A Cognitive Approach to the Metaphors of Postpartum Depression in Elif Shafak’s Black Milk

Abstract

Despite the fact that postpartum depression has been explicitly referred to in Elif Shafak’s novel Black Milk (2007), there are many implicit references to this negative mental state. This paper aims to examine the metaphorical representations which are used to conceptualize the experience of postpartum depression. The study attempts to understand how the experience of postpartum depression is metaphorically constructed and conveyed via the use of conceptual metaphors. This study differs from previous studies which examined Shafak’s Black Milk; the current study attempts a cognitive approach to its metaphorical language. The study applies insights from Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT) by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson (1980; 2003) to selected metaphors from Shafak’s novel Black Milk. The study is the first of its kind; it offers a stylistic examination of the metaphors of postpartum. The application of conceptual metaphor theory, in our opinion, serves as a useful tool that allows better understanding of how the abstract state of postpartum depression is understood and communicated through the course of the novel. The study also discusses the cross-domain mapping process to see how conceptual structures are selected from different source domains and mapped onto the target domain of postpartum depression to unveil the negative effects of this distressing experience.