Monster Metaphors: When Rhetoric Runs Amok

Description

This book explores ways in which common metaphors can play a detrimental role in everyday life; how they can grow in outsized importance to dominate their respective terrains and push out alternative perspectives; and how forms of resistance might act to contain their dominance. The volume begins by unpacking the dynamics of metaphors, their power and influence and the ways in which they are bolstered by other rhetorical devices. Adams draws on four case studies to illustrate their destructive impact when they eclipse other points of view—the metaphor of mental illness; the metaphor of free-flowing markets; the metaphor of the mind as a mirror and the metaphor of men as naturally superior. Taken together, these examples prompt further reflection on the beneficiaries of these "monster metaphors" and how they promote such metaphors to serve their own interests but also on ways forward for challenging their dominance, strategies for preventing their rise and ways of creating space for alternatives. This book will be of interest to scholars interested in the study of metaphor, across such fields as linguistics, rhetoric and media studies. Cover Half Title Series Page Title Page Table of Contents Acknowledgments Chapter 1 Introducing Monster Life Chapter 2 How Metaphors Work Chapter 3 The Holy Trinity: Metaphor, Synecdoche and Metonymy Chapter 4 The Creative Potential of Metaphors Chapter 5 When Metaphors Turn Nasty Chapter 6 Monster 1, Mental Illness Chapter 7 Monster 2, Free-Flowing Markets Chapter 8 Monster 3, The Mirror of Nature Chapter 9 Monster 4, Men as Naturally Superior Chapter 10 Vested Interests Chapter 11 Resisting Monster Dominance Chapter 12 Promoting Monster-Free Environments Chapter 13 Letting Monsters Go Books by the Same Author Index