Date of Award
Spring 5-9-2015
Degree Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts (MA)
Department
English
First Advisor
Renee Schatteman
Second Advisor
Christopher Kocela
Third Advisor
Randy Malamud
Abstract
This thesis argues that Salman Rushdie and David Foster Wallace attempt to incorporate empathy throughout their fiction in order to induce empathy in their audiences, particularly in Rushdie’s novel Midnight’s Children and Wallace’s short story “The Suffering Channel.” While both authors incorporate similar techniques respective of their conceptual styles (i.e. postcolonial, postmodern, post-postmodern styles), the defining characteristic between them is metonymy. By establishing the metonymical characteristics of empathy in contrast to the metaphorical characteristics of sympathy, I also explore the metonymic disconnections between Rushdie and Wallace in terms of metaphor, mimesis, and metafiction.
DOI
https://doi.org/10.57709/6969885
Recommended Citation
Fentem, Donald, "Metonymic Modes of Identity in Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children and David Foster Wallace's "The Suffering Channel": A Metonymic Nose to Sniff out the Empathetic Shit." Thesis, Georgia State University, 2015.
doi: https://doi.org/10.57709/6969885