a bargain for his soul with the devil” (p. 82).THE “FALL”

“I had peeped over the edge myself” (p. 113), “a man who is lying at thebottom of a precipice where the sun never shines” (p. 111).FOREBODING OF DEATH

Mournful sounds, descriptions of decay “still and earthy atmosphere as ofan overheated catacomb” (p. 31).PSYCHOLOGICAL DYNAMICS OF THE IRRATIONAL

Wilderness = loss of rational control, succumbing to passions of greedand power (“Mr Kurtz lacked restraint in the gratification of his variouslusts,” p. 95).

Wilderness lets man look into his insane parts: “Being alone in the wil-derness, it had looked within itself, and, by heavens!, I tell you it had gonemad.” (ibid.).INITIATION IS A JOURNEY INTO ANOTHER SPACE (cf. pilgrimage,coming-of-age rites).

A. Mythical original journey “Going up that river was like traveling backto the earliest beginnings of the world (…) ” (p. 59).

B. Entering a reserved space: imagery of thresholds and doors.C. Guardians of liminality: female knitters of black wool in the recruitment

officeandtheharlequinwhopreparesMarlowforhisencounterwithKurtz.FURTHER ELEMENTS OF RITES OF PASSAGE

D. Initiation is a painful experience that requires courage. “They weremen enough to face the darkness” (p. 19).

E. Initiatory sequence: elements of terror, hazing, and confrontation withcharisma.

F. Rites of passage are reserved to men: women should stay “in the beau-tiful world of their own”; Marlow lies to Kurtz’s Intended about his terrify-ing last words.

G. Kurtz is a spiritual leader: His stare is “wide enough to embrace thewhole universe, piercing enough penetrate all the hearts that beat in the dark-ness” (p. 113); “this man has enlarged my mind” (p. 90).

H. Wilderness is a creed: “I had turned to the wilderness really” (p. 101).SENSUAL FEMALES ARE THREATENING

A “wild and gorgeous apparition” of an African woman whose com-plaint is connected with “swift shadows darted out of the earth, swept

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around on the river, gathering the steamer in a shadowy embrace.” (p.99–100). The sensuous female is perceived as a threat by the Europeans,one of whom is even prepared to use firearms for defending himselfagainst her.SENSUALITY IS KNOWLEDGE

[The harlequin and Kurtz] “had come together unavoidably, like to shipsbecalmed near each other, and lay rubbing sides at last. … We talked of ev-erything … Of love, too. … He made me see things—things.” (p. 91).

Overall, succumbing to irrational desires and sensuality is framed as a process ofgaining essential, if archaic knowledge about the human condition, evil, and death.The process is quite plainly a rite of passage, yet paradoxically understood as amovement from salvation to damnation.

5. Ambivalence: Mood through metaphor interaction. In many differentways a systematic undercurrent of ambivalence is created through metaphor pairshinting at opposite, yet connected meanings.

A. The journey is a kind of “pilgrims’ progress” but it leads not to salvationbut to “dark” knowledge and damnation.

B. The forest’s stillness can be meant as an “appeal or menace” (p. 49). Being“assaulted by the powers of darkness” can be “your loss or your gain Iwon’t pretend to say” (p. 82).

C. Africa and Europe are different, yet one. There is uncanny identificationwith the savages, “the thought of your remote kinship with this wild andpassionate uproar” (p. 63). The slow creeping speed of the riverboat com-pared to the immense forest “made you feel very small, very lost, and yet itwas not altogether depressive that feeling” (p. 61).

D. Those trying to dominate end up being dominated. While the colonizerscontrol Africa in terms of military and technological supremacy, Africatakes possession of their senses and soul.

E. The archaic and supposedly primeval wilderness is vigorous and yet soclose to death.

F. The forest is still and calm, yet full of foreboding and violence.G. Light and darkness flow into one another and their symbolism is merged.

Europeans think of themselves as the carriers of the torch from thesacred fire (p. 17) of European civilization, enlightening the poor sav-ages, while obscuring their irrational motives of lust and greed (motivesthat are “dark” by virtue of their dangerous, subconscious, and evilnature).

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H. Wilderness, embodying the principles of female fecundity, power, and pas-sion, is as attractive as it is dangerous.

I. Women (the knitting doorkeepers, the wild and sensuous African mistress,Kurtz’s Intended) are both pure and the very embodiments of unrestrainedpassion. Women guard the Doors of Darkness, hence the threshold thatmen have to cross. At the same time, European women should be kept apartin a wholly different beautiful world and away from this irrationality.

J. Deep knowledge about human nature is alluring, but leads to madness andhorror: “the inconceivable mystery of a soul that knew no restraint, nofaith, no fear, yet struggling blindly with itself.” (p. 108).

K. Kurtz, the godlike man, represents the mysterium tremendum et fascinans,the fearful and fascinating mystery that is awe-inspiring, yet captivating.

In sum, metaphors contribute to the following story features: (a) A sequential plotlayout cast into an ATTRACTION–INTRUSION–RETRIBUTION scenario byimage-schematic and force-dynamic metaphors; (b) multiple metaphorizing of atarget domain node of wilderness; (c) multiple metaphorizing of a source domainnode darkness; (d) a symbolic matrix of complex cultural themes (madness, death,eros, etc.); and (e) an undercurrent of ambivalence.

MACROSTRUCTURAL FUNCTIONSOF IMAGE SCHEMAS

The remainder of this article will demonstrate how a substantial proportion of thepresented metaphors feeds into the story macrostructure. To do this, I will try to ex-plain how these local features become connected in a coherent global representa-tion by virtue of their image-schematic affinities and what further inferences areinvited by their combined constraints. Image schemas may underpin the globalrepresentation of plot and simultaneously inform various more specific submodelsof the story in ways I will discuss now.

Plot Mnemonic

As van den Broek, Risden, Fletcher, and Thurlow (1996, pp. 175, 178) maintain“considerable research has demonstrated that a successfully comprehended text isrepresented in memory as a coherent structure” so that “fluctuating activations [ofcausal and referential structure] during reading form the basis of a stable memoryrepresentation”. Correspondingly, the most fundamental macrostructural functionof image schemas is the creation of a condensed and global representation readersuse in plot recall (or expected plot).

In a global view of Heart of Darkness what impels the plot, how and where it hap-pens conforms to a coherent image-schematic logic. In its totality, this compound to-

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pologydepictsagradualpassageovera threshold fromanout-space (Europe) intoanopposed in-space (Africa), the arrow-like movement between the spheres represent-ing Marlow’s slow riverboat journey. On top of this, two force vectors, an attractingand a driving force, are projected into the mental image. This elaborates the two-foldintentional nature of Marlow’s movement as, both, self-impelled or intrinsicallydriven and extrinsically motivated by a quasi-magnetic pull. (The one emergeslargely from metaphors of knowledge seeking as penetrative act, while the other re-sults fromforce-dynamicmetaphors todowith sensualityandpassion.)Asa final el-ement, the barrier at the extended boundary zone reflects metaphors of growingcounterforce by the hidden opponents along the river. The elements assembled inwhatwemaycalla“mental sketchpad”result ina topologylike theone inFigure1.

This overall picture permits us to isolate the following story “tracks”: A basicset of spatialized elements defines ontological story spaces, to set the stage so tospeak in which the plot unfolds. A first aspect here is the apartness of spheres thatrepresents real locations, but also their qualitative difference and ontologicalincommensurability insofar as they stand in evaluative or even moral opposition. Agrid of concentric circles superimposed on this defines Europe as (shallow) outsidesphere and Africa as (deep) inside sphere.

(EVALUATIVE AND MORAL) OPPOSITION“blank space of delightful mystery” [the Congo] (p. 22); “that great and

saving illusion” [the fiancee’s naive world] (p. 121); darkness and light met-aphors (Kurtz as torch bearer of enlightenment, etc.).

OUTSIDE-INSIDE/DEPTHConcentric: Outer Station–Central Station–Inner Station“Mr. Kurtz was in there … a little ivory coming out from there” (p. 49);

“deeper and deeper into the heart of darkness” (p. 62).

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FIGURE 1 The image-schematic plot-gene of the overall event structure.

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Situated in these spaces, a processual event modality unfolds. The novel specifiesthe modality of transition between two locations and the two corresponding statesas gradual (heightened by an equally gradual rise of tension). This modality is fur-thermore marked by a forced movement into a resisting “in-space,” which thencloses around the intruder.

GRADUAL TRANSITION“The grimy beetle crawled on”; “reality … it fades” (p. 60); “I went a lit-

tle farther (…), then still a little farther, till I had gone so far that I don’t knowhow I’ll ever get back” (p. 90).

INTRUSION“fantastic invasion” (p. 58), “fantastic intrusion” (p. 95); “tear treasures

out of the bowel of the land (…) burglars breaking into a safe.”

ENGULFMENT“feel the savagery … had closed around him” (p. 19); “wilderness took

him into his bosom again” (p. 45).“being captured by the incredible which is the very essence of their

dream” (p. 50); “shadowy embrace” (p. 100), “powers of darkness claimedhim for their own.”

The story-driving intentionality, a related aspect of plot, defines what makes theprotagonists act. First, push–pull attractors between ontological spaces stand out(i.e., the desire to penetrate the unfathomable, seductive beckoning of the wilder-ness). An equally striking element is the force antagonism between Marlow–Kurtzand the agent-like jungle wilderness, reflecting the continuously raised question asto whether White men dominate Africa or the converse.

WILDERNESS AS ANTAGONISTMetaphors of wilderness dominator, avenger, animal, etc. (see previous);

“taking possession of an accursed inheritance” (p. 62); “Could we handlethat dumb thing or would it handle us?” (p. 49).

PULL ATTRACTOR“smiling … inviting, mute with a air of whispering, Come and find out.”

(p. 29); “beguiled his unlawful soul beyond the bounds of permitted aspira-tions” (p. 107).

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PUSH ATTRACTOR/DRIVE“memory of gratified and monstrous passions … had driven him out”

(p. 107).

A final spatialized aspect of plot concerns boundaries and overcoming obstacles.In this respect the journey is depicted as intrusion and then transgression of aboundary zone, itself metaphorized as door, edge, threshold, or abyss. A barrierappears (i.e., force blockage or counterforce) both by virtue of the journey’s literalphysical hardships and as metaphorically conceived moral and emotional barrier.Its eventual transgression is motivated by the stronger attracting force (Africa’sbeckoning, Marlow’s fascination with Kurtz and determination).

REACHING BOUNDARY/THRESHOLD“guarding the door of Darkness” (p. 26); “skirts of the unknown” (p. 61);

“toiled along slowly on the edge” (p. 62), “peeped over the edge” (p. 119).

TRANSGRESSION“beguiled his soul beyond the bounds of permitted aspirations,” “driven

him out to the edge of the forest” (p. 107); “Transgression, punishment—bang!” (p. 48).

BARRIERSPhysical: tropical climate, attacks, death of companions; Moral: subtly

insinuated when Marlow witnesses cruelties; Psychic: fear and madness.

Metaphor Networks

Based on these considerations, we may also ask how full conceptual meta-phors cluster into networks and share the cognitive workload of complex repre-sentations between them (cf. Koller, 2003; Kyratzis, 1997; Quinn, 1991). As-suming the many metaphors of our novel do not remain an amorphous jumble, onwhat basis may readers impose coherence? I will propose two general mechanismsof metaphoric coherence here, one of which runs parallel to, and takes its impetusfrom, the image-schematic coherence of the plot; the other exploits what we maycall metaphoric “nodal domains” for purposes of interleaving rich symbolicmaterial.

A by-product of the plot mnemonic of cospecifying image schemas is that theseweave richer metaphoric meanings into the conceptual fabric by making the meta-phors equally cospecifying. The metaphors come into play (so to speak by a kindof “activation spread”) because the plot-building image schemas are simulta-

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neously the source domains of entire metaphoric mappings. The cospecifying met-aphors, partly conventional and partly novel, are these:

“STATES (OF EXPERIENCE) ARE CONTAINERS”“THE QUEST FOR KNOWLEDGE IS A PATH”“THE FASCINATION OF THE IRRATIONAL IS PHYSICAL ATTRACTION”“CURIOSITY IS A DRIVING FORCE”“ILLICIT BEHAVIOR IS TRANSGRESSION”“IRRATIONALITY IS TRANSGRESSION”“MORALITY IS A COUNTERFORCE”“INITIATION IS A JOURNEY”“THE BEGINNING OF INITIATION IS PASSING A THRESHOLD”“THE PROCESS OF INITIATION IS A GRADUAL ACT OF PENETRATION”“SUPERFICIAL SELF-KNOWLEDGE IS THE OUT-SPACE”“DEEP (MALE) SELF-KNOWLEDGE IS THE IN-SPACE”

The image schemas of CONTAINER, PATH, ATTRACTION, etc. already coherelogically in the plot-mnemonic as parts of a single scenario, which allows their co-herence to spill over to the metaphors. This interrelates the metaphors within onestory logic. The spatialized plot-gene may thus function as a unifying substrate tointegrate the metaphors’ symbolic meanings.

Moreover, metaphor networks may be organized by what I have called a “nodaldomain” (Kimmel, 2004), that is, a unifying source or a target domain in whichmultiple predications meet. Both kinds of node are found here and both tie attrib-utes together. First, one conspicuous occurrence are Conrad’s multiple predica-tions on the nodal target domain of wilderness.

“WILDERNESS IS FEMALE”“WILDERNESS IS ANIMAL”“WILDERNESS IS PASSIONATE”“WILDERNESS IS SEDUCTIVE”“WILDERNESS IS ENIGMATIC““WILDERNESS IS PATIENT”“WILDERNESS IS DARK AND HIDDEN”“WILDERNESS IS A CAPTIVATOR”“WILDERNESS IS DANGER”“WILDERNESS IS DEATH”“WILDERNESS IS AN AVENGER”“WILDERNESS IS A DREAM/HYPERREAL”“WILDERNESS IS TIMELESS/PRIMEVAL”“WILDERNESS IS A REALM OF KNOWLEDGE AND POWER”

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The many predications on Africa cluster into a dense and emotion-saturated repre-sentation of what wilderness is, an attribute bundle. (Europe’s complementary at-tributes are found in the text itself or easily inferred). Through this attribute bundlethe space of wilderness comes alive; it creates an encompassing higher-level per-sonification, “WILDERNESS IS A PASSIONATE AND VIGOROUS AGENT.” Al-though some attributes such as “enigmatic” and “patient” are at first glance noteasily subsumed under passion, Conrad in fact creates a trope to the effect thatthere lies great anticipated power in patience and stillness. (The less-connected as-pects remain death, dream, and knowledge but may perhaps add to this in adepth-psychological perspective.)

A second way in which attributes are brought together is through the multipleuse of a recurrent source domain, darkness. Rather than mixing simple qualities,Conrad uses darkness as a symbolic node to forge together entire associative fieldsregarding initiation, death, knowledge, eros, and power in a complex way. Overall,I found the following, mostly conventional metaphors and metonymically inspiredmetaphors connected with darkness:

“DANGER IS DARKNESS”“THE HIDDEN IS DARK”“COMFORT IS DARKNESS”“EVIL IS DARK”“LOSS OF SPIRITUAL ORIENTATION IS DARKNESS”“IRRATIONALITY IS DARKNESS”“MADNESS IS DARKNESS”“DEATH IS DARKNESS”“SENSUOUSNESS IS DARKNESS”“CAPTIVATING EFFECTS ON MIND AND SOUL ARE DARK FORCES”

These multiple metaphorical uses of darkness hang together by belonging toConrad’s complex and idiosyncratic concept of irrational and archaic maleknowledge.

Summing up, both the target domain nexus of wilderness and the sourcedomain nexus of darkness are (partly) organized through higher-level metaphors,namely “WILDERNESS IS A PASSIONATE BEING” and “GENUINE MALEKNOWLEDGE IS DARK KNOWLEDGE.” Note that speaking of attribute mixeshere is somewhat misleading, because each of the themes brought into the “nodaldomain” in activates a complex cultural theory as its background. Therefore,the intricate texture of metaphors is in neither case exhausted by an analytic for-mula nor can the full wealth of extended “metaphorscapes” ever be captured inthis way.

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Imagistic Frames Merge Spatialand Propositional Metaphors

How, then, do schematic plot structure and rich attributes hang together? We canconnect these types of metaphors in a hybrid model that predicates nonspatial at-tributes onto the spatialized frame of the event structure. What I will propose has aprecursor in Hawkins’ (2001) notion of iconographic frame of reference, which hedefines as “a common mode of textual representation that presents simplistic im-ages of our experiences and does so in such a way as to underscore familiar val-ues”. The function of iconographic reference frames is to organize ideology (cf.Frank & Susperegi 2001, Sandikcioglu 2001) by aligning multiple semantic attrib-utes imagistically along a spatial axis (e.g., an UP–DOWN scale). Hawkins illus-trates this coherence-generating mechanism through Hitler’s Mein Kampf. Hitlerinvokes a multiple metaphorical equation of the Jews with the color black, para-sites, and death at the one end of a scale and a corresponding equation of the “Ary-ans” with light color, human beings, and life at the other end. All three sets of sca-lar classifications are aligned so that the Aryans come “at the top” (= good) and theJews “at the bottom” (= bad). Hence, the reference frames of light versus dark,higher versus lower beings, and healthy bodies versus parasites can be superim-posed on a single evaluative UP–DOWN scale. In this and similar ways, an icono-graphic frame of reference functions as “a conventionalized semantic systemwithin which focal images are organized hierarchically” (Hawkins, p. 34). What isof particular interest for my present purposes is that all three metaphorical axes ofNazi ideology can be compressed into a unified image with opposing attribute bun-dles sitting at each end. In other words, in my reading of Hawkins what happens inan iconographic frame is a saturation of imagery with propositional knowledge.

Heart of Darkness employs just this kind of fairly simple imagistic grid foraligning semantic attributes. We can best imagine the attributes enriching the spa-tial image (here: a narrative plot-gene) by being “placed into” it. The constituentsof this mix correspond to two different types of metaphor: propositional metaphorscreating the symbolic attributes of wilderness and image-schematic metaphorsspecifying the action plot. What happens is that the spatial journey layout incorpo-rates the attributes along a binary axis, which, unlike Hitler’s UP–DOWN, ismarked as IN–OUT. The plot aligns the host of attribute-related metaphors as inFigure 2.

Through embedding into this polar topology a number of enriching symbolicattributes are attached to Africa and Europe. Thus, the right sphere holds the meta-phors predicated on the “wilderness,” whereas the left sphere holds its counter-parts, the attributes of “civilization”.

My theoretical claim is that two kinds of cognitive material reconstructed bymetaphor analysis—attributes and spatial representations—become confluents ina single representation, the iconographic reference frame. Complex attribute bun-

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dles are created when attributes like “female,” “sensuous,” “alluring,” “dark,”“powerful,” “deadly,” or “dangerous” are allocated in the same symbolic space.This has powerful implications for the theory of conceptual structure. Although insome cases it is a real location that brings attributes together—Heart of Darknessties them together in a geographical locus (the Congo) and through a semantic la-bel (“wilderness”)—multiattribute spaces can be created in a symbolic, purelycognitive locus. Hence, when we try to imagine attribute bundles and work out themix of qualities they imply we may use CONTAINER schemas into which they are“packed” to facilitate this task. Note that this is a use of spatialized imagery for or-ganizing conceptual form that Lakoff (1987, p. 283ff) mentions1 and that all this isalso at least partly congruent with the devices of conceptual integration in thetheory of “mental spaces” (Fauconnier & Turner 2002).

Megametaphor—Moving to the Fringesof the Victorian Self and Beyond

In literature, one major conceptual task is the inference of deeper layers of mean-ing that—as Werth (1994, 1999), Kövecses (1994) and others have demon-strated—may result from dispersed metaphoric cues, which only take effect cumu-latively and across phrases or even passages. Following Werth, effects of thesekinds are called “megametaphor” or “extended metaphor,” although Turner (1996)speaks of “parable” with much the same thing in mind: The story structure as a

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FIGURE 2 The full iconographic frame of reference (i.e., a plot-gene loaded with bundledattributes).

1That “meta”-image schemas help organize conceptual material is a hypothesis exemplified byLakoff with regard to categorizing, feature bundles, and event structure. Kimmel (2002, chapter 8) il-lustrates further conceptual functions of such image schemas.

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whole carries added meaning to “what happens” at any point. However, what thisemergent layer of meaning is and which target domain the subtle and recurrentcues point to is, as a rule, not spelled out explicitly. Megametaphors must be in-ferred from textual innuendo and by invoking a wholly implicit backdrop of cul-tural knowledge. But how does the “right” knowledge domain get recruited for in-terpreting the incoming hints? What guides the reader’s search for relevantbackground models? In this section I aim to show that image-schematic represen-tations of the plot may play a decisive role in this process.

Conrad’sarguablystrongestmegametaphor implies the self asahidden theme(ortarget domain). It has been often noted that Heart of Darkness evokes not only a lit-eral journey into the Congo but a metaphorical journey of Marlow’s self between therealms of naïveté and “dark” experience. The profound impact that the novel leftwith its Victorian audience can be understood only because it grasped the physical asmetaphysical when the plot likens the journey into an unknown space full of irratio-nal horrors to an incursion into a terra incognita of the psyche, the displaced, dan-gerous reaches of the human soul. When we interpret the journey as a probing intoarchaic realmsof theself, this reading isput together fromasetofconventionalmeta-phors, notably “INITIATION/SELF-DISCOVERY IS A JOURNEY (OR PATH).” Itmakessense, therefore, togo looking insomedetail for topologicalcorrespondencesbetween the journey–plot andconventionalmetaphorsof thespatializedandembod-ied self. What we know about English self-metaphors allows a motivated conjectureas to what reinforces the theme of a psychic journey.

As my analysis will show, the megametaphor in question in fact draws on sev-eral conventional metaphors of the self and, with a unique creative twist, ties themtogether in a single mental scenario. I call these metaphors (a) the axially-aligned(centered) self, (b) the security space self, (c) the epistemic space self, (d) the con-tained self, and (e) the essential self, and will now discuss them one by one.

As Marlow moves down the river he discovers previously unknown and “farout” parts of himself. This aspect of megametaphor invokes a conventional meta-phor of self as an object that is either centered in its canonical axis or not. Follow-ing Lakoff and Johnson’s (1999, p. 274–284) analysis of the “locational self” Eng-lish speakers assume that two imagined entities, “Self” and “Subject,” must be inthe same place in a sane person. In this model “there are two dual metaphors forself-control—being in possession of the Self and being located where the Self is.”(p. 275). Without going into the differences, the loss of self-control is imagined asa fixed landmark region and a trajector shifting inside it, moving to its periphery orbeyond (see Figure 3).

The more typical way in which Heart of Darkness implies self-loss is that theself moves away from its canonical state. We may speak of an axially-aligned orcentered self. An imaginary axial anchor point, a so-called origo, is tangible in“We could not understand, because we were too far and could not remember” (p.

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62) and in “till I had gone so far that I don’t know how I’ll ever get back” (p. 92). Inone case loss of memory indicates self-loss, in the other loss of autonomy indicatesself-loss. Both these aspects are understood as structured by a deictic origo andpoint to a shared metaphor “LOSS OF SELF IS DISTANCE FROM THE ORIGO.”

The locational aspect of the self is further elaborated in what I call the securityspace self. In this embodied model the self is imagined as a space with a point oforigin where we feel safe and “at home” or “grounded,” because we control it(Varela, Thompson, & Rosch, 1991). In the novel, the model’s metaphoric entail-ment “EMOTIONAL FORLORNNESS IS DISTANCE FROM ORIGO” is mostproductive. What is called the “Heart of Darkness”—as location and psychicstate—is maximally distant from this center of self-security.

Third, Marlow’s probing journey discloses hidden kinds of knowledge to him,as he extends his understanding of himself. This points to the folk-model of theepistemic space self rooted in the experience that something familiar is typicallyclose to the subject’s viewpoint or origo (and that what lies beyond may inspirefear, but also curiosity). The conventional epistemic metaphors of “KNOWING ISGRASPING” and “KNOWING IS SEEING” may inherently relate to the self,(again insofar as we understand it as an embodied space we control). This in turndovetails naturally with the previously mentioned conventional metaphor “INITI-ATION/SELF-DISCOVERY IS A JOURNEY,” which is also of epistemic natureand assumes an origo that marks the state we begin in. Against this backdrop,Conrad plays on the idea that, even if the core self may be familiar, its outer limitselude our knowledge. Many “civilized” people find it difficult to imagine the ex-treme states of mind of which they are capable of and hesitate to identify their“core” self with extreme behavior. Conrad here anticipates the Freudian metaphorof “displacement,” that is, the shunting of what clashes with the ideal self to the un-known periphery (or depths) of our imagined self. In seeking knowledge, Kurtzand Marlow’s move into an initiate’s epistemic realm set off from the canonicalVictorian self, a space the good citizens back home have displaced. Beyond thecivilized, the accepted social self lies the realm of the unknown cultural “Other.”When Kurtz and Marlow turn to wilderness to enlarge the epistemic reach of their

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FIGURE 3 (1) The self in its original place, (2) shifting to its boundary, and (3) breaking it.

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personal self, they venture beyond this boundary. Thus, Conrad encourages us toimagine that something lurks beyond the boundaries of the perceived self that stillbelongs to it and, more generally, to assume a global epistemic space (of still un-known size) where different selves are allocated at different axial coordinates, sothat a change of experience involves a passage from one to the other.

A fourth and closely related conventional metaphor is the contained self:Kurtz has gone “beyond permitted aspirations” and Marlow, after him, exploresthis liminal zone, but returns. The zone between Outer and Inner Station acts asa BARRIER, as the jungle exerts intensified COUNTERFORCE. This evokesmetaphors of morality that have some bearing on the self. The spatially con-ceived outer skin of the locational self directly maps onto the metaphor of moral“barriers” that characterize immorality as straying, losing the way, or willfullytaking forbidden paths (Johnson, 1993, p. 44; Lakoff & Johnson, 1999, p. 304).This FORCE-aspect of morality as a bounded and controlled movement maymetaphorically overlap with the force of reason that keeps emotions in check. Ofemotion and rationality—apparently both aspects of the self—one is usuallythought of as a FORCE AGONIST vying with an ANTAGONIST (Kövecses,2000). Putting all these aspects together, the implication is that there is aTRANSGRESSION of the barrier. Although it leads to knowledge, the paradox-ical side of what Marlow is telling the reader is that the truth of Inner Africa,having shattered the once enlightened Kurtz, should be kept from the naïve citi-zens of the motherland, especially from women like Kurtz’s fiancée.

Although Conrad eschews any straightforward moral evaluation of the ex-tended self’s disclosure—only attained by transgressing moral boundaries—it ismade explicit that Marlow progresses to a state of “deeper” knowledge. Here wefind a final conventional metaphor, which Lakoff and Johnson (1999) discuss asthe essential self. Unlike the apparent self “it is our Essence that, ideally, shoulddetermine our natural behavior” (p. 282). Although our “true” or “real” self iscompatible with our essence, our superficial self, which is conceptualized eitheras a not genuine person or as the container the “real” self hides in, is not. Heartof Darkness lends a new and powerful twist to this standard folk model. Accord-ing to Marlow’s metaphysics, deeper human nature, archaic and hidden fromconsciousness as it is, lies far from the canonical vantage point at the hazyfringes. His model asks the seeker of true self-knowledge to move out of a civi-lized and into an archaic self. The element of irony in this is that the peripheryfrom the Victorian Eurocentric viewpoint is also the space of greater essence, asAfrica brings out the deep and inner self. This irony contrasts two metaphoricalviewpoints, namely “ESSENTIAL IS CENTRAL” (Europe) and “ESSENTIAL ISDEEP” (Africa).

It would seem that Heart of Darkness mixes conventional metaphors to narratemultiple facets of Marlow’s becoming self, a self-disguised-as-journey. What is

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striking is that these metaphors can be collapsed into a single scenario-like gestalt.To capture this amalgamation, we may superimpose the image-schematic elementsof our self-metaphors on those in the image-schematic plot-gene (the event skeletonof the story consisting of PATH, BARRIER, PENETRATION, etc.). Note how, bygrafting the axially centered (or sane, Superego) self and the de-centered (or archaic,Id) self on the plot-gene, the emergent structure of Conrad’s self-model crystallizes.What emerges is a larger epistemic space of possible selves organized by an AXIALORIGO schema, in which two CONTAINER-realms with a moral BARRIER be-tween them are imagined, one of which connotes security, the other deeper essenceand truth (see Figure 4). When the self-metaphors join to form the megametaphorthey specify a new construal of the plot-gene so as to let us grasp the strikingly newview of the self that Conrad intimates.

To conclude, I have tried to show how implicit cultural knowledge may bemapped onto story structure for disclosing a deeper layer of meaning. Readers mayrecruit (and mix) conventional metaphors of the self for interpreting story symbol-ism because these allow an effortless mapping onto topological features of theevent structure, which the plot-gene encodes. This megametaphorical process fur-nishes robust support for the image-schematic nature of macrostructures, for anynonimagistic view will have difficulty explaining why a plot about penetration intounknown territory can make us think of an inner psychic process.

Focalizing in the Megametaphor

A macrostructural plot-gene made of various topological elements also allows fordiffering construals, that is, for the purposive profiling of particular image schemas(Langacker, 1987) or shifting between them (Palmer, 1996; Holmqvist &Holšanová, 1997). What an audience chooses as a psychologically virulent themewill also depend on cultural and historical factors, which create focal zones of im-agery in a wider plot-gene. As Harrell (1982) argues, Heart of Darkness owed its

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FIGURE 4 Conrad’s axial self-model of an extended epistemic self-space, in which a con-ceptual movement away from security and familiarity to more essential, yet archaic knowledgetakes place.

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great success to the fact that it reflects an overarching preoccupation of Conrad’scontemporaries with the maintenance of boundaries; especially those of race, na-tion, class, community, family, church, and gender. Conrad struck a cultural chordwith virtuosity, namely the fear of the “Other” and the perceived necessity, espe-cially of European upper- and middle-class men, to remain distinct and superior.Late Victorianism was characterized by emerging class conflicts, by social bound-aries coming under attack, and by the relation to the colonies being questioned:“The sense of being within a social and personal boundary of righteousness sup-ports the pride (ethnocentrism) that permits the association of material wealth withpersonal grace and civilization.” (Harell, 1982, p. 232). We may assume that, be-cause the sociocognitive context led to a preoccupation with self-containment andwith stigmatizing transgressions, Victorian readers tended to be stirred by theboundary aspect of the riverboat journey. In the imagistic macrostructure of thenovel they foregrounded the boundary zone and barrier and gave it a high psycho-logical loading.

More generally, insofar as literature enhances pre-existing folk models, themost potent metaphors of a text cast a spotlight on their time-bound cognitive“problem zones”. This is supported by Harrell’s (1982) comparative study of pub-lic response to Heart of Darkness, published 1899/1902, with response toCoppola’s 1979 film-adaptation Apocalypse Now, which is set in the Vietnam war.Although the notion of the self as a bounded space continues to be constitutive inthe late 20th century, the distinctive self-related anxieties of the Victorian age nolonger happen to be so virulent. The strongly normative definition of the sane selfhas lost in power, as has fear of degeneration, the human passions are socially moreaccepted, racial and gender boundaries somewhat more permeable, and moralself-restraint is neither a class habitus in modern capitalism, nor a psychologicalprecondition or justification of neo-imperialism. Today, the same plot is probablyconstrued without the boundary aspect relating to the self as strongly, and trans-gression will not create the same dynamics of fear and fascination.

Viewpoint Inversion and Irony

Imagery also supports less tangible thematic undercurrents in literature like ironyor ambiguity. This, I claim, relates to the reader’s ability to dynamically monitormatches or mismatches between image schemas across a text. An illustration inHeart of Darkness is the overarching mood of ambivalence that suffuses Marlow’sexperience in many ways and stretches through different metaphorized themes(e.g., captivation, domination, madness, self-loss, irrationality, eroticism).

This general pattern lends itself to an imagistic organization. What I suggest issimilar to the iconographic reference frame of UP–DOWN with an evaluativefunction that Hawkins describes for Nazi ideology (see previous). However, am-bivalence or irony needs more than a simple reference frame, it requires activating

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two simultaneously. The general idea is outlined by Turner (1996, p. 64–67), whenhe speaks of an “ironic tension between the image schemas” of UP–DOWN and byWerth’s (1999, chapter 11) similar treatment of two clashing UP–DOWN scales.More precisely, what we have here is known as an axiological schema (Krzes-zowski, 1993), albeit of a duplex sort. According to “axiological parameter hy-pothesis” qualitative attributes are encoded as a SCALE schema, so that pairingssuch as strong and weak, much and little, or passive and active appear as positionson a scale of quantity, strength, speed, etc. This scale is usually evaluative in thatone pole is canonically defined as good or desirable, the other as bad or less desir-able. Given that evaluative dimensions are indeed represented as SCALE schemas,what I propose is that the various metaphors of ambivalence in Conrad’s novelbuild up a systematic reference frame of ambiguity that superimposes two axiolog-ical schemas, one of which is the inversion of the other. For setting up a double-axiology of this sort, the reader is led to perform a cognitive operation of coalign-ing two SCALE image schemes that represent thematically related but evaluativelyopposed pieces of knowledge (see Figure 5). This cognitive effect belongs to amore general kind, which forces us to integrate incompatible viewpoints either in astatic image of tension or dynamically oscillating images. I have earlier called thisa “gestalt switch” (Kimmel, 2002, p. 474–480), a flipping image in the mind.

A double axiology and the possibility of a gestalt switch means that values thereader is initially sure of can flip into their opposite, perhaps to unmask a preten-sion. For example, the metaphor of a torch as enlightenment can turn into the meta-phor of fire as an unbridled passion. Or, the vision of woman as pure object of ven-eration can flip into an image of woman as an object of lust. We have here not onebut numerous ambiguity relations reinforcing each other by virtue of the same un-derlying double axiology. This allows mapping ambiguities of light–dark on thedominating–being dominated or other individual dimensions, so that as entire plotthe numerous homologies give rise to a general mood. Raising Krzeszowski’s no-tion of axiology to a higher level, they engender a true macrostructural schema.

Ambiguity is not only palpably present in evaluative dilemmas. Aperspectival switch on what “drives” the event with a similar pattern is just asstrongly invited. Kurtz’s resolve to penetrate flips into a sense of venturing too

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FIGURE 5 Iconographic reference frame for irony or ambiguity effects (coaligned SCALEschemas with inverted UP–DOWN orientation).

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far; his African experience has promised control, but then by revealing hiddenfacets of self control is utterly lost. From the point of view of image-schematicconstruals, note how the former viewing arrangement (Langacker, 1987) on theplot construes action as internally driven, the other as externally driven: ThePENETRATION perspective expresses an adventuring spirit in which the actoris self-impelled, while his goal, Africa, remains passive. (Moving outwards inpursuit of knowledge and colonial expansion is essentially seen as desirablehere.) The TRANSGRESSION perspective implies the reverse. Here the actor ispassively drawn out of his sphere and pulled into another by being subject to theFORCE of passion, by the actively beckoning allure of Africa and its overpow-ering sensuality, and against a rational FORCE ANTAGONIST that could holdhim back. (Moving into the unknown is seen as harmful here, as it entails alien-ation by “going too far.”) Thus, PENETRATION becomes TRANSGRESSIONthe moment the controlling force is no longer perceived as one’s own, but that ofthe wilderness. This ambivalence about which viewpoint he prefers seems unre-solved in Marlow’s account until the end.

In the sense that we are asked to imagine the opposing FORCE construals si-multaneously (or switch from one to the other) this effect is similar to the earlierdiscussed ambiguity based on opposing SCALE axiologies. More generally, litera-ture may encode ironic tropes—here meant to include moods such as ambiguity orlogical tensions—both (a) by superimposing two inverted axiologies and (b) bywandering back and forth between a particular viewing arrangement and its inver-sion, for example two kinds of intentionality-defining forces.

Affect Contours and Story Mood

We may generally presume that story textures include memory pegs of the respec-tive emotional values of a stage in the plot (cf. Martindale & West, 2002). Thus, au-diences may retain the affective imprint of what happened—climax, denouement,happy end, unhappy end, etc.—better than many details. This “mood-track” of astory involves image-schematic cognition to the extent that image schemas arepartly embodied, and emotions or moods conversely activate embodied states, in-cluding image schemas. More specifically, the topology of narrated events mayevoke so-called “vitality affect contours” (Johnson, 1999, p. 92). Vitality affectcontours are what we perceive over time in our bodily reaction to basic experi-ences, such as “the felt quality of anger or fear—the ’rush’ of fear, the ’crescendo’of anger that leads to an angry ’outburst,’ the ’fading away’ of one’s joyful exuber-ance,” which are image-schematic. Although Johnson’s examples involve rathershort emotion scenarios, extended events may be said to possess a similar kind ofaffect dynamic, so his analysis can be applied to narratology. Here, an affectivecontour would saturate a topological image of event-structure with a particularemotion or a blend of emotions with embodied imagery.

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In Heart of Darkness we can detect such a “mood topology” in Marlow’s gradu-ally mounting anxiety. As the riverboat journey draws toward the confrontationwith Kurtz, the accumulating events builds up emotional tension: First, there is ee-riness and diffuse fear (p. 68), then hunger (p. 71), the danger of riverbanks (p. 72),which then culminate in an arrow attack (p. 75) and the death of a crew member (p.77). The increasing velocity and inner tension signals that we are approaching aclimactic turning point. A related source of an affect contour over time is a sense ofstillness, mourning and death, interrupted by frenzy at some critical points. Thisundercurrent of death intensifies as the riverboat journey progresses, culminatingwith the attack on the boat and the slaughterhouse scenery at Kurtz’s camp, andmore subtly casting its shadow over the entire return to the “sepulchral city” andthe Intended (Kurtz’s fiancée). In the final scene, when Marlow enters the In-tended’s house this mood is at its apogee, when the piano is likened to a sombersarcophagus (p. 118) and darkness rises (“The room was growing darker,” p. 120),yet this is only the culmination point of a continuous extended metaphor forebod-ing death. It begins with victims of Africa mentioned early on, leads up to Kurtz’sdeath and then turns into mourning not only over him but, as it were, Marlow’s ownspiritual death as well.

A particularly complex affect contour, apparently rather continuous thanchanging, emerges from effects of embodied synaesthesia (although I leave itopen to what extent these are image schemas in the strict sense). Conrad asks usno less than to imagine sensorial opposites as intertwined metaphysically butalso as blended in our imagery of the actual scenes. First, Conrad unites stillnesswith force, for example in “this stillness of life did not in the least resemble apeace” (p. 60) or “the forest is in grief, but may vent its feelings as violence anytime” (p. 73). Attributes such as “dim,” “hazy,” “muffled,” “flickering,” “som-bre,” “glittering,” “throbbing,” or “faint” are omnipresent and suggest subliminalsensations or a hidden presence. Second, Conrad consistently infuses light withdarkness or the inverse. These images evoke strong counterpoints: light glittersthrough the darkness, fire contrasts with the dark, a gesture “seemed to beckonwith a dishonoring flourish before the sunlit face of the land a treacherous ap-peal to the lurking death, to the hidden evil, to the profound darkness of itsheart.” (p. 58). He also blends light with a “dark” and death-saturated mood as in“whited sepulchre” (p. 24, p.114). All these textual cues give the entire novel aquite unique sensorial character that may be simulated in the reader’s mind; italso produces an affect contour of sustained or rising tension between opposites,arousal and preactivation (cf. Burke, forthcoming 2005).

Summing up, claim that space logic may act as a structuring device for thechanging moods of a story, especially in the light of what was said about attrib-ute bundles as collection of entities and their distribution on a time path earlier.Consider by analogy linguistic findings about how English speakers metaphori-cally conceive of arguments (i.e., events) and ideas (i.e., parts of these events). It

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seems reasonable to assume that a similar spatial organization applies to affec-tive imagery. Just as individual “IDEAS ARE LOCATIONS ON A PATH” of ar-gument, the mood connected with one story passage can be understood as lo-cated in a particular CONTAINER-like space, and several such locations can beseen as aligned on the overall PATH of the event.

Polyvalence and the Connection of Multiple Meanings

Image schemas play a key role in allowing multiple readings of the novel, perhapseven by the same person. This feature, often termed “polyvalence,” is recognizedas inherent to literature (Schmidt, 1980). Heart of Darkness supports a wide rangeof interpretations, including a critique of colonialism and racism, its apology, andfeminist, Freudian, and metaphysical perspectives. All of these readings appearvalid in their own right but they may also be understood as different “layers” thenovel lets resonate simultaneously or interweaves.

A level that stands out rather at once is Conrad’s outcry against the excesses inthe Belgian Congo, despite recent charges regarding Eurocentrism (Achebe,1989). A layer deeper we get a depth-psychological reading of the colonial en-counter, if only from the Europeans’ point of view. Along an axis merging the po-litical and psychological, the novel can be read as an analysis of Victorian cultureand its hidden anxieties that are symbolically loaded on a constructed “Other”. The“Other,” a notion inspired by Foucault and applied in Said’s seminal work Orien-talism (1978) to the mystification of the Orient, expresses the problematic ambiva-lence of a widespread European mindset. Although Said in fact blacklists Conradamong the exponents of a colonialist mindset in liberal garb, Conrad rather appearsas Said’s harbinger once we see him as speaking about and not through Marlow’sambivalence: Conrad’s trope of penetration-turning-into-transgression ingenious-ly plays on the double-edged nature of 19th century imperialism. Althoughexplorative penetration into the “Dark Continent” and its domination is the mis-sionary imperative of the age, this carries within itself the seed of alienation andself-loss, by dissolving in or by being overpowered by the penetrated unknown.

With the immediate political implications stripped away, Heart of Darknessyields a profound view on the self and culture, as is confirmed by Mazlish’s (1993)study of other Victorian Africa novels. It plays on archaic fears of identity loss,couched in metaphors of getting lost at the periphery, going over a perimeter (ofone’s culture), and being engulfed by the enormity of the dark and unknown.

In a feminist (and depth-psychological) reading, the Dark Continent evokes thefemale archetype and the ambivalent feelings associated with it. It is seductive yetincomprehensible, dazzling yet abysmal, of powerful attraction yet alienating,dominated yet dominating. Image schemas of PENETRATION, BARRIER,ENGULFMENT, as well as APART stand out here. The theme of boundaries in-dexes gender relations, notably because women have the power to “guard the

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door of Darkness” (p. 26) and thus presumably preside over male initiation.PENETRATION plays a key role in conquering the wilderness, yet, seen in thelight of the Victorian sexual anxieties and the fear of a female “Other,” its flipsideappears immediately when, as a consequence of venturing too far (TRANS-GRESSION), an image of physical ENGULFMENT is conjured up. Althoughmen attempt to control and to know through penetration, they end up finding them-selves swallowed and dominated, notably via strong sensual impressions. Femalesensuality is equated with the Dark Continent. Both rouse male anxieties of beingengulfed by the dominated object, which is their source of fascination, greed, andlust. Typical of this fear is that the self-impelled FORCE of curiosity and lust turnsinto being sucked into something as a passive object. Note, finally, how Marlow istorn apart between his veneration for and his uneasiness about women in the posi-tion of knowledge and power. His worship turns into a spatial logic of distancing.Marlow’s decision to keep the truth from Kurtz’s fiancée “imposes on her a patriar-chal ideology of separate spheres, a female world of illusion (‘too beautiful alto-gether’) and a male world of truth (“too dark altogether”; Hampson, 1995, p.xxxvi–vii). This reflects the cultural imperative to hold the male and the femalespheres APART—arguably also an image schema—along with the genderedforms of knowledge.

From a perspective of Freudian psychodynamics, Kurtz has upset the balancebetween Id, Superego, and Ego. He has sacrificed his Ego for looking into his Id,and not returned to recover sanity. In a wider metaphysical view, the novel’s themeis the irruption of the archaic in the human soul. General features of initiation ritesare referred to, including elements of fear, hazing, and terror and with this an ar-chetype of mythical narrative that Martindale and West (2002) call the “night jour-ney”. In it appears the universal structure of rites of passage, symbolic death, andrebirth into a new identity. (From one viewpoint, we might say that when Kurtzdies after having confronted his deeper nature, Marlow is reborn in his stead.)Turning to the imagery underlying these topoi, note in particular how aptly aPENETRATION/TRANSGRESSION plot locks into conventional metaphors ofinitiation into dangerous, yet original knowledge. Here, a probably near-universalmetaphor is “GAINING KNOWLEDGE IS PENETRATING AN IN-SPACE” (aninner sanctum or separate, marked precinct). This is, in turn, compatible with thesexual meaning of initiation by penetrating and, partly, with the path structure of“INITIATION IS A JOURNEY.” Such imagistic parallels between a penetrative(“male”) style of exploration or seeking knowledge and sexual penetration havebeen variously pointed out in feminist epistemology (Keller, 1985).

Let us stop here and consider the theoretical implications of some of this copi-ous material. The fact that so many layers of meaning can be inferred sits well withthe familiar hypothesis of structuralism that simple spatial grids organize multiplemeanings as analogs to each other (e.g., Lévi-Strauss, 1963). Reflecting this, thepolyvalence of megametaphor in narrative may issue from the fact that image

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schemas can be invested with multiple meanings. For example, a BARRIERschema evokes social, gender, and racial anxieties simultaneously in the Victorianpsychosocial mindset. Or, a PENETRATION into uncharted lands is at the sametime one into the male archaic soul and one into a realm of passion (i.e., the femalearchetype). In each case the various concrete interpretations are variations of thetheme of the “Other,” a theme whose core is seemingly image-schematic.

Similarly, multiple meanings are supported by the image-schematic structuralelement of AXIAL DE-CENTERING or DISPLACEMENT FROM AN ORIGO.The use of image schemas here is such that the novel’s political dimension be-comes simultaneously psychological, a device used to epitomize the Europeandilemma of maintaining the self-conceit as “torchbearers of enlightenment” and“pride of creation” and at the same time viciously exploiting the colonies. Theneed for contempt of, and therefore of remaining APART from the “animalOther” stems from the subconscious fear of irruption of Africa into one’s self,and by extension perhaps of all that is not British middle class or male; and itstems from the hypocrisy of an imperialist economy in a Christian disguise. Thenovel’s metaphoric ingenuity lies in the fact that Conrad puts his finger on atwofold Victorian self-delusion in one quasi-spatial formula of APARTNESS:Best that the center should not know what the outer reaches are really up to—inVictorian colonial politics as in the Victorian soul. Both readings include dis-tancing, because the bad faith of capitalism’s geographically “externalized” so-cial conflicts stirs up cognitive dissonances that are also “displaced” from aware-ness. It is against the reader’s background knowledge of such psychosocialconditions, that the novel can merge political critique and depth-psychologicalanalysis within a CENTER–PERIPHERY logic.

The general upshot is that an image-schematic gestalt can underlie a literal andmetaphoric meaning alike, or even several parallel metaphoric readings (andthereby produce a sense of integration between them). By consequence, a novelmay give rise to a densely interwoven fabric of symbolic meaning as long as thevarious readings use similar source-domain image-schemas and have their originin a shared event scenario, that is, if they refer to the same plot-gene. By fusingthese symbolic layers into a single mental gestalt and perceiving them as interre-lated expert readers presumably derive much enjoyment from the polyvalencegood literature affords.

Novel Inference Through Compound Imageryfrom Metaphor Networks

Finally, imagistic macrostructures open an attractive new view on whence the cre-ative surplus of literature originates, the kind of emergent meaning that takes agood novel beyond cultural givens. As Lakoff and Turner (1989) observe, poeticmetaphors are frequently but an artful elaboration of everyday metaphors. How-ever, our novel gains its power precisely because it not only remanifests many con-

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ventional metaphors but because it produces emergent literary qualities of a highlycreative kind. So, what is it that happens when literature harnesses conventionalmetaphors together?

As an illustration, let us pick up the previous discussion of the megametaphorthat presents the riverboat journey as a journey into the archaic self. I have arguedhow a reading of the plot structure that interprets it as metaphorical at a global levelpoints to Conrad’s creation of an idiosyncratic vision of the self by combining con-ventional elements from English folk models. Recall that readers are led to assem-ble conventional metaphors into a logically coherent topology, as follows: Thebasis is the “locational self,” a bounded space, which naturally accommodatesthe additional two features of a security-defining origo and an epistemic radius ofcontrol. The novel develops this into an extended space of possible selves we canmove between. Specifically, the space of possible selves opposes a security spacesituated at the center and a remote space filled with essence and knowledge. Amoral or rational barrier sits between these two self-spaces. Further elements arethe metaphors of curiosity and knowledge seeking as a driving force and ofespistemic attraction as a pull force; they fuel the movement between the spacesand account for how Kurtz and Marlow overcome the barrier for purposes ofself-enlargement.

My present cognitive claim elaborates on all this: The inferential power of ourmetaphor network lies in enabling the reader to mentally simulate the mutual inter-action of these image-schematic elements (and their attribute values). It wouldthus at first appear that when the various contributing image-schematic metaphorsare superimposed the result is an image-schematic compound. Yet, this larger ges-talt, as all gestalts, is more than a sum of its constituent parts, because relationalfeatures come into play. These relational features of the metaphor network are themeans whereby an idiosyncratic artistic vision and a deeper psychological impactare achieved. Quite simply, it is only by imagining the individual metaphoric fea-tures in their dynamic interaction that we become able to construct the impliedmodel of an archaic self lying in a remote and yet uncharted space beyond theknown self. And only through image-schema interaction we come to experiencethe gradual growth of distance from the center as self-loss. Thus, Conrad’s com-plex treatment of the eternal mystery of the “Other,” its mixed terror and fascina-tion and its psychological power, emerges by dynamizing imagery features inshifts of spatial proximity. A similar relational analysis could be applied to ambi-guity effects that require considering forces such as drive, attraction, and counter-force as acting simultaneously or about the implied copresence of entire meta-phoric fields of inference (e.g., light–dark) and their relationality.

Hence, the emergent creative surplus, indeed the power of the novel as acomplex narrative trope, is engendered by the interaction of image-schemas. Onetheoretical upshot here is, of course, that a merely additive characterization ofmetaphor interaction in literature remains incomplete, and probably elsewheretoo. Emergent structure arising from the interaction of conceptual inputs (cf.

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Fauconnier & Turner, 2002) seems to be particularly essential for a symbolistnovel operating in an associative mode.

NARRATOLOGY IN A NEW KEY:THE SKETCHPAD MODEL

In conclusion, my case study vindicates a strong role for image schemas in or-ganizing narrative plot. In a synopsis, the following memory-, emotion-, infer-ence-, and interpretation-related aspects of Heart of Darkness seem relate to im-age-schematic cognition:

1. At a basic level, the macrostructure of the story-event unifies by superimposi-tion the image schemas CONTAINER, IN–OUT, PATH, CENTER–PERIPHERY,BARRIER (i.e., COUNTERFORCE), FORCE ATTRACTION, FORCE DRIVE,and perhaps ENGULFMENT and RETRIBUTIVE FORCE into a compound mne-monic. I have called the resulting gestalt a “plot-gene”; it can become a basis for fur-ther specification, such as by accommodating switching viewpoints between theforce-related construal PENETRATION and its flipside, TRANSGRESSION.

2. The image-schematic affinities between the source domains of several meta-phors may forge together their wider metaphorical meanings into a symbolic net-work. Similarly, attribute bundles compress and mix qualities in single imaginaryCONTAINER-like locus, such as “wilderness”.

3. The multiple qualities predicated onto the symbolic spaces such as “civiliza-tion” and “wilderness” are organized by other image-schematic metaphors respon-sible for the event texture (e.g., PATH, IN-SPACE/OUT-SPACE); this is called aniconographic reference frame.

4. A megametaphor framing Marlow’s quest as PATH-like psychic journeyemploys image schemas to map the story’s event structure onto the implicit targetdomain of the self (in fact a composite of conventional self-models).

5. Focalizing, for example on the BARRIER’s transition, highlights cultural dis-coursefocior individualsensitivitieswithin thewider fieldofconnectedmetaphors.

6. Systematically recurring irony or ambiguity effects are structured by doubleaxiologies, which align two SCALES with inverted UP–DOWN orientation.

7. The flow of mood inheres in partly image-schematic vitality affect contoursof the event structure, such as the gradual build-up of tension.

8. Image schemas compress various metaphorical referents into one (e.g.,gender, race, class, evoking a common BARRIER schema), and thereby supportmultiple readings.

9. Emergent esthetic effects and inferences, which transcend what the givenconventional metaphors imply, occur when various image-schematic elements aresuperimposed in a unified gestalt so that new relational features are created, for ex-

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ample, Conrad’s megametaphor of the “other” self that emerges as lying beyondthe accepted self.

In sum, my case study demonstrates just how many facets of literature can beshed light on through the assumption that image-schematic compounds assist inthe cognitive organization of macrostructural story models. The reader’s ability tograsp and further interpret plot globally is rooted in the power of dynamic imageschemas to configure gestalts of event texture. From a psychological viewpoint, anapplication of imagery to plot requires a series of assumptions crystallizing in whatI would like to describe by analogy to a sketchpad. Here my model of narrativemacrostructures extends on Baddeley’s (1986) “mental sketchpad” model of work-ing memory. I will now take up this notion to more systematically elaborate onwhat can make image schemas facilitators of plot comprehension.

A Mental Sketchpad for Understanding Plot

Basically, the sketchpad principle sees the act of reading as facilitated by the cre-ation of complex and compound image schemas (cf. Cienki, 1997; Kimmel, forth-coming 2005). These are furthermore dynamic and used by readers to keep track ofor reaccess plot by mentally assembling, monitoring, and transforming gestalt to-pologies. On this view, the on-line comprehension of narrative involves a continu-ous process of text- and context-directed compression, schematization, superim-position, and dynamization of gestalt imagery.

A first feature of the sketchpad is that it acts as a so-called “elaboration site”(Langacker, 1987), that is a frame that spatially configures slots which will eventu-ally accommodate more detailed imagery. Most often, adult readers will start withone or the other default assumption, such as the exposure–complication–resolu-tion structure that European myths have in common (Bartlett, 1932) or knowledgeabout genres such as comedy (Sinding, 2004). This knowledge is stored in a not yethighly specified image that lets the reader expect a dynamic activity, protagonists,change, goals, conflicts, etc. Such a still sketchy representation constitutes an elab-oration site. My present view therefore reduplicates at the story level Langacker’sexplanation of how sentence constituents are superimposed through grammar. Wemay imagine that each scene in a narrative fills a local sketchpad, in which an atfirst tentative “drawing” is outlined in the reader’s mind, with features being addeduntil a fuller (if not always complete) picture appears. As the action moves fromone scene to the next, the larger mental sketchpad begins to resemble a moving pic-ture in the mind, which may however retain traces of previous scenes. Hence, areader trying to achieve a global viewpoint (e.g., to contextualize a new incomingpiece of information) will be able to activate a sketchy representation of the“shape” of the overall story, including its dynamics and its causality.

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A second feature of the sketchpad is its construal dependency, meaning that itlends itself to on-line story understanding as well as recall from memory. Thesketchpad should not be theorized as a priori static, although the term may suggestthis. In on-line comprehension, a sketchpad functions as a medium where readersperform processes of rearrangement, gestalt closure, compression, and variousmodes of dynamization. However, from the perspective of quick memory access,dynamic events may be construed as a summary scanning (Langacker, 1987), thatis, as not extended in phenomenal time to a notable degree. This feature ofconstrual dependency is one reason why I introduced “plot-genes” as a generative,dynamic, and multipurpose structure, a basis for situated uses of various sorts.

Topology-Based Understanding and Reasoning in Narrative

As a psychological model, the mental story sketchpad posits imagistic topologiesto explain how macrostructure arises out of local text structure, how the former isorganized (i.e., parceled and integrated), and how the imagistic topologies are usedfor inference and interpretation. I will now discuss these points in turn.

First of all, how can dynamized image schemas explain the build-up of storymodels? Essentially, image-schematic elements have to be gathered in the sketch-pad to create an increasingly rich representation usually called the story’smacrostructure. Sketchpad elaboration occurs when the reader selects textual mi-cro-cues such as metaphors from a short text span into the reader’s memory buffer,either because of their salience or recurrence. Imagistic bits and pieces that havefound their way into the buffer are then further processed, meshed, and combined.The basic way that meshing occurs is by matching identical and closely related im-age schemas or by superimposing image schemas with topological affinities whichare based on prototypical experiential scenes (cf. Cienki, 1997, p. 7ff), for exam-ple, when an element of transition between spaces (CONTAINERS) is imagined incorrespondence with a basic time line (PATH) and a mover of action (FORCE).2

One—interesting from a methodological standpoint—postulate of this study isthat metaphors do much work for enriching the sketchpad. Ultimately, the role ofmetaphor is another empirically testable (and independent) claim connecting im-agery and local story coherence. It posits that the imagistic cues are a major part ofwhat guides the matching and combination process needed for midlevel and globalstory coherence. Metaphor is not an expendable add-on to prior nonimagistic pro-

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2Many passages in Heart of Darkness support the idea that conceptual meshing is based in textualmeshing, that is, the repeated co-occurrence of an image schema with several others throughout one orseveral paragraphs (cf. Kimmel, n.d.). Of course, where such meshing tends to occur, how global repre-sentations are combined from local ones on the basis of proximity, distribution, and relevance-relatedknowledge (cf. Ligozat & Edwards, 2002), and what the role of context is in guiding this process is theproper subject of future psycholinguistic studies.

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cessing; it constitutes an intrinsic feature of story comprehension, from a tentativesketch to a fully understood plot. Imagery is both used in summarizing macro-structure and present all the way down to the textual base.

My imagistic sketchpad model also addresses the same issue as the event index-ing model by Zwaan, Langston, and Graesser (1995) by asking how the storytracks of temporality, causality, intentionality, space, and emotions are repre-sented. It is conceivable that readers monitor the rough outlines of an event glob-ally as a compound mental topology, hence as a gestalt that makes various trackscommensurate. The sketchpad, being an elaboration site, permits that multiplestory tracks (and their relations) are inscribed into a single topology. For instance,a FORCE image for causality may be combined with CONTAINER images stand-ing for states or locations and FORCE ATTRACTORS/REPELLANTS standingfor intentionality.

The sketchpad model of narrative is one of topology-based reasoning, as ap-plied by psychologists (e.g., Langston, Kramer, & Glenberg, 1998) and cognitivelinguists (Gärdenfors, 2000; Holmqvist & Holšanova, 1997). Extending onBaddeley’s (1986) “mental sketchpad” model of working memory, it is assumedthat text-related pointers are set up in a spatial matrix and that the contiguity be-tween them is used to infer new relations. In our present application to narrative,readers activate imagery lattices to monitor potential information overlaps be-tween text segments, to link metaphors and cultural models into a higher-levelstructure, and to produce novel inference. In other words, readers actively searchfor and mentally simulate matches between imagistic story features they haveread. Glenberg and Robertson (2000) call such imagistic features affordances.Their three-stage model of language comprehension in (local) context offers aninstructive analogy for my more global analysis: First, words and phrases are in-dexed to perceptual or mental objects. These are then scanned for their af-fordances. Finally, the affordances are meshed and combined in a mental simula-tion. For example, the phrase “Art used the chair to propel himself across town”is difficult to simulate, because a combination of chairs and our bodies does notafford that. Although this model describes simple physical events without inter-pretive meaning, my analysis of more elaborate story logic suggests a similarprocess of meshing, perhaps under multiple constraints combining local andglobal plot as well as interpretive meanings emanating from both. In my view,the reader’s interpretative search for meaning is guided by running a trial simu-lation of how well imagistic units produce matches, overlaps, salient clashes orany other kind of interesting inference against the backdrop of domain-relatedknowledge. This is nicely compatible with Barsalou’s (1999) proposal that indi-vidual schemas called simulators can combinatorily and dynamically createmore complex schemas up to almost any level of abstract cognition. An applica-tion of this affordance matching process to a purely symbolic kind of meaning,that is, the interaction of features that are spatial only in a metaphoric sense, has

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been discussed at length with regard to the complex self-megametaphor in Heartof Darkness.

CONCLUSION

The aim of the preceeding analysis was a close textual demonstration of themany ways that image schemas can jointly produce complex constraints for un-derstanding narrative events and for how we attach to them a deeper, symbolicmeaning. Much as structuralist approaches, my view specifies how various lev-els of textual knowledge are matched and interwoven into a symbolic fabric. Atthe same time, it goes beyond structuralism in that it specifies an (empiricallydemonstrable) cognitive format that underpins macrostructural text coherence.Compared to the part of empirical text psychology that still works under a prop-ositional paradigm, the sketchpad model addresses macrostructure with greatersensitivity to several cognitive–esthetic effects. Because imaginative resourcesplay a minor role in the propositional view, it cannot account for the fact thatreading is often an embodied activity, by virtue of kinesthetic source domains ofmetaphors, synaesthesia, or interwoven sensorial attribute qualities. This lastlimitation is especially serious when it comes to understanding particular storymoods, the embodied simulation of emotion, or the role of arousal in reading(Burke, forthcoming 2005; Currie, 1995). In short, the possibility that we per-form simulations of perceptual, introspective, and proprioceptive states whilereading is disregarded wholesale (cf. Barsalou, 1999). By the same token, anyview that does not focus on metaphor or analyzes it without a refined sensitivityto image schemas will miss the connections between imagery andmegametaphor or other global interpretive possibilities of event texture, as wellas inferential constraints rooted in such topological thought.

A related benefit of the sketchpad view is the assumption of format continuitybetween local and global text processing. For one thing, only this allows explain-ing iconic correspondences between form and content (Lakoff & Turner, 1989).On the methodological side, it is useful to analyze story macrostructure as accru-ing from local elements in a process of analog feature reduction, while circumvent-ing some numinous reformatting from metaphorical images to another kind ofhigher-level meaning. Thus, where conceptual metaphor is present, a bottom-upcompositional analysis is possible (at least for heuristic purposes) by distilling re-current image schemas from linguistic metaphors in the text and sketching themout in a composite graph. On top of this, format continuity is an asset for cognitivetheory because imagistic views provide a sounder answer, or an irreducible part ofthe answer, to the symbol grounding problem (cf. Glenberg & Robertson, 2000).

The view outlined here, when properly developed, offers similar notational pos-sibilities as the propositional view (cf. Kintsch, 1998, p. 91f). Minimally, my anal-

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ysis is a sort of existence proof that a bottom-up compositional analysis cannotonly be put into practice by virtue of propositional argument overlap that createsmacropropositions but also by image schema extraction, combination, and recon-figuration that creates macrogestalts.

At the same time, choosing image schemas as focal points for the analysis ofcomplex narrative meaning invites further psycholinguistic operationalization.One step will be to empirically address the general issue of how people create im-age-schematic compounds and to what extent these are cognitively real. A concur-rent step is to test whether stories evoke global contours and if these are used asplot mnemonics in the minds of readers. A current project of mine is dedicated totesting whether (a) readers consistently match simple plots with visual depictionsof image schemas. A planned follow-up will tackle the issue of whether (b) theseassociations really target the macrostructure and (c) are performed on-line. Ofcourse, other claims suggested in this article may be tested as well. This includesthe claims relating to the role of metaphor in the build-up of macrostructure and,independently of this, my general suggestion that image schemas facilitate moodand affect contours, megametaphoric readings, etc. I would therefore like to closeby expressing the hope that my demonstration of the theoretical scope of imageschemas in cognitive, esthetic, and cultural analysis of narrative will lead to a surgeof empirical research.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to thank Wolfram Aichinger, Michael Burke, Geoffrey Edwards, RayGibbs, Veronika Koller, Zoltán Kövecses, Todd Oakley, and Michael Sinding fortheir valuable comments for revision.

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