Simulation and Authorship: On Salman Rushdie’s Fury

• Main Authors: Yi-Hsiu Wang, 王乙琇
• Other Authors: 鄭冠榮
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2012
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/84176880779957440465

碩士 === 國立中興大學 === 外國語文學系所 === 100 === The thesis consists of four chapters. Chapter one introduces the author and the purpose of the study by providing a critical viewpoint to examine Salman Rushdie’s novel, Fury, from the perspective of sign operations and consumerism. Chapter two employs Jean Baudrillard’s social theory of sign, consumer culture, body/medium as message, the notion of authorship and the reader response as the main structure to illustrate the social context of the novel. Chapter three focuses on the literary analysis on Fury, discussing how Malik Solanka’s identities as a father, a lover, and an author in a consumer society influence his life and how his creations, Little Brain and The Puppet Kings, serve as commodities to influence, instead of as artifacts. Chapter four concludes that simulation through sign operations arouses sensual satisfactions but even problematizes the formation of identities. The readings by the readers and the consumers reframe the formation of authorship in the sign-dominated society. Multiple interpretations inflame fury and inspire creations. In this case, Rushdie writes the novel as the postmodern portraiture of metropolitan life.