Abstract

Working within the framework of Lakoff and Johnson’s (1980) model of conceptual metaphor, this paper investigates Ola Rotimi’s use of metaphor to frame the absurdities in the Nigerian society. Previous studies on Ola Rotimi have examined some of his texts from the perspective of the absurd or from literary criticism, but no conscious effort has been made to study the conceptual or cognitive dimensions of the texts. The rhetoric of metaphorization enables him to create new categories, schemata and semantic domains that present the ideology of social disjuncture, exclusion and inclusion in his society. The primary texts are selected plays of Ola Rotimi in which the absurdity in human situations and actions are framed metonymically as the image of the nation. The texts are Holding Talks, Hopes of the Living Dead, and “Our Husband has Gone Mad Again”. The rhetoric of metaphorization provides the resources with which a writer can express their experiences and vision of the semiotic system. Conceptual metaphor provides the frames and schemata through which the reader comprehends the socio-economic and political realities that informed the writer’s rhetoric, and also signifies how language gives rise to meaning among individuals and groups of individuals, and how these meanings are integrated in matters of cooperation and conflict (Chilton, 2004).

Key words: Metaphor, absurdities, rhetoric, frames and schemata, Ola Rotimi.