BACHELOR’S THESIS

TROPES
OF REPLACEMENT IN
”THE GLASS MENAGERIE”
BY TENNESSEE WILLIAMS
CHIŞINĂU, 2023
 MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND RESEARCH
OF THE REPUBLIC OF MOLDOVA
FREE INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF MOLDOVA
FACULTY OF LETTERS
GERMANIC PHILOLOGY DEPARTMENT

BACHELOR’S THESIS
TROPES OF REPLACEMENT
IN ”THE GLASS MENAGERIE” BY TENNESSEE WILLIAMS
SPECIALTY 0231.3 TRANSLATION AND INTERPRETATION
Author:
Daniela DOBROȘEVSCHII
III-rd year student, gr. I-TI-201-11-3

Thesis Supervisor:
Galina PETREA
Univ. Assist., MH

CHIŞINĂU, 2023
 RELEVANCE

 The play “The Glass Menagerie” was written and played on the Chicago theatre stage in 1944,
it was recepted by the audience with reticence and reserve. Only when two theatre critics Ashton
Steven and Claudia Cassidi championed by writing enthusiastic reviews, this helped build
audiences.

 This great promotional support helped a lot, and was later mentioned by William Tennessee
who gave credit to them. Tennessee Williams became an immediate, celebrity. He described this
turning point as him being “snatched out of virtual oblivion and thrust into sudden prominence”
by “the catastrophe of Success”

 My thesis researches the tropes of replacement in it, which was not done to such an extent
before, which is a proof how much still can be discovered. Not to mention that the present
Bachelor’s thesis focuses on the tropes and their rendering into the TL, a bilingual study.
 CONTENTS
TROPES OF REPLACEMENT AND THEIR
1 TRANSLATION
1.1. Literature Review. Definition of Concepts
1.2. The Four “Master Tropes”
1.3. Translation of Figurative Language in Drama

TROPES OF REPLACEMENT IN ”THE GLASS

2 MENAGERY” BY TENNESSEE WILLIAMS
2.1. Methodological Procedures
2.2. Literary Analysis of the Play “The Glass Menagerie”
2.3. Analysis of the Tropes of Replacement in “The Glass Menagerie”
2.4. Translation of Tropes of Replacement / Substitution.

CONCLUSIONS
 OBJECTIVES
1. To make a theoretic sources
review on the topic of tropes of
replacement as a compartment of
stylistics and their translation;
3. To analyze the corpus of
analysis - 106 selected micro-
segments containing tropes of
replacement / substitution from
the play under analysis;
2. To make the literary analysis
of the play ”The Glass Menagerie”
4. To analyze the translation
procedures used for rendering the
work into Romanian (published
translation) – the contrastive
analysis and the translation into
Chinese;
 NOVELTY
 The translation of drama is made taking into consideration the live audience, not only the
readership of the play. The translation of drama raises two fundamental requirements for the
translator: speakability and performability.
 RENOVATION OF A DRAMA by translation constitutes the total of the shifts – of time, place,
semantics, composition [22].
 This is a sort of rebrush and refresh of the play so as to fit a specific audience belonging to a
modern era, a given culture: we discovered shift of place which were more evocative for the
Romanian audience, and the shifts in translation come to prove such type of renovation made.
 This is not just a translation adaptation, domestication, acculturation strategy it involves
rendering cultural tropes so as not to lose them but to make them relevant and not to strip the
original text unrecognizably from its esthetic, figurative beauty.
 THEORETICAL FOUNDATION
FUNDAMENTAL THEORETICAL SOURCES
Zhukovska Victoria [32]
George Lackoff’s theory Jirí Levy [16] with his
classification of tropes of
[15] on the master tropes research into the
replacement / substitution
and distinguishing specificity of the drama
into figures of quality and
between subtypes of translation;
figures of quantity
metaphors, metonymy

Diri I. Teilanyo [28] and

Zoya Proschina [20]
whose methodology for
tropes translation we
have employed for
classification and
description.
LITERATURE REVIEW. DEFINITION OF CONCEPTS
 Donald Rice and Peter Schofer give a definition of a TROPE: „a semantic transposition from a
sign in praesentia to a sign or signs in absentia and 1) based on the perception of relationship between
one or more semantic features of each signified, 2) marked by the semantic incompatibility of the
microcontext and the macrocontext, 3) motivated by a referential relationship of resemblance,
causality, inclusion or opposition” [24].
 SUBSTITUTION is considered a basic strategy in the manipulation of discourse for rhetorical
purposes, along with addition, subtraction, and transposition.
 A RHETORICAL FIGURE represents a deviant unit of speech, in the words of Arthur Quinn
[21]: “an intended deviation from ordinary usage”.
 Daniel Chandler in “Semiotics for Beginners” [4] seems to find the two terms: trope and figure of
speech interchangeable. Speaking about the importance of rhetoric he asserts that it is not stylistic
ornamentation but persuasive discourse.
 Hawkes Terence notes that the metaphor is the chief of tropes, the “fundamental figure of speech”
[11] since it encapsulates the basic idea of transfer of meaning, most of other tropes being shades or
versions of the transfer in “metaphor’s prototype” [12].
 Metaphor is so widespread that it is often used as an “umbrella” term (another metaphor!) to
include other figures of speech (such as metonyms) which can be technically distinguished from it in
its narrower usage.
 Figure 1.1. Fundamental Rhetorical Strategies.
[Elaborated by the author on the basis of sources]

Figure 1.2. Classification of Tropes of Replacement / Substitution

[Elaborated by the author on the basis of sources]
LITERATURE REVIEW. DEFINITION OF CONCEPTS
 The cognitive semanticists George Lakoff and Mark Johnson illustrate that underlying most
of our fundamental concepts are several kinds of metaphor. Figure 2.3.

 Zoltán Kövecses [14] gives the most schematic folk theory of emotions in general can be
given (ontological metaphor):

CAUSE OF EMOTION → EMOTION → (CONTROLLING EMOTION) → RESPONSE

Emotion is an opponent
He was seized by emotion.
He was struggling with his emotions.
I was gripped by emotion.
She was overcome by emotion.
 COGNITIVE TYPES OF METAPHORS

ORIENTATIONAL ONTOLOGICAL STRUCTURAL

METAPHORS METAPHORS METAPHORS

RELATING TO SPATIAL
ORGANIZATION =
COHERENCE METAPHOR

derives from the fact that most Associate activities, emotions The cognitive function is to
metaphors have to do with and ideas with entities and enable speakers to understand
basic human spatial substances (metaphors target A by means of the
orientations, such as up-down, involving personification) structure of source B.
center-periphery

Figure 2.3. COGNITIVE TYPES OF METAPHORS.

 THE FOUR BASIC TROPES
 The metonyms are “directly connected to” reality in contrast to the mere iconicity or symbolism of
metaphor. Metonyms seem to be more obviously “grounded in our experience” than metaphors since
they usually involve direct associations [15].

 Roman Jakobson suggested that the metonymy tends to be grounded in prose whereas the
metaphor tends to be grounded in poetry [13]. He regarded “so-called realistic literature” as
“intimately tied with the metonymic principle” [13], while the metaphor is associated with romanticism
and surrealism [13].

 Giambattista Vico is usually credited with being the first to identify metaphor, metonymy,
synecdoche and irony as THE FOUR BASIC TROPES [11] (to which all others are reducible). This
reduction was popularized in the 20th century by the American rhetorician Kenneth Burke [2].

 Irony is the most radical of the four main tropes. It is based on substitution
by dissimilarity or disjunction. An ironic statement signifies the opposite of its literal signification,
such variations as understatement and overstatement can also be regarded as ironic. At some point,
exaggeration may slide into irony.
 “Translation as a work is an artistic reproduction, translation as a process is an original
creation, translation as a type of art is a case on the boundary of art of reproduction and
originally creative art” [16]. As Jirí Levý’s approach to drama translation was directly based
on his experience with the Czech theatre aesthetics, his works have been of consequence.
 Newmark Peter comes with another theory of translating a dramatic work. “The spoken
word is five times as potent as the written word – what a novelist would say in 30 lines, the
playwright must say in five. The arithmetic is faulty and so is the sentiment, but it shows that a
translation of a play must be concise – it must not be an over-translation” [17].
 Speakability and performability have, however, remained central issues to discussions of
the characteristics of theatre texts and their translation. Pavis Patrice, for instance, who
sees speakability as “easy pronunciation”, warns against the danger of banality which may
be hidden in the text that speaks well.
 Snell-Hornby [27] has combined the two concepts of playability and speakability in one
term, and used the phrase “playable speakability” to underline the significance of rhythm.
Figure 1.4. Translation strategies for stylistic tropes [Elaborated by the author]
 TROPES OF REPLACEMENT

2 IN ”THE GLASS MENAGERIE”

BY TENNESSEE WILLIAMS
“The Glass Menagery” reveals the story of family members whose lives form a
triangle of quiet desperation, each struggling with an individual version of
hell, while simultaneously seeking escape from the gravity of each other’s
pathologies. This is characterized as ”memory play”, the action is sentimental,
nostalgic, emotional but not realistic. Being a literary work created in the
Modernism and experimentation literary period, it shares the themes of the
era.
1) Power of memories;
2) Abandonment;
3) Impossibility of escape;
4) Illusion and the American dream;
5) Difficulty of accepting reality vs. self – deception.
LITERARY ANALYSIS OF“THE GLASS MENAGERIE”
SUMMARY: The play is structured into 7 scenes, through the narrator Tom Wingfield who is
also a protagonist – a young man working at the shoe factory Continental Shoemakers, living
together with Amanda Wingfield his mother, of genteel southern stock, and his sister Laura a
painfully complexed and shy girl with a slightly visible physical disability – limp, as a
consequence of a disease.
 TIMMELINE OF THE DRAMA
INCITING RISING FALLING RESOLUTION
EXPOSITION CLIMAX
INCIDENT ACTION ACTION

SCENE 06 SCENE 07
SCENE 01 SCENE 02 SCENE 03 SCENE 04 SCENE 05

Tom’s monologue Amanda returns Amanda confronts After a reveling Tom smoking on Amanda works as The dinner
addressed to the from the town Tom on his night out Tom is the fire escape a Turk to get the unfolded joyfully
audience explains deeply concerned frequent going to convinced by landing reflects apartment and without Laura
that the action of and deceived, as the movies, her Laura to apologize about the cheap, dinner ready. joining. Her
the play is not real she had visited the founded concerns to mom. Amanda degrading Laura was timidity is
- a memory. college and that he might be asks him to bring a entertainment “paralyzed with dissipated by Jim’s
Mother retells discovered Laura drinking too young man for while the world emotion”. Jim was gentle friendliness.
about her girlhood never went there. much. They tell dinner – a was on the brink her school crash, They converse,
times, being very each other hard gentleman caller to of war. He with whom she dance and kiss like
popular with local truths in an angry get acquainted announces was thrice a week at a date. Jim
gentlemen callers manner. with Laura. Amanda about a for the chorus confessed he was
gentleman caller class engaged
SYMBOLS IN “THE GLASS MENAGERIE” BY WILLIAMS TENNESSEE

Figure 2.1. Symbols in “The Glass Menagerie” by Williams TENNESSEE

 ANALYSIS OF TROPES OF REPLACEMENT
IN “THE GLASS MENAGERIE”
Table 2.1. Cognitivist Metaphor Classification. [Elaborated by the author]

a) Structural metaphors.
The structural metaphors actually come the first in Lackoff’s classification, these correspond with
the basic definition of the metaphor.

Eng. They were having their fingers pressed forcibly down on the fiery Braille alphabet of a
dissolving economy. Ro. Ei își țineau degetele apăsate forțat pe înflăcăratul alfabet Braille al unei
economii în dezagregare. Ch. 他们的手指被强行按在一个正在解体的经济的火热盲文字母上。
“They” in this example refers to nobody in particular but to the authorities of the state, the capitalist
leaders of economy. The metaphor orientational metaphor “fingers pressed forcibly down” is part of the
causative construction, the first part of this metaphor refers again to an association to automation, all
industrial mechanisms that were activated by pressing down a button. The other metaphor is structural
“on the fiery Braille alphabet”, as the association is made with the alphabet for blind people, meaning that
the leaders of the economy, were nor aware of the condition of the economy or what exactly they were
doing by pressing forcibly one mechanism, neither which would be the result or consequences. The
ontological metaphor “a dissolving economy” → “al unei economii în dezagregare” makes the association to
the economy with a substance which dissolves in English, while in translation it was associated with a
mechanism that is dysfunctional and falls apart - remetaphorization. The rest of the metaphors are
translated like in the original keeping the images and the wording. The metaphor function of
conceptualizing and highlighting.
 Psychological Symbols + PUN. Beside the metaphors which are predominant, adding esthetic value to the
work, we have already mentioned the symbols which are more than those 5 mentioned at the beginning of
the Chapter II. Only those are referring to the content of the entire play, while there are others that are
used in certain scene with a specific purpose.

Eng. Jim. Well, well, well, well — [He places the glass piece on the table, then raises his arms and stretches.]
Look how big my shadow is when I stretch! Laura: Oh, oh, yes — it stretches across the ceiling!
Ro. Jim: (întinzându-se): Ei, sigur. Uite ce umbră mare am când mă întind. Laura: Adevărat... Acoperă
aproape tot tavanul.
Ch. 吉姆。好了，好了，好了 --[ 他把玻璃片放在桌子上，然后举起手臂，伸了个懒腰。 ] 看我伸懒腰的
时候，我的影子有多大！？劳拉：哦，哦，是的 -- 它延伸到了整个天花板上
The author of the play certainly was acquainted with Jungian psychology. As with the gentleman caller which we
have already established that appears in the drama as an archetype of white cavalier, to save the girl, triggering an
entire spectrum of rituals, scripts, scenarios and behaviours. The shadow in Jungian psychology symbolizes the
hidden aspects of our personality, either conscious or unconscious, maybe relegated to the unconscious the
unwanted qualities that we want to dissimulate. In this example Jim asked Laura what she exactly was doing in her
life, to have her showcase her glass menagerie. However, she did not present that as a collectioner would show his
highly-valued collection, she was talking in terms of favourite figurine in relation with others like a mother who
has a favourite child and admits it without feeling guilty, about their interrelations among the glass animals. Which
was almost as a game taken too far for too long. Jim decided to demonstrate his attitude towards all this game
through a gestural metaphor. He pointed Laura’s attention that he was big like grown-up, but not only that – he
was also mature psychologically to make adult decisions, behave like an adult. However, he invokes the shadow, his
shadow which is much higher than his stature his actual height. The “shadow” alludes to all his interior life
thoughts, beliefs, aspirations, maybe the shadow indicates to other hidden negative side of his own to act sharp,
pursue his aims in life persistently putting in a struggle. He explained all these through a simple demonstration of
him staying upright, straight, on his feet, full height, but also having a trailing and much surpassing his real size
shadow, private life. This is a PUN, a play upon multiple meaning and associations of the word and concept, play
with the real “shadow” cast by the candles light on the ceiling. It was translated with dynamic equivalence and
lexical modulation and additions. The function of the metaphor is asserting oneself and avoiding commitment.
Table 2.2. Representation in numbers of tropes of replacement. [Elaborated by the author]

Figure 2.2. Proportion of tropes of replacement. [Elaborated by the author]

  METONYMY. There are 17 cases of metonymy in the play.

Eng. Laura is seated in the delicate ivory chair at the small claw-foot table.
Ro. Laura şade pe un scăunel de abanos, la o măsuţă cu picioare sculptate în chip de labe de grifon.
Ch. 劳拉坐在小爪足桌前精致的象牙椅上 .
This example contains one of the often-mentioned objects from the households – the piece of furniture,
which was fulfilling its basic function, but also projected a characteristic or description of the health
problem, disability that Laura had. The claw-foot table is a metonymy as the leg of the table was named
through contiguity features with the claw of a bird. It was elaborately translated as picioare sculptate în
chip de labe de grifon, thus in Romanian it was associated with the claw of a specific bird. There was used
the translation procedure of description and transposition, as the one claw-foot was translated with
plural.
 HYPERBOLE
Eng. Gracious, you talk as though all of my old admirers had turned up their toes to the daisies!
Ro. Dar, Doamne iartă-mă, vorbeşti de parcă toţi foştii mei pretendenţi ar fi dat ortul popii!
Ch. 天哪，你说得好像我所有的老崇拜者都把脚趾头伸向了雏菊一样！

This is Amanda’s replica to Tom, who had some sarcastic question when she was retelling about all her suitors,
and how their lives evolved after they parted ways. The hyperbola here is used to create a humorous dramatic
effect, to intensify the statement. The idiom had turned up their toes to the daisies has a euphemistic function
it stands for ”die”, in a disparaging, derogatory way. The other euphemism ”Gracious” refers to
”God Gracious” like in a prayer. However, in this context it is used to intensify the statement, and add that
dramatic effect.
In Romanian the first euphemism is translated with an analogue: Doamne iartă-mă, which is used in colloquial
style spoken language. The euphemistic idiom was translated with an omologue: ”ar fi dat ortul popii”.
Admirers → pretendenţi, lexical modulation translation procedure.
 Understatement – Meiosis or understatement is a deliberate underestimation for emphasis. The
features stressed are usually size, volume, distance, time; there 12 cases of understatement.
Eng. Hardly noticeable even Magnified thousands of times by imagination!
Ro. Nici nu se observă. Şi imaginaţia dumitale l-a exagerat, l-a amplificat de mii de ori.
 Irony.
Eng. That light bill I gave you several days ago. The one I told you we got the notices about? [Legend on
screen: “Ha!”] Ro. Ce-ai făcut cu nota de plată a luminii pe care ţi-am dat-o acum câteva zile? Aceea care
ne-a venit cu avertisment. Titlu pe ecran: „Aoleu!” Ch. 几天前我给你的那张电费单。我告诉你我们收到
通知的那张？ [ 屏幕上的传说： " 哈！ "]
Ch. 即使放大数千倍的想象力，也很难察觉到 !
Table 2.3. The translation strategies and procedures. [Elaborated by the author]
 Structural Metaphor Translation with Transposition Passive Voice → Active Voice; Remetaphorization.
Eng. Certain responses are attempted by him but are swept aside by Amanda’s gay laughter and chatter.
Ro. Degeaba încearcă să plaseze şi el din când în când câte un cuvânt; Amanda îi taie vorba cu râsul şi flecăreala ei
veselă.
Ch. 他试图做出某些回应，但被阿曼达的同性恋笑声和唠叨声扫到一边。
Transposition:
Passive voice → Active Voice.
Certain responses are attempted by him → încearcă să plaseze. (addition of word for explicitation)
(Responses) are swept aside → îi taie vorba (Translation of metaphor with idiom)
gay laughter and chatter → râsul şi flecăreala ei veselă
Two verbs in the passive voice from the ST are translated with active voice into the TT. In the second case the
metaphor is rendered with idiom into Romanian. As for the word chatter it is translated with a derogatory
word, meaning frivolous, not serious.
 CONCLUSIONS
1. From the results of the linguistic corpus analysis we can see that the figures of quantity and namely the
hyperbola and the understatement constitute 30% of cases, the rest being the figures of quality. The
metaphor indeed is the master trope with 50 examples (42%).

2. The quantitative analysis allows us to see clearly the proportion of presence of metaphors – highly
stylistical poetical, we also remind that the phraseological units and idioms are also figurative language
with stylistic value, however in this thesis we did not select segments containing idioms – very few, as this is
the scope of lexicology. Besides metonymy we found 6 cases of antonomasia, which are also a type of
metonymy 23 (17+6), however no cases of synecdoche hierarchical abstractization. The quantitative tropes
consisting of the exaggeration hyperbola – 24 (20%) and understatement – 10 (12%) as we have already
mentioned, constitute a considerable proportion. Given the fact that this is a play, it is justified to use
exaggerated language so as to express an overflow of intense emotions, to strengthen a statement, or to
provoke a humorous effect. While understatement is trying to say cautiously difficult things, this is more
than neutral language, this is intentionally chosen cautious words.
3. Enfiguration coincides with metaphorization translating plain language by using a metaphor or idiom,
just one such example in our selected corpus. Defiguration or demetaphorization (42 cases) means stripping
the original source text from its figurative language, cultural and religious connotations, translating with
plain language and compensating with addition of words for explicitation, description, or using a specifyier.
The most predominant procedure used for rendering replacement / substitution tropes is alter-figuration or
remetaphorization (72 cases). It consists in rendering the trope or idiom from the ST by using a modified
trope or a completely different one from the original text, or it could be rendered by using an idiom, a
similes, a litotes (one case). This is the best possible variant, rather than not translating, omitting tropes in
case it makes no sense to render them literally. The literal refiguration (16 cases) means a literal word-for-
word translation of the trope from the original, which might be an extended metaphor, but if that makes
sense, and retains the image that is good to have in the translation as well - adaptation.
THANK YOU