Heart of Darkness and The Vortex

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Abstract

This article is a comparative study of two renowned novels in relation to an effective rhetorical device, the metaphor. The jungle is one of the topics that Joseph Conrad, in “Heart of Darkness,” and Eustasio Rivera, in “The Vortex,” faithfully depict with a myriad of vivid metaphorical images. Analysed from three different perspectives—conceptual, rhetorical, and grammatical—the metaphor of the jungle offers the audience a rich repertoire of linguistic devices in which both writers excel in their language mastery and involve the reader in a captivating atmosphere. This comparative study thoroughly examines the most meaningful jungle metaphors presented in both novels belonging to two geographically distant, though linguistically linked, novels. The conceptual domains, the different associations, the grammatical forms of the jungle metaphor, and their combination with other rhetorical images stimulate the intensification of the metaphorical enunciation.