A comparative analysis of the semantic space structural components of the image-metaphors in A. Huxley’s novels “Brave New World” and “Ape and Essence”

This article identifies semantic characteristic of image-metaphors and establishes their frequency representation based on the anti-utopian novels “Brave New World” and “Ape and Essence” by A. Huxley. The diachronic parameter used in our study prompted the choice of the novels. First, we have identified, by means of the component analysis method, a list of diagnostic semantic features that make up the structural components of the image-metaphor semantic space in the works and organize five semantic areas: “categorical” (substantive, verbal, adverbial and adjective features), “anthropological” (anthropo-somatic and anthropo-mental features), “social” (socio-personal and socio-non-personal features), “naturalistic” (natural-biogenic and natural-abiogenic features) and “ontological” (onto-material and onto-non-material features). These semantic characteristics are determined according to both direct and figurative subjects of the image-metaphor. Then, the task of the research was to establish statistically relevant semantic features of the considered lexical units in both texts. According to the parameter of oppositions, we have identified the semantic areas. In conclusion, we tried to correlate the results of the frequency analysis with some plot features of the aforementioned anti-utopian novels. The anti-utopian novel “Brave New World” has been recognized as the least apocalyptic novel, while the most apocalyptic novel is “Ape and Essence”.