A Cognitive Analysis of Epiphany in “Two Gallants” from Dubliners

Abstract

Epiphany means a sudden manifestation, and in literature, it is related to revelation, clarification, or realization in a vulgarity of speech or of gesture. If epiphany in literature can be instrumental for enlightening readers by giving them a chance to look at something differently, the mechanism of how it works in the reader’s mind can be explored from a cognitive perspective. The basic mechanism of conceptual metaphor and conceptual metonymy is based on the notion of understanding something in terms of another. A cognitive approach to literary texts not only deals with how readers interact with fiction, but it also deals with how this interaction is possible. By using cognitive tools such as conceptual metaphor, conceptual metonymy and conceptual blending, this study focuses on the epiphanic scenes in the short story “Two Gallants” from Dubliners and aims to show how the characters as ordinary Dubliners, Corley, Lenehan, and a slavey, can stand for the oppressing power, the mimicker of the oppressor, and the slavery in the miserable reality of the colonized Ireland, respectively.