The Study Of Ethical Identity And Ethical Choice In Shame

In the controversial creation of Salman Rushdie,"the pursuit of identity" and"recording his motherland" have never severed.The combination of the reality of the Indian subcontinent and his unique life experiences endows his works with fantasies.Shame,as a result,is the epitome of his periodical achievements during his exploration.Throughout Shame,ethical identity and ethical choices are keys to depict the living trajectory of characters,and the point of penetration of the analysis.Therefore,This paper explores alienation and bewilderment of individual identity and choices in survival with the main plot of the awareness of shame and unawareness of shame represented by Sophia and Omar respectively through the analysis of multiple space-time intertwining ethical environments shaped by Rushdie with ethical literary criticism as the researching approach.It also excavates the literary feelings in Rushdie's "trauma" combining possibilities under the paradox of carnival theory.The first chapter introduces the ethical environment of Utopian society,where the multivariate space-time is in coexistence and hybridity.The society,with powerfultolerance,includes a number of "solidified" point-in-time.Through the life trajectory of the "escapee",points-in-time of the society are connected by points,lines and planes with timing continuing in the circulation.And the space is also demonstrating the fragmentation of geography and the expansion of individuals.When interweaving with the time,it outlines the confluence of the past,present and future,as well as the ethical environment in which multiple space-time bodies coexist in the roving Utopia.The second chapter discusses the bewilderment of the ethical identity in the ethical environment and explores from the perspective of the protagonists the causes of confusion and the interaction of ethical identity,ethical choice and ethical environment.The two ethical extremes-awareness of shame and unawareness of shame represented by Sophia and Omar respectively form ethical whirlpool,sweeping over the whole society.The creation of the identity in the family and the society from small to large scale,from points to plane scale enables the two to be the epitome of the society and the reality of bewilderment in ethical identity to difuse into a larger social district.Hence,the constantly deepening bewilderment and paradox force humans to collide,struggle and seek possible exits in the intertwining web-like space and time intervals.The third chapter analyzes people disturbed by ethical bewilderment,expecting to acquire relief in "the second life" under the help of carnival ethics.After the ethical choice,The individuals represented by Sophia and Omar experience the power of carnival in the paradox;whereas the role orientation of the clown and the fool brings the individual and the others into the category of thinking.On the other hand,the collective force of group choice accumulates the power to break the boundary,eventually realized by the polarization of desire choices,the upside-down turning and the solemnity-humor interchange in every social stratum.Thus the choice itself is rendered by the carnival.Even if the final paradox is yet to be concluded,carnival still presents possibility to break the status quo for the people trapped in the mire.The fourth chapter illustrates that the return of ethical order becomes the imaginative existence in the presence of self-contradiction and social repression.Moreover,the paradox opposing to current social "ethical order" adds irony.However,the society has not yet fallen into despair and the alternation of ethical order is not completely stagnant.The blank and the negation calls for the extension of the reality and multiple possibilitiesin the future.More importantly,the provision of negative examples of morality essentially plays a warning role,requiring people to be confronted with the darkness,avoiding the life alike.In a dialogue with Utopian society,trauma,as the "hell of spirit",has already broken away from the ethical demands and the spiritual expression of the author,the reality and Utopia.It injects vitality into reality and becomes a new force.