This thesis argues that the shortcomings of modernist liberal defences of Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses have helped to draw debate over the book into a stalemate. It also attempts to demonstrate how aspects of this stalemate might be broken. Chapter One contains a brief philosophical survey of the debate, juxtaposing the framework relativism propounded by Rushdie and many of his advocates with the absolutism of Rushdie's Muslim detractors. The chapter closes with an analysis of the contradictions present in Rushdie's relativistic defence of his novel. / Chapter Two opens with a short argument against existing blasphemy laws. The philosophical sketches in Chapter One are applied to the contents of the novel itself, producing an outline of the contending views of "literary contest" and "authorial intention" held by the two sides in the debate, and illuminating Rushdie's apparent confusion about the purposes of his novel. / Chapter Three proposes a solution--based on philosopher Alasdair McIntyre's thought--to defects in modernist liberal defences of The Satanic Verses.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.22604 |
| Date | January 1994 |
| Creators | Lynch, Brian |
| Contributors | Livingston, Paisley (advisor) |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Master of Arts (Department of English.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 001446309, proquestno: MM05403, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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