The Third Space: The History,Politic And Aesthetic Style In Shame

Salman Rushdie is a contemporary Indian English novelist. Shame is his thirdnovel, which won several literature awards in Europe and the United States but at thesame time it was banned by Pakistan government. In a modern fairy tale’s tone,thenovel tells over30years social reality of the imaginary Pakistan,and discusses therelationships among political violence, irrational religion and social shame.This thesis constitutes of three body chapters apart from introduction andconclusion.The first chapter analyses how to rewrite the official history of Pakistan,and points out that the rewriting is the key to understanding the political and culturalsignificance of the novel. This chapter analyses the image of home, and points out thatrewriting overturns the binary opposition between the official and folk, the upper andlower, which also has an interstitial,hybrid and noisy voice so as to build the thirdspace and literary world. The second chapter centers on the novel’s diasporapolitics,and points out the author tries to parody the social politic of Pakistan in ahumorous way. This chapter analyses the diaspora perspective, the diaspora’s cultureidentity and the women with the political depression. These artistic methods indicatethat Rushdie’s aesthetic seeking for trying to resist Pakistan’s serious political facts byliterature. Meanwhile, the diaspora politics builds the second third space and literaryworld. The third chapter focus on the aesthetic style of the novel,mainly analyses thelanguage hybridity, the bizarre and magic style and the postcolonial mimic writing inthe novel, and points out these aesthetic style build another third space and literaryworld. Based on the body chapter,this thesis attempts to draw the followingconclusion: The novel Shame tells the history and politic of the imaginary Pakistan ina humorous way, which builds the third space and literary world with a heterogeneousand hybrid voice. Rushdie lets the oppressed subaltern have their voices and criticizesthe narrow nationalism. And at the same time it subverts the western culturalhegemony. However, to some extent,the third space and literary world in the novel isonly of Rushdie’s personal and ideal element. Rushdie arouses people’s attention tocolonial and postcolonial phenomenon and thinks about the development of the thirdworld literature and the reconstruction of the national identity.