| Postmodern literature is one of the most influential literary trends which emerged in western society after World War Ⅱ. Among all the characteristics, indeterminacy is one of the prominent and fundamental features. This thesis researches on the indeterminacy manifested by the means of identity-loss, fictionality of reality and contingency in the world in The Book of Illusion, which is written by American author Paul Auster.Generally speaking, indeterminacy is the question about conventional conceptions like center, origin, essence or the notion of truth etc, the subversion and deconstruction of these deep-rooted Logocentrism, but the pursuit of the multiple possibilities of the reality or decentralization. In literature, indeterminacy displays in the ambiguous themes, obscure languages, and uncertain characters. Indeterminacy in The Book of Illusion can be reflected in three respects:identity-loss with the respect to identities’elusion, abandonment, random construction and deconstruction; fictionality of reality which is unpredictable and unknown about its essence because of its construction and signification by language with floating signifier and unsettled signified; and contingency in the world, made of contingent events and free of the exclusive explanation on the basis of the absolute cause-and-effect principle.From the analysis of the three aspects concerning with the indeterminacy in The Book of Illusion, we can see that the world is the existence filled with illusionary indeterminacy. In the world, self can not recognize their fractured, multiple and changeable identities; it is destined to the futility of pursuit of truth with cover of surface due to the Ianguage-fictionality of the reality; and the chance is here and there in the world so that it is certain reaction to the postmodern society, unexplainable, unreal,and uncertain. |
