The Metaphor of the migrant in Salman Rushdie’s The Firebird’s Nest – A cognitive approach
The Metaphor of the migrant in Salman Rushdie’s The Firebird’s Nest – A cognitive approach

Summary/Abstract: This paper consists in the analysis of a short story written by British postcolonial writer Salman Rushdie in the light of cognitive linguistics and neuroscience redefinitions of the ways we think. The broken mirrors that make up our contemporary sense of individual identity, as Rushdie persuasively describes this current shared feeling in Imaginary Homelands can find an important coherence in the short story through the metaphor of the migrant that is eloquently explored and illustrated in all Rushdie’s work. Through its implications and inferences the condition of the migrant illuminates the contemporary human condition. I will employ in my analysis the Cognitive Metaphor Theory and The Conceptual Integration Theory (or Blending Theory) as well as make more extensive reference to Antonio Damasio’s definition of self and its importance in consciousness and his account of the role of emotions as somatic markers that work by relevant co-activations or associations in the process of making sense.

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