The Terrible Power of Metaphor

Two novels by Salman Rushdie, "Midnight¿s Children" and "The Satanic Verses", are here analyzed, together with some essays contained in "Imaginary Homelands" and "Step Across This Line". The starting point is the concept of performativity as expressed in the works of Austin and Derrida, de Man and Wittgenstein. How powerful can language be when it creates things? Several characters in both novels are considered both in the effects words have on their identities and personal history, but also as metaphors and metonymies of greater realities. In his essays Rushdie expresses his awareness of the power of literature to create and reveal the truth, and the connection between literature and otherness is to be an important key to interpret his works.