earticle

영어

This study aims to read the aspects of discourse and ethics in Salman Rushdie’s major political novels—Midnight’s Children, Shame, The Satanic Verses, and The Moor’s Last Sigh—in terms of Jacques Lacan’s theory of discourse and ethics. His theory of discourse is useful in understanding how a discourse is formed and works in society and how antagonism arises from discourses in conflict, while that of ethics suggests an alternative to the problem of discourse. The ‘Rushdie Affair’ caused by The Satanic Verses shows the discourse of religion can function as Master’s discourse in a society. And also this point is well described in Midnight’s Children, Shame, and The Moor’s Last Sigh. For example, the Indian subcontinent is divided into India and Pakistan by two master signifiers of Hinduism and Islam. Both religions continue to have negative effects on the politics, thereby making dictatorship prevail in both nations, especially in Pakistan. The antagonism between the Islamic and Western world, as shown in the ‘Rushdie Affair,’ can never be solved. Likewise, as indicated in the division of India-Pakistan, the reconciliation and harmonious living between Muslims and Hindus also cannot be accomplished. In this sense, the ‘Rushdie Affair’ and his political novels reveal the impossibility of a true ethical act in the level of discourse, without identification with symptoms.