Metaphors of accomplished life

Abstract

The following paper seeks to reflect on the metaphor of accomplished life associated with ideas of utopia and the lost paradise which is present in two narrative texts, namely, “Quando a vida era plena não existia a história” (When life was complete, history did not exist/free translation), from Thomas Merton´s book, “A via de Chuang Tzu”(The Way of Chuang Tzu,1965) and the second, “O sonho de um homem ridículo”(The dream of a ridiculous man, 1887) of Dostoievski´s.The study focuses on the analises of the narrative texts as well as on a few theoretical underpinnings concerning both metaphor and language itself, thus highlighting the ambiguity of the latter: at once a conveyor of meaning and a testimony of mankind´s incompleteness and needs.