Betrayed Sentiments: Joseph Anton and the Phraseology of Emotional Representation

This article addresses the issue of the emotional construction of Salman Rushdie’s memoir Joseph Anton in terms of the conceptualization and the linguistic representation of emotions. To this end the essay explores the relationships between feelings and their linguistic expression as well as examining how emotions are represented in the memoir on the figurative level. In particular, the article looks at how idiomatic expressions, as part of the emotion lexis deployed in Joseph Anton, contribute to the emotional representation of its principal characters. The article claims that the memoir has an emotional structure imposed by a few central metaphors and sustained by idioms to figuratively frame its content. The study proves that Joseph Anton is not only heavily charged with emotions but it also utilizes a plethora of idiomatic expressions and figurative language, which is a distinctive feature of Rushdie’s novelistic works.