The Literary Mind

by Mark Turner

  Let us consider a case of personification that shows these complexities of parable as well as some new complexities: Death the Grim Reaper. This per- sonification involves robust impossible blending: The biological cause of death is simultaneously an animate, intentional skeleton who walks, carries a scythe, wears a robe with a cowl, and comes with the goal of killing you in particular. We do not confuse this interesting blend with the input space of death: no one ever actually confuses the Grim Reaper with the biological event of death. But the Grim Reaper blend is usefully connected to its input spaces and helps us think about them.

  What are those input spaces? Here we make the crucial observation that nothing limits blending to only two input spaces. A blend can have as many input spaces as can be mentally juggled. Blending can also be recursive, happening in steps, so that a blend can be an input space to another blend. In the case of the Grim Reaper, there are at least four input spaces. Let us begin with two of them, which have a partial source-target relationship. They are (1) a space with an individual dying human being and (2) a space with reapers in the scenario of

  CREATIVE BLENDS Q. 77

  harvest. We can recruit a conventional metaphor to connect these two spaces, thereby putting them into a source-target relationship. That conventional meta- phor is PEOPLE ARE PLANTS WITH RESPECT TO THE LIFE CYCLE; it underlies everyday expressions like “She's withering away,” “He’s a late bloomer,” and “He's a young sprout.” It guides us in connecting the person in the space of person- death with the plant in the space of reaping. EVENTS ARE ACTIONS guides us in doing more: The action-story of reaping can be projected onto the event-story of death. Dying (an event) can be understood by projection from reaping (an action).

  But there is an additional input space to the Grim Reaper blend that does not stand as source or target to any other input space. This space is the very abstract story of causal tautology. We say Death causes dying, Sleep causes sleep- ing, Hunger causes hungering, Desire causes desiring, Lust causes lusting, Star- vation causes starving, Fire causes things to be on fire, and so on. In the abstract story of causal tautology, events that belong to the same category have the same abstract cause. We saw this causal tautology earlier, in our discussion of Death- in-general as an abstract cause. But we had not yet begun to discuss blending at that point, so we skipped a crucial step there. Let us do it here.

  In the abstract story of causal tautology, all the events in a given category share the same abstract cause. Of course, the abstract story of causal tautology does not stand up scientifically. There are many different individual event-stories of being ill, brought about by many different specific causes. When we blend any one of those specific stories with the abstract story of causal tautology, then, in the resulting blend, the specific event of being ill acquires an abstract cause—- Illness-in-general#which is shared by every other event of being ill. This is such a standard and conventional blend that it is difficult even to recognize that any blending lies behind it. But it is necessary: When we are thinking in medical terms, we can manipulate a space in which a specific illness causes specific bio- logical realities and a specific event of death without rooting that causality in a hypothetical Illness—in—general or a hypothetical Death~in-general; to get the abstract causes, we must use the conventional blends that draw upon the abstract story of causal tautology.

  There are many individual events of human death, brought about by many different causes. Any particular event-story of death may have a particular cause— bone cancer, malaria, starvation, bleeding, stroke, suffocation, injury, and so on. VVhen we blend any one of them with the abstract story of causal tautology, then, in the resulting blend, the specific event of death acquires an abstract cause, Death, shared by every other event of death. VVhen we blend the event-story of Alcestis’s death with the abstract story of causal tautology, then Alcestis’s individual death has an abstract cause: Death-in-general.

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  That blend can then be an input to a second blend in which Death-in- General becomes an actor, not just an abstract cause. We have already seen a partial analysis of how this is done: EVENTS ARE ACTIONS guides us to map an action story of departure onto the event-story of death as caused by Death-in- General, personifying Death—in-General as an agent who enforces that depar- ture. Here we add the observation that the personification of Death as an agent who enforces the departure resides not in the departure story nor in the death story but only in the second blend. We can now see that the story of Alc<:stis’s death is not just a projection of an action-story of departure onto an event-story of death. It is more complicated: it is a two-step blend. The first two inputs are the story of Alcestis’s individual death and the abstract story of causal tautology. The resulting first blend is blended with the action-story of departure to pro- duce a final blend in which Death-in-general is personified as an agent who enforces the departure. The inputs to the second blend are related as source and target.

  The Grim Reaper blend also has a fourth input space, a space containing a prototypical story of a human killer killing a victim. This space stands in partial metaphoric relation to the space of the human death caused by Death-in-General. The Grim Reaper is notjust a reaper and notjust Death-in~general. He also has features of an intentional human killer who comes specifically to kill a specific victim.

  So let us walk through the blending in the case of the Grim Reaper. Blend- ing the individual event-story of a human being dying with the abstract story of causal tautology gives us a blended space in which the individual event of human dying is caused by Death (Death-in-general). This gives us an event-story of an individual human death with an abstract cause. We can blend that storywith two different action stories, guided in each case by EVENTS ARE ACTIONS. The first of these input action stories is the prototypical story of a human killer who comes to kill a human victim. The second of these input action stories is the story of reaping grain. The resulting blend then has an entity that is simultaneously Death-in-general, a killer, and a reaper. The person who dies is simultaneously a human being dying from a specific cause (say, heart disease), a human being dying from an abstract cause (Death), the victim of a killing, and a plant that is harvested.

  The Grim Reaper resides in a blend but cannot reside in any of the input spaces to that blend. The Grim Reaper is not in the input space with the indi- vidual event of human dying, since there are no plants or reapers there. Obvi- ously, he is too specific to reside in the input space of the abstract story of causal tautology. He is also absent from the input story of prototypical killing by a killer, which does not have reapers. He is not in the input space with the story ofreap-

  CREATIVE BLENDS Q. 79

  ing and harvest, either: the stereotype of reapers in the reaping story is incom- patible with features of The Grim Reaper.

  Let us consider some of these incompatibilities. Stereotypical reapers are subject to persuasion and argument. But the blending of the abstract story of causal tautology and the event-story of individual human dying gives a Death that is beyond persuasion. The Grim Reaper is inhuman.

  The individual authority of any actual reaper is unknown: perhaps he takes his orders from others; perhaps he is a slave. But Death has authority that is blended with the reaper to create an absolutely transcendent authority completely incompatible with that of normal reapers.

  Actual reapers are numerous and essentially interchangeable. But Death is conceived of as a single abstract cause, which is projected to the blend, making Death-the-Reaper single and definite. This explains the appropriateness of the definite article: the Grim Reaper.

  Actual reapers are mortal and are replaced by other reapers. But Death is neither. Projecting these features of Death to the blend creates a Death-the Reaper who is immortal: the same Grim Reaper who cut our ancestors down will cut us down.

  Stereotypical reapers are strong, productive, healthy, and attractive. But the killer is destructive, unhealthy, and works on u
s, so the Grim Reaper must be unattractive, or “grim.”

  Stereotypical reapers perform heavy labor for long intervals and wear cloth- ing suitable to these conditions of labor. But the killer acts once only, on the person who dies, so Death-the-Reaper can wear clothing suited to repose; and this clothing can further carry connotations of the killer as grim and isolated.

  Stereotypical reapers use their scythes, but the Grim Reaper is often thought of as doing his work merely by appearing. In that case, there is yet another, minor input space to the blend, in which the herald of death brings death merely by appearing. In the blend, the Grim Reaper has aspects of the reaper and the killer, but his effective action comes from the input story of the herald rather than the input story of the reaper or the killer.

  Stereotypical reapers work in daylight, reaping the entire field indiscrimi- nately, ignorant of the individual existence of plants of wheat, and they harvest rather than kill. But Death and the killer have an entirely different set of mean- ings, so the Grim Reaper comes for a specific person at a specific time, and he kills. He can stalk you like a killer.

  Lakoff and I originally noticed a constraint on personification: We must feel about the personification the way we feel about the event, and the appearance and character of the personification must correspond to the way we feel about the event. As long as we think grimly about the event of death and its cause, we

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  must take a grim view of Death~the—Reaper. We can now see a reason for this constraint: We project to the blend our view of the event, including its cause. In the case of the Grim Reaper, we also project to the blend an action story of kill~ ing consistent with our feelings about the event of death. The reaper in the blend is simultaneously a cause we feel grimly about and a killer we feel grimly about. The Reaper must therefore actually have these features.

  If we look at the linguistic elements involved in referring to Death—the~Grim~ Reaper, we see that the terms reflect the conceptual blending. The definite article “the” comes from the causal tautology, since it picks out a single general cause. The name “Death” comes from the blending of the causal tautology with the individual event of dying. The adjective “Grim” comes from both the space with the prototypical killer and the space with the individual event of human dying. The noun “Reaper” comes from the input space of harvest.

  The Grim Reaper shows us again that combining in the blend is not restricted to counterparts. Reapers and skeletons are not counterparts in the input spaces: PEOPLE ARE PLANTS does not connect them, nor does EvENTs ARE ACTIONS. But Death as a cause is metonymically associated with skeleton as an effect. In the blend, the reaper is combined with both Death and the skeleton. Similarly, priests, monks, mourners, and members of lay brotherhoods that are associated with dying, funerals, burial, and afterlife are metonymically associated with Death. They are not counterparts of Death, but in the blend, the attire we associate with them—robe and cowl—can be the attire of the Grim Reaper. The cowl, pulled over the head of the Grim Reaper, at once evokes both connotations of death and the impression of Death as mysterious, unknown, and set apart from hu~ man society. This cognitive construction of meaning is independent of histori- cal and scientific accuracy: maybe priests, monks, or lay brethren in fact never wore robes with cowls. What matters is only that we know the conceptual asso~ ciation, from any source, including cartoons. Someone who knows that associa~ tion can use it to make sense of the attire of the Grim Reaper.

  The possibility of combining metonymic elements—like Death and a skel- eton—gives blending a great power: The blend can combine elements that con- tribute to the desired effect even though those elements are not counterparts. The combined elements “go together” in evoking the same effect even if they do not “go together” according to the counterpart connections between the input sto- ries. Consider for example the personification of Heroism. Blending a story of heroic behavior with the abstract story of causal tautology yields a blended story in which heroic behavior is caused by an abstract cause, Heroism—in~general. Just as we use EVENTS ARE ACTIONS to personify Death—in~general as a reaper, so we can use it to personify Heroism-in-general as a human actor who causes heroic behavior. Nothing so far requires that this human actor be a hero. Moreover,

  CREATIVE BLENDS Q. 81

  the actor who causes the heroism corresponds to Heroism-in~general, not to any particular hero or kind of hero. However, Heroism-in~general and that causal human actor are indeed both associated with actual heroes. We can therefore pick such an actual hero, or a kind of hero, and use it in the blend to give Hero~ ism-in- general a particular human form: Heroism-in—general can be Galahad or a generic veteran knight of the Round Table or a battle~seasoned samurai or Qleen of the Amazons or or any other heroic person, whether specific or generic. This possibility of combining noncounterparts allows the blend to com~ bine elements for effect even ifthey are not counterparts.

  The Grim Reaper also shows us that when a blend involves a conventional metaphor (like PEOPLE ARE PLANTS), the recruitment of that conventional meta— phor to the blend is partial, selective, and transforming. The conventional blend of the Grim Reaper does not simply recruit the conventional metaphor in which stages in the human cycle of life correspond metaphorically to stages in the plant cycle of life. Instead, the blend takes only a part of that metaphor and alters it to suit its purposes. In the conventional metaphor, the stages of a person’s life cor~ respond to the stages of plant life: Youth is a sprouting or burgeoning; full maturity is full flowering; old age is withering; and the person-death is the final decline and disintegration of the plant or of the relevant part of the plant, such as the flower. But the scenario of harvest interferes with that set of mappings.

  The original analysis George Lakoff and I offered of the Grim Reaper included the observation that “the plants at the end of their life cycle are har- vested.” This inexact characterization came from not yet having discovered blend~ ing and its partial and flexible use of conventional metaphors. Reaping occurs not at the end of the life cycle of a plant, but at the end of its cultivation cycle, which is in the middle of its life cycle. Lakoff and I had recognized this in remarking that the “Gazing Grain” in Emily Dickinson’s poem “Because I could not stop for Death” stands for maturity—it follows “Children” at school (youth) and precedes the “Setting Sun” (old age). There is a fundamental mismatch between the harvesting of the grain and the typical disintegration and death of a plant: The harvesting happens in the middle of the life cycle but the death hap~ pens at the end of the life cycle. There is also a fundamental mismatch between the harvesting of the grain and the dying of the person: Harvesting takes place at a fixed stage in the life cycle of the plant—when it has matured but has not begun to decline—yet death happens at any stage of the human life cycle.

  Because of these mismatches, the conventional metaphoric connections between stages of plant life and stages of human life are ignored in the blend. In the personification of Death the Grim Reaper, it is the event of human dying we are concerned with, and so we require the Grim Reaper to be able to reap at any stage of human life. He can reap his victim in young adulthood, full flower,

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  or old age. The conventional metaphoric connection in PEOPLE ARE PLANTS between the final stage of plant~death (in the declining plant’s life cycle) and the final stage of person~death (in the declining person’s life cycle) is kept o'ut of the blend. Similarly, the fact that reaping takes place only at the middle stage in the plant’s life Cycle is kept out of the blend. In the blend, the stages of hu.man life and the stages of plant life are not fused. Instead in the blend, the moment of harvest is fused with the moment of death, but that moment can occur at any point in the cycle: the Grim Reaper is a bad farmer.

  Interestingly, although in principle blending could make more use of the person-plant correspondence—a painting might portray the Grim Reaper as mowing down a field
of people-as-wheat (there are historical examples of this sort)—in fact the modern conventional blend does not emphasize this connec- tion. The Grim Reaper simply arrives, and his arrival causes the dying. In this way, the Grim Reaper acts not at all like a reaper, but like any herald of death. The person who dies of course does not act like a plant.

  Notjust any specific information from input spaces is likely to be projected to the blended space. Prototypical information that cannot be avoided unexcep- tionably, given the medium of representation, is always likely to appear: In a picture of the blend, the talking donkey would probably have four legs and don— key ears, regardless of the conceptual use of this information in the parable. Much more important, however, the blended space typically includes specific details that serve as cues for projecting to the topic input space. The plough and the millstone in the tale of the ox and the donkey are specific details that do not project as specific details onto the story of Shahrazad. But they are metonymic for generic conditions of servitude and suffering, which do appear in the blend and do ulti- mately project onto the virgins who suffer in the story of Shahrazad. The sifted straw and the well—winnowed barley do not project as specific details onto the story of Shahrazad. But they are metonymic for generic conditions of luxury and comfort, which do appear in the blend and do ultimately project onto Shahrazad’s current situation.

  The varied examples we have considered make it clear that blended spaces are useful for inferential work. VVhen we widen our scope yet further, we find blended spaces not only in literature and everyday linguistic utterances, but also in dreams and in our attempts to make sense of anything new by blending its specific details with structure from something we already know, so as to cate~ gorize it provisionally and act accordingly. The various figural projections we encountered in earlier chapters all reveal blended spaces, once we look for them. Proust’s ouverture to 1? la recherche du tempsperdu, for example, which is a pro~ jection of the spatial onto the mental, works through a fantastic blended space. In that blended space, spatial events of change, including body action, are blended with mental events of memory in strikingly impossible ways. As memories come