The metaphorical representation of depression in short, wordless animation films

Abstract

Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT) claims that human beings can only understand abstract, complex phenomena by metaphorizing them in terms of concrete, more basic phenomena – and do so systematically. Unsurprisingly, therefore, expressing a state of ‘depression’ often draws on metaphors. Such metaphors, however, are not necessarily verbal in nature. In this article, the authors analyse the metaphors used to communicate depression in nine short, wordless animation films. They conclude that these films feature two dominant metaphors: depression is a dark monster and depression is a dark confining space, proposing that these two can be understood as linked on the basis of Lakoff’s ‘duals’ theory discussed in ‘The contemporary theory of metaphor’ (1993). Finally, the authors argue that the medium of animation has affordances for presenting conceptual metaphors that are not available to language. The article will primarily benefit metaphor scholars, since the further development of CMT crucially requires that not only verbal manifestations of conceptual metaphors are examined but also visual and multimodal ones. Moreover, it needs to be established to what extent such metaphors draw on a limited set of embodied source domains, as CMT would predict. The authors hope that their findings will also be relevant to anyone with an interest in the representation of depression.