Barack Obama and America's Journey

摘要

Forty-one years after the original publication of Michael Osborn's “Archetypal Metaphor: The Light-Dark Family,” Jerold Hale sponsored a panel at the Southern Communication Association honoring Osborn's work. For my part, I was drawn to the idea of employing archetypal metaphor as the central feature in an act of criticism. In this essay, which grew out of my presentation on that panel, I argue that a significant portion of the potency of Barack Obama's presidential campaign derives from the confluence of trajectories of two metaphorical journeys: Barack Obama's personal journey and America's national journey.