"Whatever else has happened to him, the moral thing that erupted in his mind hasn't gone into remission. If anything, it has only metastasized, secretly colonizing, under the cover of this last month's madness, more and more of his sense of self."

— Konstantinou, Lee


Place of Publication
New York
Publisher
Harper Perennial
Date
2009
Metaphor
"Whatever else has happened to him, the moral thing that erupted in his mind hasn't gone into remission. If anything, it has only metastasized, secretly colonizing, under the cover of this last month's madness, more and more of his sense of self."
Metaphor in Context
Eliot pays the bill and heads down Massachusetts Avenue, toward his newly purchased condo near Central Square. He wants Sarah's pending marriage to count as a happy ending, but some part of him can't accept this conclusion; his initial ethical revelation in Barcelona still haunts him, foreclosing contentment. Whatever else has happened to him, the moral thing that erupted in his mind hasn't gone into remission. If anything, it has only metastasized, secretly colonizing, under the cover of this last month's madness, more and more of his sense of self. He sometimes would call this thing Sarah, would love and resent her through it as if she were a moral principle, but she has gone and undermined his ability to treat her as anything other than the human being she is. And such a conceptual misrecognition, he speculates, would insult not only her but it. It demands a new name for itself.
(p. 286)
Provenance
Reading
Citation
Konstantinou, Lee. Pop Apocalypse: A Possible Satire. New York: Harper Perennial, 2009.
Date of Entry
05/05/2009

The Mind is a Metaphor is authored by Brad Pasanek, Assistant Professor of English, University of Virginia.