Dr. J. Michael Stitt
phone: 702 895-3909
fax: 702 895-4801
e-mail:
jmstitt@unlv.nevada.edu
Metonomy, Metaphor, and the Limin
Human cognition employs metonomy. We order our thinking by creating categories. When we encounter something new, we employ metaphor – a consideration of similarity and difference – to place things into categories. Thus we impose order on the world.
Victor Turner used the term limin (Latin for "threshold") to describe a situation in which the categories of culture are set aside or turned upside down. All cultures create carefully controlled situations, usually delineated by "sacred" time or space, in which the rules and social structures are temporarily broken or inverted -- a process called "ludic" (playful) inversion (although we are involved here in "serious play"). By extension, boundary-crossing in narrative creates a liminal otherworld, a place where we can imagine the existence of things that are not allowed in everyday reality. For example, Western society maintains two distinct categories, humans and animals. But in the limin, where categories are shattered, we can imagine the Minotaur – half human and half bull.
Cultures all over the world employ rites of passage, community rituals that mark an individual's change in social status. Birth, puberty, marriage, death – all are rites of passage that are marked in similar ways all over the world. All rites of passage have a similar structure. At the outset there is a separation by which the individuals undergoing the rite are set apart from the larger community. This separation may be social or symbolic, but in most cases it is an actual physical separation. Individuals are now in the limin – they are "betwixt and between," having left their previous social status, but not yet having reached their new status. An extremely common metaphor for this situation is death; in a puberty ritual, for example, the "child" dies at the beginning of the ritual and the "adult" is born at its conclusion. As with all liminal states, it is characterized by a setting aside or inversion of the normal rules and structures of society. At the end of the liminal period, the individuals experience a reintegration into society, typically by way of a community celebration of the individuals' new social status.
Carnevale (to use the Western name for a worldwide phenomenon) is a liminal celebration during which the normal social structures are suspended or inverted. Normally, the beginning and end of these celebrations are carefully delineated, but during this time sexual license and and excessive consumption of food and drink are expected behavior.
In both rites of passage and carnevale the end of the liminal period is as important as the beginning. In fact, by definition the limin is a temporary phenomenon. Its chaotic nature is potentially disruptive to society; conversely, since it does end, returning people to the status quo, it ultimately is a conservative phenomenon. That is, the liminal experience, reinforces the "rightness" of everyday social structures.
