Fitzgerald fully depicts social contradiction and class conflicts between them。 As setting of the novel, the house provides stages for characters’ development。 As a centre of the novel, the house is mentioned many times, and the consequence is a reflection。

2。 Literature Review

2。1 Metaphor来自优I尔Q论T文D网WWw.YoueRw.com 加QQ7520~18766

For over 2,000 years, metaphor was studied within the discipline known as rhetoric。 The discipline was first established in ancient Greece, and focused on practical instruction in how to persuade others of a particular point of view by the use of rhetorical devices。 Metaphor was one of these devices, which were called tropes by rhetoricians。 Aristotle is the first person who gives the definition of metaphor。 He declares “metaphor consists in giving the thing a name that belongs to something else, the transference being either from genus to species, or from species to genus, or from species to species, or on the ground of analogy(Edward, 1984: 6-9)。” The study on metaphor is a long process。 Now it has been pided into two main schools。 One school claims metaphor is language aberrance, and plays an important in decorating sentences。 The other asserts metaphor consists in people’s conceptual system。 In addition, it is not only a phenomenon of language, but also a way of thinking。 

George Lakoff and Mark Johnson first proposed Conceptual Metaphor Theory in their 1980 book Metaphor We Lived By, which has been highly influential both within cognitive disciplines like cognitive psychology and anthropology。 Conceptual Metaphor Theory was one of the earliest theoretical frameworks identified as part of the cognitive approach。 The basic premise of Conceptual Metaphor Theory is that metaphor is not simply a stylistic feature of language, but that thought itself is fundamentally metaphorical in nature。 According to this view, conceptual structure is organised according to cross-domain mappings or correspondences between conceptual domains。 Some of these mappings are due to pre-conceptual embodied experiences while others build on these experiences in order to form more complex conceptual structures。 Lakoff and Johnson observed that metaphorical language appears to relate to an underlying metaphor system, a ‘system of though’。 In other words, they noticed that we cannot choose any conceptual domain at random in order to describe relationships (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980:48)。 Metaphor, the authors explain, is a fundamental mechanism of mind, one that allows us to use what we know about our physical and social experience to provide understanding of countless other subjects。 Because such metaphors structure our most basic understanding of our experience。 That is, conceptual metaphor has an experiential basis (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980:3)。 Another important observation made by conceptual metaphor theorists is that conceptual metaphors are unidirectional。 This means that metaphors map structure from a source domain to a source domain to a target domain but not vice versa。 论文网

According to cognitive function of metaphor, Lakoff and Johnson pided metaphor into three kinds: structural metaphor, orientational metaphor and ontological metaphor(Lakoff & Johnson, 1980:20)。 The group of structural metaphors is a conventional metaphor in which one concept is understood and expressed in terms of another structured, sharply defined concept。 LABOR IS A RESOURCE and TIME IS A RESOURCE are examples of a structural metaphor。 Labor and time as metaphor。 Both of these metaphors are culturally grounded in our experience with material resource。 Material resource can be quantified and given a value(Lakoff & Johnson, 1980:14)。 We call these orientational metaphors。 But there is another kind of metaphorical concept, one that does not structure one concept in terms of another but instead organizes a whole system of concepts with respect to one another。 This relationship is normally based on our experiences of the physical space we have。  Examples are: MIND IS UP/ EMOTION IS DOWN。 It is explained that human beings see themselves “over” animals, so control means up and , therefor, also mind。 But there could be another explanation。 Inside the human body, the mind is in the brain, so in the head。 But emotions are said to come from the stomach。 The head is above the stomach (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980:20)。 The last group, the ontological metaphors, are based on the experiences with physical objects。 Those experiences can be identified and categorise those things as entities restricted by a surface。 So we can categorise those things that normally do not have such a boundary by using those entities。 We set up artificial boundaries。 They allow us to refer to, to identify more diffuse aspects of our experiences。 For example, LIFE HAS CHEATED ME。 Life is not humans, but it is given quality of human beings, such as cheating。 In personifying nonhumans as humans, we can begin to understand them a little better(Lakoff & Johnson, 1980:25)。