A Study Of Unnatural Narratives In Salman Rushdie’s Fictions

Undoubtedly,Salman Rushdie who has got three times of the "Man Booker Prize” for fiction is one of the greatest novelists in today’s English literary world.Analyzing the past30 years’ studies on Salman Rushdie at home and broad,especially in Britain,U.S.A.and India,most of them are powerfully analyzed,fruitfully diverse,and extensively and deeply influential.This dissertation,however,tries to find a new path based on those fruitful research achievements at home and abroad,attempting to put the newly developed"theoretical noble”,that is,unnatural narratology into the studies on Salman Rushdie’s unnatural narratives so as to discover the distinguished writing arts,the profound thoughts and emotional expressions,in particular,and the ethical significance behind Rushdie’s unnatural narratives.This dissertation emphatically focuses on the features of unnatural narratives in Salman Rushdie’s works and how we read and understand the unnatural narratives,thus,tries to explore the successful writing secrets and the ethical significance behind them.In the first chapter,it is the introduction to the whole dissertation,including the situation of study on Salman Rushdie at home and abroad,the research methods and the innovative points,and so on so forth.In the second chapter,it aims to illustrate what unnatural narratives are and what unnatural narratology is.Seemingly as Aristotle explores the problem of "poetics”,he believes that "Everything should start from the primary principle”.In this chapter,firstly it attempts to sort out the historical line between the natural narratology and the unnatural narratology and their relations as well;and then it specifically expounds the cognitive parameters of unnatural narratology,namely,impossible narrators and storytelling scenarios,supernatural story characters,antimimetic story temporalities and spaces,and unnatural story emotions.Last but not least,it emphatically illustrates 9reading strategies by Jan Alber.In the third chapter,it begins to explore the unnatural narrators and storytelling scenarios in Rushdie’s works.This dissertation has chosen four representative works,that is,Midnight’s Children,Haroun and the Sea of Stories,Luka and the Fire of Life,and the newly published novel Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-eight Nights.The narrators and storytelling scenarios in the four books embody something physically or humanly impossible,namely,they have been beyond the cognitive possibilityof the real world and have very strong unnaturalness.In the fourth chapter,it tries to discuss the unnatural story characters in the four books.Unnatural characters embody those characters or figures who are physically,logically,or humanly impossible.They may be human beings,things,animals,half human or thing,half human or animal,and they are totally beyond the distinctions between "round” and "flat” by E.M.Forster or between"static” and "dynamic” by Manfred Pfister but have become "polymorphic wild paper people” by Jan Alber.In the fifth chapter,it explores the unnatural story temporalities and spaces in Rushdie’s works.Some unnatural characters sometimes in Rushdie’s unnatural narratives can travel through the past,the future and the present,and time has not necessarily to flow forward in a linear way,and it can move retrogressively in a linear way,can flow in an eternal loop,can speed up or slow down,and the same thing at the same time may happen and may not,which completely break the possibility of the real world.In the same vein,the spaces in Rushdie’s works also are entirely different,and they might be uncertain and incomprehensible,and beyond the possibility of the real world and the cognitive scope.In the sixth chapter,it attempts to explore the unnatural emotions in Rushdie’s works.Unnatural emotions refer to those which are physically,logically or humanly impossible emotions.This chapter tries to discover the implied thoughts,feelings,and ethical appeals behind the unnatural narratives by Rushdie.In the ending part,this dissertation illustrates the features of unnatural narratives in Rushdie’s works and the deep thoughts and ethical significance in them through the strategies of "unnaturalizing” and"naturalizaing”.Furthermore,it concludes that Salman Rushdie has realized his narrative purposes and writing dreams by using the principle of "narrative means,ethical end”.Exploring the features of unnatural narratives,the thoughts and ethical significance behind them is of great help for us to seek a new perspective into Rushdie’s works,to discover his superpower in telling stories,and to excavate his extraordinary secrets in writing.In a nutshell,the unnatural narrative is one of Rushdie’s important narrating methods,and it is his useful storytelling method,that is,what we call "means”;the implied thoughts and ethical appeals are his storytelling purposes,that is,what we mention "ends”.