Abstract

Out Of Africa is considered as an autobiographical novel with a wonderful description of the splendorous Africa and amazing animals. This thesis employs metaphor to analyse the whole text which is different from the former studies. It includes the background of this novel, the explanation of metaphor and its categories，metaphor with the textual coherence, conventional metaphor with the antelope Lulu and the novel metaphor with the lion image.

 Metaphor shapes the stylistic feature of this novel. The title “out of Africa” is a metaphor itself and through the whole novel. It means that Karen has to get rid of the failure in life and the colonialism is doomed to fail in Africa. Meanwhile, the antelope Lulu and lions are also connected with metaphor. The behaviour of the adopted antelope acts like a daughter in human society and the life experience between Lulu and Karen has something alike in culture. They both return to their own culture in the end. Imaginative and creative novel metaphor also plays a role in this novel. Karen’s favour for the little antelope reflects her eager for belonging, while she is such a brave lion to send goods to the front. Her lover Dennis exhibits a noble quality as a noble lion in its interpersonal relationship.

 The whole novel has a meaning of metaphor. Metaphor helps create a white woman character Karen who is as tender as an antelope and as brave as a lion at the same time and a noble British man Dennis as noble as a lion who would sacrifice himself for the sake of his friends.

Key Words:  Out of Africa, metaphor, antelope, lions

Contents

Abstract

中文摘要

Chapter One Introduction-1

1.1 Background infomation about Out Of Africa-1

1.2  Research Question.2

1.3 Research purpose-2

1.3 Thesis Structure-4

Chapter TwoLiterature Review-5

2.1 Overall critics of  Out of Africa-5

2.2  The explanation of metaphor in linguistics.6  

Chapter ThreeConventional Metaphor and Antelope Image in Out of Africa9 

3.1 The similarity in conventional metaphor.9 

3.2  Metaphor with the  antelope Lulu.9

3.2.1  The similarity between Lulu and a daughter-10 

 3.2.2  The similarity between Lulu and Karen Blixen11

Chapter FourNovel Metaphor and Lion Image  in Out of Africa-13

  4.1 The explannation of novel metaphor13

  4.2  Metaphor  with the lion image.14

 4.2.1 The heroine Karen-- a brave lion14

 4.2.2 The hero Dennis--he is a noble lion.15

Chapter Five  Conclusion.17

References-18