“The Thunder Rolls and the Lightning Strikes”: Pathetic Fallacy as a Multimodal Metaphor

: Pathetic fallacy (hereafter PF) has received varied deﬁ nitions by educators, scholars, and literary critics. Pager-McClymont created a model of PF based on a survey of English teachers, using a checklist of stylistic tools and foregrounding theory. The model views PF as a speciﬁ c type of conceptual metaphor: a master metaphor, and deﬁ nes it as a projection of emotions from an animated entity onto the surroundings. Three indicators of PF were identiﬁ ed: imagery, repetition, and negation. Furthermore, multiple eﬀ ects of PF were observed, such as conveying sus-pense through surroundings, particularly thunder and lightning. In this paper, I explore if Pager-McClymont’s model of PF can be applied to texts from popular culture, such as the television show RuPaul’s Drag Race , the ﬁ lm Clue , and the song “The Thunder Rolls”. The analysis employs Mc-Intyre’s multimodal stylistic methodology to the texts’ transcripts and focuses on the multimodal presentation of PF’s criteria and indicators. Findings show that PF’s eﬀ ects are present in popular culture texts and contribute to enriching suspense, thus making Pager-McClymont’s model of PF applicable to everyday entertainment.


Introduction
defi nes pathetic fallacy (henceforth PF) as "a projection of emotions onto the surroundings by an animated entity. The emotions and animated entity in question can be featured implicitly or explicitly in the text". For this defi nition to be fulfi lled, an animated entity (at least one human being, personifi ed animal, or object) must be present in the text, as well as emotions and surroundings: these are the three criteria of PF. Texts featuring PF are likely to present the following indicators: negation (lexical, syntactic, morphological), imagery (tropes, fi gures of speech, etc.), and repetition. "Linking Emotions" 437) identifi es at least four eff ects of PF in texts: the explicit communication of emotions that may otherwise remain implicit, foreshadowing, characterization, building "ambience" (Stockwell,"Atmosphere and Tone" 365).
So far, Pager-McClymont's model of PF has only been applied to literary texts. This papers aims to explore if the model can also be applied to multimodal texts. The case study to conduct this analysis focuses on the emotion of suspense expressed through thunder and lightning, as I argue that it is prevalent in popular culture but has been under-researched. Firstly, a brief introduction to metaphor theories and multimodality research is provided. This is followed by the case study in which PF is analyzed in the reality television (henceforth TV) show RuPaul's Drag Race (2009−present), the fi lm Clue (1985), and Garth Brooks's song "The Thunder Rolls" (1991). I then provide a discussion of the fi ndings that emerged from the PF analyses.

Metaphors: A literature review
In this section I introduce concisely the key theories and approaches used in the analysis in section 3.

Pathetic fallacy and conceptual metaphor theory
Conceptual metaphor theory (henceforth CMT) claims that in our processing of language, some concepts are understood in terms of others (Lakoff and Johnson). "Target domains" (typically more abstract concepts, such as emotions) are understood through "source domains" (typically more concrete), and the correspondence between the two domains is a conceptual metaphor which can be labelled as . For example, in the sentence I was moved by the poem, the is the target domain expressed through the term moved, which can be represented by the source domain of . This cross-domain mapping generates the metaphor . Similarly, in the sentences She was struck by anger or He sank into depression the of anger and depression are expressed either through the terms struck or sank, both of which are . Thus, the metaphor present in these sentences is also . This means that this cross-domain mapping is a "master metaphor" (Kövecses,"Metaphor and Emotion" 382; see also Kövecses, Metaphor and Emotion: Language, Culture): a mapping that can be applied to multiple metaphorical expressions. Additionally, as Kövecses ("Metaphor and Emotion" 382) explains, metaphors featuring an emotion as target domain are referred to as "emotion metaphors". PF is a conceptual metaphor, and its cross-domain mapping (based on the defi nition provided in the introduction) is . This mapping is a master emotion metaphor (26)(27), as it can ac-count for other mappings, such as , , or, as I argue in this paper, . For the sake of clarity, I defi ne the concepts of suspense, and thunder and lightning before discussing multimodality. Carroll (147) argues that suspense is dependent on factors of uncertainty in the narrative. This factor of uncertainty does not disappear when an audience is already familiar with the plot: this is the "suspense paradox" ). Carroll's defi nition of suspense is particularly relevant to the PF case study presented in this paper as characters are indeed facing confl icting situations causing an uncertain denouement. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, thunder is "the loud noise accompanying a fl ash of lightning due to the sudden violent disturbance of the air by the electric discharge" ("thunder, n."), and lightning is "the visible discharge of electricity between one group of clouds and another, or between the clouds and the ground" ("lightning, n. and adj.").

Analyzing multimodal metaphors
Multimodality represents "any kind of text which draws from language, sound, music, images and other graphic elements in various combinations" (Wales 279). In the last few decades, there has been more and more research on multimodality, particularly in metaphor studies. Forceville's work in analyzing "pictorial" metaphors is particularly signifi cant, as he argues that one of the biggest limitations of CMT is that it is centred around "verbal manifestations" of metaphors (his emphasis, Forceville and Renckens 3; see also Forceville 463), which is problematic as not all instances of metaphors are verbal. Forceville explains that for metaphors to be multimodal, their source and target domains (what he calls "phenomena" below) must meet the following three criteria: 1. Given the context in which they occur, the two phenomena (domains) belong to diff erent categories (modes), as per the defi nition of "multimodal metaphor" given above. 2. The metaphorical mapping A is B format can be used to express the process of multimodal metaphors as it forces or invites an addressee to map one or more features, connotations, or aff ordances … from source to target. 3. The two phenomena (domains) are cued in more than one sign system, sensory mode, or both. (Adapted from Forceville 469,his emphasis) This means that in multimodal texts, if a metaphor's domains are expressed in diff erent modes and the labelling of the metaphor can be used, the metaphor is thus a multimodal one.
To analyze the domains in diff erent modes, a systematic approach to multimodal analysis is needed. McIntyre (313) argues for the use of transcripts to record: linguistic (verbal) features, para-linguistic features (non-lexical aspects of communication, such as tone of voice, laughter, gesture, body language), and non-linguistic features (aspects of the scene that are not related to communication, such as camera angles, settings, background noises, actions, costumes). This allows for a rigorous and comprehensive account of the multimodal text and enables a systematic analysis. In the analysis below, as I focused on PF, I categorized any action that conveys emotions (even implicitly) as a paralinguistic visual (or audio at times) feature of a scene. Similarly, in all texts but the song studied, background music is categorized as a non-linguistic audio feature of a scene, and when a song with lyrics is included, those lyrics are added to the linguistic category of each shot in which they occur. Overall, I argue that using McIntyre's approach to multimodal text analysis allows to observe if PF is a multimodal metaphor in accordance with Forceville's defi nition.

Pathetic fallacy as a multimodal metaphor: A case study
This section provides three analyses of diff erent texts: the reality TV show RuPaul's Drag Race (2009−present), the fi lm Clue (1985), and the song "The Thunder Rolls" by Garth Brooks (1991). These texts were chosen because they are multimodal texts of diff erent type and all feature in their own way the mapping , which has yet to be widely discussed amongst scholars, unlike other PF mappings, such as (i.e., or in certain contexts, see Forceville and Renckens) or . The aim is to observe how the PF mapping is featured in each text and its eff ect(s), in addition to evidence that Pager-McClymont's model of PF is applicable to multimodal texts.

Pathetic fallacy in reality television programming
RuPaul's Drag Race is a reality TV show in which contestants compete to become the next "Drag Superstar". In each episode, contestants go through challenges and are evaluated by a jury. The two bottom contestants must lip sync for RuPaul to decide who will stay and will be eliminated. Episode 8 from season 13 (aired 19 February 2021) is used as an example in this analysis, though the sequence of events and stage eff ects discussed occur in all episodes of all seasons. The transcript for this analysis can be found in Table 1.
All three PF criteria are present in the transcript. The animated entities are primarily RuPaul, Symone, Kandy, as well as the jury, other contestants, and arguably the audience. The surroundings are represented by the stage, the background music, stage lights (white and red eff ects), as well as special eff ects of thunder and lightning. The emotions expressed throughout the scene are stress and anxiety, and this is conveyed through paralinguistic visuals and linguistic features from Ru-Paul and the contestants. Examples of paralinguistic visuals are RuPaul's serious tone and facial expression, raising of eyebrows (shot 18 of the transcript, Table 1),  Kandy and Symone holding their own hands (shot 15), pouting, or shaking their head (shot 22). Linguistic features can be exemplifi ed with "I'm sorry my dears" (shot 2), "impress me" (shot 12), "I am trembling", "in utter shock", "as much as I love Kandy" (respectively shots 22, 23, 24). Indicators of PF are also present in the scene. Negation is featured linguistically ("sorry", "elimination", "fuck", "fi ght", "trembling", "utter shock", "lip sync", "can't", "don't"). Negation is also present through non-linguistic audio: the melody has low notes particularly from shot 16 (after the sound of thunder), which can itself be linked to Lakoff and Johnson's (23) "orientational metaphor" . Imagery is also prevalent in the extract through exaggeration; for instance, RuPaul stretches the words "elimination"; the word "life" echoes in shot 20; and RuPaul pauses after each word in "don't fuck it up" in shot 28. Additionally, there are multiple metaphorical expressions that can be linked to the master metaphor , for instance: "I am ready to fi ght for my life" (shots 6−8), "I'm not gonna not fi ght, I came here to win" (shots 25−26), or "the time has come for you to lip sync for your life" (shots 16−20). Finally, there are also multiple instances of repetition occurring linguistically with the terms "elimination", "fi ght", "can't", "don't", as well as non-linguistic audio repetition because the music repeats the same notes and beat, and there is a parallelism of shots. Indeed, shots 15 and 21 are both long shots, and in between them there is a pattern of medium close-up shots on RuPaul (shots 16, 18, 20), mixed with one shot on each of the contestants (Kandy shot 17, Symone shot 19).
Overall, PF (through its criteria and indicators) is present in the extract. There are diff erent instances of emotions in the extract: RuPaul emphasizes the pressure the contestants are under when facing eliminations, the contestants are thus stressed, and the audience (and arguably RuPaul and the contestants) are eager to fi nd out who is eliminated. As such, the label of emotion as a target domain in this extract is , and this is expressed through varied modes. The surroundings mirroring this emotion are equally expressed through multiple modes, particularly the special eff ects of , which renders them the source domain, thus generating the PF mapping for the extract .

Pathetic fallacy in fi lm
Clue (1985) is a fi lm based on the popular board game of the same name. Guests are invited to a manor for a dinner party, and their host, Mr Boddy, admits to blackmailing them. The guests have aliases akin to the board game's characters (i.e., Mrs Peacock, Miss Scarlet, Mr Green, Professor Plum). When Mr Boddy is murdered, all guests are suspects, and together, led by the butler Wadsworth, they try to fi gure out who the killer is with three alternative endings suggested. This paper studies two scenes from the fi lm. In scene 1 (Table 2), Professor Plum and Miss Scarlet are in the same car, about to see the manor for the fi rst time. In scene 2 The suspenseful music changes melody; a strident long note is played.
-------Cut to next scene (Table 3), Mr Boddy's real identity and the fact that he is the one blackmailing his guests are revealed. The three criteria of PF are present in both scenes. The animated entities are Wadsworth, Mr Boddy, and the guests. The surroundings are primarily presented visually with the night's darkness, falling rain, thunder, lightning, full moon, and lowly lit manor when indoors. The surroundings in scene 1 (Table 2) are outdoors: night time, falling rain, full moon, lightning. Scene 2 occurs indoor of the manor with vintage expensive furnishing and low lighting, in addition to the outdoor surroundings which can also be seen through the windows, and thunder can be heard (Table 3, shot 3, 00:24:02; shot 4). Emotions can also be inferred in both scenes. In scene 1 (Table 2), Miss Scarlet and Professor Plum seem anxious when they see the manor. Professor Plum's emotion is portrayed linguistically when he responds to Miss Scarlet's asking why the car stopped by exclaiming "It's frightened!" ( Table 2, shot 4). Professor Plum personifi es the car by attributing it with emotions, arguably his own fear, as he is the one driving. In scene 2, the emotion shared by the guests is curiosity as they try to determine what they have in common and who is their host, Mr Boddy. Wadsworth and Mr Boddy display signs of excitement (Table 3, shot 2; shot 3, 00:24:01) because they know the truth. These emotions are conveyed through paralinguistic visuals, such as curious looks (shot 3, 00:23:59), having a smug expression (shot 4) or looking down (shot 2).
PF's three indicators are also featured in both scenes. Negation is present linguistically ("no", "frightened", "secret", "haven't", "blackmailing"), as well as through non-linguistic audio (strident music when manor is in view [ Table 2, shots 3 and 5]; sudden silence after Wadsworth reveals Mr Boddy's identity [Table 3, scene 2, shot 3, 00:24:01]), as well as through non-linguistic visuals ( Table 2, long shot of the manor in the dark with a cast of shadows, scene 1, shots 3 and 5). The cliché aspect of the settings combined generates a negative impression of the surroundings, highlighting to the audience characters' experiences. Imagery such as personifi cation is present as discussed above, as well as rhetorical questions when Wadsworth repeats "His secret?" in shot 3. Linguistic items are repeated, such as the question "Who is our host?", which is asked by several of the guests throughout the fi lm. The name "Mr Boddy" is also repeated, along with the noun "secret". The strident music played when the manor is in view in scene 1 is a non-linguistic audio repetition. Finally, there is a parallelism of shots in both scenes: in scene 1 anytime the manor is on screen, it is systematically with a long shot (Table 2, shots 3 and 5). This repetition of shots sheds light on the mystery that surrounds the manor by setting the ambience of the scene. In scene 2, Mr Boddy is only shown through medium close-up shots (Table 3, shots 2 and 4) and displays a smug attitude before and after his identity is revealed. Shots of Mr Boddy are sequenced with medium close-up shots of guests, such as shot 3. This sequencing reinforces the suspense surrounding Mr Boddy's identity, and since he will be killed a few scenes after scene 2 under study, this portrayal shows the audience how the characters view Mr Boddy.
All three criteria and indicators of PF are present in both scenes of the fi lm. The emotions expressed fall under the feeling of suspense and curiosity: fi rst the guests want to know who is blackmailing them or why they were invited to the manor, then they wonder who Mr Boddy is, and lastly the characters (along with the audience) wonder who killed Mr Boddy. Throughout the fi lm, when a character asks directly "Who is our host?" the sound of thunder can be heard in the background, and lightning can often be seen through the windows or as a lighting eff ect. This further stresses the suspenseful atmosphere of the scenes. As such, is the target domain and the source domain, thus generating the metaphor as PF's mapping in scene 1 and 2 of Clue.

Pathetic fallacy in music
"The Thunder Rolls" (1991) is a country song about a woman waiting for her lover to come home-wondering if an accident has happened to him due to the rainy weather, or if he is cheating on her. The transcript created for the song's analysis is based on McIntyre's (326,[330][331][332][333][334] approach, though no research has yet applied this to songs. Thus, I have adapted it for my own analysis as shown in Table 4: no visual features or shot numbers are listed, instead a melody description is provided. The three criteria of PF are featured in the song. The animated entities are the man ("he") and the woman ("she"), as well as the singer. The surroundings are described linguistically through the lyrics ("raindrops on the windshield" [00:31], "thunder rolls, and the lightning strikes" [1:26], "moonless summer night" [00:24], "storm" [00:31]), and occur through non-linguistic audio as the sound of thunder can be heard at 00:41. The emotions expressed are primarily the woman's: she is worried that either her partner is cheating on her or has been in an accident due to the weather. This is conveyed through linguistic phrasing such as "pacing by the telephone" (1:02), "hoping she's not right" (1:06), "praying" (1:10), "love grows cold on a sleepless night" (1:32), "deep in her heart the thunder rolls" (1:43−1:50).
PF's indicators are also present throughout the song: negation is featured linguistically ("not", "moonless", "sleepless", "never", "faded", "burning", "out of control", "strikes", "ghost"). Imagery is present through simile ("looking like a ghost town" [00:24]), and metonymy ("not a soul in sight" [00:20]). Metaphors are also featured, such as in the phrases "every light is burning" (00:52) and "love grows cold" (1:32); the target domain of physical attraction is expressed through the source domain of , thus generating the cross-domain mapping . Similarly, the phrase "deep in her heart the thunder rolls" (1:43−1:50) links the woman's anger (target domain) to the thunder (source domain), which can be expressed though the Table 4: Example script for music from "The Thunder Rolls" (Garth Brooks, 1990) Time ( … not a soul in sight The word "sight" is emphasized.
00:24 Guitar melody playing; singer singing. The city's looking like a ghost town, on a moonless summer night The word "town" is emphasized.
Raindrops on the windshield, there's a storm moving in The phrase "storm moving in" is elongated.
-00:35 Guitar melody playing, singer singing. He's heading back from somewhere, that he never should have been The word "somewhere" is emphasized.
And the thunder rolls The word "rolls" is emphasized. Thunder can be heard in the background.

00:47
Other instruments join in to play the melody; singer singing.
And the thunder rolls … -Thunder stops.
00:52 Instruments playing melody; singer singing. Every light is burning, in a house across town The word "town" is emphasized.
-01:02 Instruments playing melody; singer singing. She's pacing by the telephone, in her faded flannel gown The word "telephone" is emphasized.
--Electric guitar sounds louder for three notes. 01:06 Instruments playing melody; singer starts singing again.
Asking for miracle, hoping she's not right.
The word "right" is emphasized.
Praying it's the weather, that's kept him … The word "weather" is elongated. Another love grows cold On a sleepless night.
As the storm blows on, out of control The words "night", "storm" and "out of control" are elongated.

Deep in her heart
The word "heart" is emphasized.
The thunder … rolls.
The word "rolls" is elongated. The instruments' volume goes down; voice is emphasized.
----Chorus ends. metaphor . Lastly, there are varied instances of repetition throughout the song. Linguistically, the phrases and terms "the thunder rolls", "lightning strikes", "storm" are repeated, and the paralinguistic audio features of some of those words ("rolls", "strikes", "storm") are consistently emphasized and stretched in pronunciation. Additionally, non-linguistic audio features, such as the sound eff ect of thunder and rain, are also repeated as part of the melody (00:41).
PF's criteria and indicators are all present in the song. The emotions felt by the woman are worry and anguish as she wonders where her lover is. The sound eff ect of thunder is mostly used before she fi nds out her lover did cheat on herthus reinforcing the suspense of what happened to him. Later on in the song (not featured in the sample transcript provided in Table 4) the imagery of the lightning and the storm is used to convey her anger at the news she was cheated on. Therefore, akin to RuPaul's Drag Race and Clue, PF's metaphorical mapping in "The Thunder Rolls" is . In section 3, I provided a brief analysis to show how PF occurs in all three texts with the shared mapping . Because I argue that the eff ect of the mapping is similar in those texts, I discuss this below as fi ndings.

Findings and discussion
In all three examples of PF analyzed in this paper, the eff ect of PF is the same. It signposts the suspense and tension to the audience whilst they await a crucial question in a narrative to be answered. In RuPaul's Drag Race the question would be "Who will be eliminated?" or "Who will stay on the show?"; in Clue the questions are "Who is the host?" and "Who killed Mr Boddy?"; fi nally, in "The Thunder Rolls", the question raised is "Where or with whom is the woman's partner?" Each of these situations showcases stress, curiosity, and tension as a result of the suspenseful plot. The suspense is then accentuated by the thunder and lightning to reinforce the tension: PF renders the climax of the scene possible. Indeed, as discussed above in section 2.1, thunder is the noise of a lightning fl ash caused by violent electric discharge; and lightning is the visible discharge of electricity amongst clouds, or between clouds and the ground. These are the surroundings (and source domain) used in the texts under study to mirror the scenes' suspense (the target domain). The most salient characteristics of the source domain mapped onto the target domain (Stockwell, "Infl exibility of Invariance" 137) is that it is a physical release of tension (electricity discharge) as well as danger of high voltage (climax of storyline, awaiting of answers). Overall, the eff ect it has on narratives is to lengthen the action until a denouement is reached, and it keeps audience engaged by signposting the climax of tension.
Additionally, PF's criteria and indicators are featured through various modes in the examples studied (linguistic, paralinguistic, non-linguistic audio, non-linguis-tic visual). This is also extended to the domains of PF: the target domain of emotion is typically conveyed through linguistic and paralinguistic features, whereas the source domain is expressed through non-linguistic features. As such, PF fulfi ls Forceville's (469) defi nition of a multimodal metaphor. Furthermore, this means that Pager-McClymont's stylistic model of PF can be applied to analyze multimodal texts and is not bound to being used with literary texts. In fact, in Pager-McClymont ("Communicating Emotions" 291-292), an analysis of Macbeth act 2, scene 3 (the scene before Lennox is told that King Duncan is dead) is conducted, which features the mapping , which can be associated with -. Indeed, the surroundings outside of the castle are of rain and thunder, and the emotion of anxiety stems from suspense and dramatic irony of the audience knowing King Duncan was murdered and Lennox fi nding out in the next scene. It is also interesting that the three texts studied in this paper are inherently of diff erent modality: one is a song, the other two are fi lm based, and yet they share the same PF mapping. Consequently, PF's mappings observed in any type of texts can be applied to other, regardless of the type of a text's modality.
It is worth discussing how frequently the PF mapping occurs in popular culture. The stylistic choice of using thunder and/ or lightning as signposting of a suspenseful plot point is so widespread in popular culture, that I argue that it has become stereotypical or even cliché, to the extent that it could generate humour because of how expected this association of concept is. An example of this can be found in the literature podcast Save Me From My Shelf (hosted by Dr Abigail Boucher and Dr Daniel Jenkin-Smith), based at Aston University and funded by the Centre for Critical Inquiry into Society and Culture. The podcast summarizes and reviews classic works of literature, and sound eff ects are used consistently when a specifi c theme occurs. For instance, the sound of toasting glasses is used whenever there is a queer reading of a scene. Similarly, whenever a suspenseful moment is discussed, the sound of thunder can be heard, as it is the case in episode 9 on Stoker's Dracula at 10:26, as well as in episode 28 on Nabokov's Lolita at 48:36 (amongst other examples). The podcast uses this sound eff ect to communicate to listeners that there is a key suspenseful moment in the plot, all whilst keeping it entertaining and humorous.
Furthermore, this mapping of PF is also frequently used in the sitcom The Simpsons. In season 1, episode 13 (aired 13 May 1989), Bart, Lisa, and Maggie have a babysitter whilst Homer and Marge go on a date. The children disobey the babysitter by watching the news on the TV, which is reporting on the "Babysitter Bandit". A picture of their babysitter appears on screen after a warning that she is armed and violent and may be using an alias. As the babysitter approaches the children, they start to scream. Their scream is carried onto the next shot, an aerial shot of the Simpsons' house showing the surroundings of night time and rain, and thunder and lightning can be observed from 14:55 to 14:58. The shot of the house with rain and thunder is introduced between the children's discovery and the baby-sitter's punishment: she binds them and tapes their mouths. In this instance, PF's mapping reinforces the suspense of the question "What will the babysitter do to the children now that they know her identity?" Finally, another example of PF's mapping used to highlight the climax of tension in a scene and generate humour can be found in season 2, episode 8 of the television sitcom Cougar Town (aired 17 November 2010). Travis brings his new graduate student girlfriend (Kirsten) home to meet his overly involved mother, Jules, and her friends. Jules is hostile towards Kirsten when it is revealed that Travis will go to her family for Thanksgiving. In a scene, Jules and Kirsten argue over the wine that Kirsten brought as a gift: Jules does not want Kirsten to drink it because she fears she might be a bad infl uence on Travis. Ellie (Jules's best friend), a witness to the fi ght, uses a baking sheet and shakes it to refl ect the light from the ceiling as she turns it on and off , all whilst creating a trembling sound by shaking the baking sheet, akin to thunder and lightning eff ects (14:28 to 14:33). This action showcases how tensed and key the fi ght is between Kirsten and Jules and associates it with the emotion of frustration from the two characters as well as the question "Will Kirsten drink the wine?" Ellie defuses the situation by saying "How cool is that with the sheet?!" (14:35), which draws further attention to the pretend thunder and lightning eff ect and emphasizes the humorous aspect of it.
These examples show that mapping is indeed a PF mapping, as the emotions of stress and curiosity linked to the suspenseful situation are refl ected onto the climax of tension of the thunder and lightning, until a denouement is reached. The widespread nature of the mapping in varied types of texts indicates how stereotypical and, to a certain extent, cliché the association of suspense to thunder and lightning is because of how expected this association is.

Conclusion
Throughout this paper, I demonstrated that in popular culture, emotions are frequently expressed through surroundings, and thus through PF. The notion of suspense and tension in plots is reinforced by the PF mapping , with the thunder and lightning acting as signposting to further communicate the tension of a scene to the audience. I also illustrated that Pager-McClymont's stylistic model of PF can be applied to multimodal texts in addition to literature. In the analyses of multimodal texts conducted in this paper, PF's criteria and indicators occur across various modes, thus rendering PF a multimodal metaphor in these contexts, as per Forceville's defi nition. Lastly, I provided an example of McIntyre's approach to multimodal text analysis of a song, by adapting the transcript to allow for melody description. Although this could be rendered more systematic with music theory, for the purpose of the PF analyses conducted in this paper, the simple melody description was adequate. Moreover, future research could explore the humorous nature of this mapping in certain contexts (such as the example of Cougar Town mentioned in section 4), for instance using Chambers's model of humour or Marszalek's cues of humour.
Overall, it was shown that the use of PF by associating suspenseful scenes to thunder and lightning happens not only in the examples analyzed in this paper, but also in other elements of popular culture, such as podcasts, cartoons, or sitcoms. The frequent association of those concepts (PF's mapping ) has become stereotypical, and thus signposts tension in plot to audiences and readers.