Femininity in Dissent by Alison Young

Author:Alison Young [Young, Alison]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781032009889
Google: 7dc8zgEACAAJ
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Group
Published: 2021-09-06T05:07:52+00:00

The Thematics of Metaphor

In Chapter Three of this book, I examined the construction by the press of various themes around the figure of the Greenham protester, identifying five different devices altogether. I want here to show in detail how each of these themes in turn is built upon a metaphorical operation. (To avoid repetition of material in quotation from the press discourse, I will refer only to those which are emblematic of the metaphor under discussion. Reference should be made to Chapter Three in which other excerpts provide further evidence.) The potential threat posed by the Greenham women to the liberal democratic state, the first of these themes, is a major concern for the newspapers. The women are counter-posed to the values of democratic society through a number of moves that seek to establish their violent natures and subversive activities, their contempt for institutions of legality and democracy, their links with communist doctrines and states.

The process of metaphor operates at a number of different levels and in different places within this theme, beginning with the hidden existence of communist sympathisers within a democratic society which is portrayed as open, accessible, above ground, honourable. The hidden danger comes from the presence of a metaphorical envoy from the communist camp: the rat The use of ‘rat’ as a term to describe and convey the sense of someone who learns ‘secrets’ from one society which are then transported to an inimical society, draws upon a juxtaposition and contrast of the values of the ‘rat’ with those of a democracy: instead of openness and honour, we find, darkness, secrecy, untrustworthiness, deceit The action of the metaphor selects (‘this, not that’) from the resources which might be used to describe such a role of spy (‘secret agent’, ‘our man in Havana’, ‘Bond...James Bond’) those facets which construct a direct opposition between the evaluation placed on ‘democracy’ and that placed on ‘communism’. The sense of value produced is ideological, i.e. it does work for our current existing social arrangements. To allege the presence of ‘a dangerous, anti-Western, anti-British “mole”‘ (Daily Express, 20 August 198S) at Greenham, links them (as the mole is an image closely aligned with the rat in its ideological location) through the metaphorical selection of the democratically despised conditions of secrecy and darkness, with values contradictory to those represented as fundamental to British society.

The effects of metaphorical representation can be seen at a general level throughout the press construction of this theme as well as within specific examples such as that of the ‘rat’ and the mole. First, the Greenham protesters are presented as a concrete threat to both the security and freedom of the British state, through their commitment to do away with nuclear weapons. The terms which connote ‘anti-state’ or ‘dangerous’ or ‘violent’ arise out of a substitution which imposes a symbolic terrorism on the Greenham women. This imposed meaning emphasises the ‘anti-government’, ‘anti-authoritarian’ potential which could be read into their aims if the underlying and structuring desire was to censure

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.