This article responds to the current trends of modern linguistics (anthropocentric paradigm), namely to the area of cognitive linguistics that resize the role of metaphor, treating it as a mechanism of thought. Thus, the approach addresses the artistic concept of uprooting in J.M.G. Le Clézio's novel Poisson d'or investigating metaphors that build this artistic concept as mechanisms shaping the artistic/textual vision, as a means of conceptualization. The artistic concept of ‘uprooting’ in the novel is mainly configured by metaphors from the dysphoric/evil and inferiority/marginality sphere, signaling an index of suffering and pain.