1

Contents

Introduction 2

Chapter 1 : Midnight’s Children 12

Chapter 2 : The Satanic Verses 26

Chapter 3 : Haroun and the Sea of Stories 35

Conclusion 47

Works Cited 48
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Introduction

“Cogito ergo sum”, or “I think, therefore I am” (Med. 2, AT 7:25): these famous words by

René Descartes show a confidence in personal existence through thought. However, in the

less well known sentence following from the discussion of the ‘cogito’, as Lex Newman

refers to it in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Descartes immediately states: “[b]ut I

do not yet have a sufficient understanding of what this ‘I’ is, that now necessarily exists”

(ibid.), thereby no longer questioning his existence in the world, but instead shifting his query

to the identity that his existence presents. This is the problem of the concept of identity,

namely that without rational thought, the entire concept would not exist. In other words, the

idea of identity, in all its variations and individual qualities, is based on the fact that people

think about who they are and what they experience during life. This way of thinking

determines that there can never possibly be one single concept of identity. On the outside,

people differ in appearance from one another, while on the inside, culture, religion,

upbringing, in short completely different ways of life reflect the differences in the identity of

individuals. Typically enough, even though every person is unique, there are things that define

a shared sense of identity among people from a related group. In his commencement address

as Director of the Trinity Institute in New York, Bishop Robert Terwilliger states that “[a] man

finds his identity by identifying. A man’s identity is not best thought of as the way in which he

is separated from his fellows but the way in which he is united with them” (Simpson’s

Contemporary Quotations). In the ideal sense this notion is a very positive one, because it

implies that there is always some perceptible link that will identify two or more people no

matter how different they may seem. However, the reality of the situation is very different,

because once people start identifying the similarities and differences between one another

they focus on the similarities of their own people and the differences of others. People divide
 3

themselves into concepts such as race, nationality and class, thus linking one set of people

under a certain unifying identity, but also excluding anything different from their definition.

In itself this should not be a problem, were it not for the fact that the inclusion or exclusion of

people comes with the notions of superiority and inferiority. Those that do not share the traits

that define one identity must, logically, have a different identity and in the case of national

identity those that are different cannot share in the things that make the “indigenous” people

proud of their national heritage, for example “a history establishing its continuity through the

ages, a set of heroes embodying its national values, a language, cultural monuments, folklore,

historic sites, distinctive geographical features, a specific mentality and a number of

picturesque labels such as costume, national dishes or an animal emblem” (A.M. Thiesse, 6).

The pride in all these things can become treacherous, because they can be used as

evidence of superiority, even if this is unfounded. Still, this need not form any kind of

problem if people willingly distinguish themselves from each other and remain separated.

However, if the sense of superiority is justified, so is the right to spread that ‘superior’ identity

for the good of others. An example of this is the so-called White Man’s Burden, the burden of

the modern Western nations to bring civilization to those that they deemed needed it. “The

implication, of course, was that the Empire existed not for the benefit — economic or

strategic or otherwise — of Britain itself, but in order that primitive peoples, incapable of self-

government, could, with British guidance, eventually become civilized” (Cody, 4). This idea

was prominent during the time of European imperialism, when the leading Western nations

began colonising foreign lands. The implication mentioned above is of course the model that

justified this colonisation, but in reality the colonisers were oppressors, merely holding the

other countries for their valuable resources and as extension to the borders of a growing

empire. Naturally, there was a notion that this was for the good of the now colonised country,

however, this was based on the arrogant conclusion that if the economic and political situation
 4

was not like the one back home, it was automatically inferior and as Cody states “incapable of

self-government” (4). The unifying national identity before colonisation was, as with all

nations, divisible into smaller categories of identity, such as religion, skin colour and social

background; however, the effect of colonisation was that these were all sorted under one label,

all part of the identity of the inferior people. In the case of the British Empire the colonists

spread their own English identity and the indigenous peoples were expected to conform to

this, because it was, after all, for their own good. Some people were more than happy to

benefit from the English way of life, but more often it was the case that people rejected the

idea of letting go of a personal/national identity to adopt the English lifestyle.

This rejection of an imperialistic form of foreign oppression became apparent in one of

the foremost British colonies, India, where the English culture, language and religion were

forced upon the people when the country was colonised in 1757. Although the concept would

be that both sides should profit from this relationship, reality was very different because

“Great Britain prospered greatly from their colonization of India. To keep money flowing into

the British economy, the imperial power imposed regulations and taxes that stifled Indian

industrial and commercial growth” (The Online NewsHour). The unifying national identity

imposed through colonisation incorporated all Indians under the same label, no matter their

religion, culture or race, so people who were in actuality very different from each other now

became Indian citizens of the British Empire. The significance of these differences would

become apparent when the English ceased colonial activities in India, leaving the Indian

people to pick up the pieces of their own identity. With the departure of the English, the

Indian people could define themselves under what they knew as their personal identity. The

rise of nationalism in the early twentieth century had caused tensions to rise between the

different communities within the Indian populace, leading to a desire to be separated from

other Indian societies on a much larger scale:

 5

Though the Indian National Congress, the premier body of nationalist opinion, was

ecumenical and widely representative in some respects, Indian Muslims were

encouraged, initially by the British, to forge a distinct political and cultural identity.

The Muslim League arose as an organization intended to enhance the various –

political, cultural, social, economic, and religious – interests of the Muslims.

(Lal, 1)

Before seceding from India, the British, together with prominent Indian party members,

devised a plan to remedy this cultural disparity in one of the most controversial arrangements

of people management in history: the Partition. At midnight on the fifteenth of August 1947

the country of Pakistan officially came into existence as it was separated from India. The

majority of the Muslim population moved to Pakistan, while the Hindus crossed over to India.

The Punjab and Bengali regions, previously states of British India were now divided between

the two new self-governing countries. “Down to the present day, the partition remains the

single largest episode of the uprooting of people in modern history, as between 12 to 14

million left their home to take up residence across the border” (2). The former colony was

now separated into many different identities, national, religious or otherwise, all influenced by

each other throughout their history together, all brought about by the British Empire’s

colonialism.

One hundred and ninety years of British colonial rule has irreversibly changed the face

of India and, for better or worse, the histories of England and India are now inevitably linked.

A great part of the Indian identity is made up of the influence of the English during and also

after the colonial years. At the same time the English people have also picked up Indian

influences which they experienced during the colonial period and later as Indian people
 6

migrated to the European island. In a sense the Indian identity can no longer be called

singularly Indian due to this intermingling of cultures. However, one could also say that the

true Indian identity is actually the result of this intermingling, in other words, that India’s

history and the effects of colonisation have formed the national identity of the people as it is

today, with a great diversity of cultural and religious traditions. In this sense, the identity of

the Indian people is the result of the nation’s turbulent history in which the English played a

very large role. This diversity in a nation’s people leads to the problem of Terwilliger’s

statement that in order to find or know his own identity, a person must identify the

characteristics that link him to other people. In India, for example, an Indian Muslim shares

his religious identity with others of his faith; however, being an Indian citizen, his national

identity links him to all other Indian people, regardless of faith. Although the different

identities might be isolated into various communities, in the end all Indian people share a part

of their identity with each other. The Partition definitely had an impact on this symbiotic

relationship through the creation of a new national identity by bringing Pakistan into

existence; however, India’s colonial history will always form a link with Pakistan to identify a

shared identity. So if a man’s identity is best thought of as the way in which he is united with

his fellows, then Indian people can contain a multitude of different concepts of identity, some

linking them to each other, while others define the differences between them. It is logical that

in this maelstrom of shared identities and a linked cultural history it is possible to fall in

between the preconceived concepts of identity and to not know where exactly one fits in. This

leads to the notion of the marginal man:

When an individual shaped and moulded by one culture is brought by migration,

education, marriage, or other influence into permanent contact with a culture of a

different content, or when an individual from birth is initiated into two or more historic
 7

traditions, languages, political loyalties, moral codes, or religions, then he is likely to

find himself on the margin of each culture, but a member of neither.

(Goldberg, 52)

The identity crisis of the marginal man is one of non-belonging, of being “poised in

psychological uncertainty between two (or more) social worlds” (Goldberg, 53). In effect, this

existence without a foothold in either cultural world creates a new identity, albeit a

paradoxical one. The problem is that, although this adapted identity has in a sense made a

place for itself, the only certainty it has is that it is never fully part of the other social worlds.

The marginal identity is either not accepted into the other identities due to the extent of its

differences, or cannot completely intermingle with them through a reluctance to let go of a

personal identity. The non-belonging of the marginal man can therefore be viewed as a state

of exile, even if he is put into that situation by his own hand, in other words that his own

struggles and unwillingness to let go of his concept of personal identity place him in between

two worlds. The paradox of the exiled identity is that it is the dissimilarity in culture that

makes it difficult to be accepted, but exactly these differences are what the marginal man

wishes to keep in order to define his own identity.

The dilemma of the marginal man is very present in Indian culture with its multitude

of religions, cultures and of course the colonial influence caused by the British. However, at

the same time there is an understanding of one nation and one national identity. This all-

encompassing national identity must, as with all nations, pride itself in certain unified

historical ‘facts’ and nationwide traditions like the ones stated by Thiesse earlier. It seems that

it is exactly what E.M. Forster’s character Mrs Moore famously called the “muddle” of India

in his novel A Passage to India that encapsulates all its people under one identity (Forster

1979, 86). At least for an outsider like her it is precisely this concept of a muddle that defines
 8

her experience of life in India. However, Indians also seem to understand this paradox of

identity. Amit Chaudhuri states, “since India is a huge baggy monster, its fiction, too, must be

vast and all-inclusive. […] Indian life is plural, garrulous, rambling, lacking a fixed centre,

and the Indian novel must be the same” (Orsini, 15). Chaudhuri’s assumptions are based on

the representation of India by one of its most famous authors: Salman Rushdie. A large part of

India’s shared cultural influence can be found in Rushdie’s works. Born in the year that India

became independent, Rushdie experienced the decolonisation of his homeland early on in life.

The remnants of English policy can be seen in his upbringing as he learnt English at an early

age:

What happens in India is if you come from a well-off, middle-class background, you

get sent to private schools, which all use English as the language of instruction. They

are what's called English Medium Schools. And so, from the age of five, I began to be

educated in English, and my parents started making a bit of an effort to begin speaking

it at home.

(Rushdie in Hitchens, 26)

He was sent to Rugby school in England at the age of thirteen and his family followed him

shortly afterwards and became naturalized British citizens. Two years later the family moved

to Pakistan, “a country that Rushdie detested and he felt as if his homeland had been taken

away from him” (C. Runyon, 6), and Rushdie would soon travel back to England to study at

Cambridge. Born in India, but also a British citizen, Rushdie himself embodies the identity of

the marginal man, or in other the words, embodies the balancing act of two or more different

identities in one person, as he himself states:

 9

The Indian writer, looking back at India, does so through guilt-tinted spectacles. [...] I

am speaking now of those of us who emigrated . . . and I suspect that there are times

when the move seems wrong to us all, when we seem, to ourselves, post-lapsarian men

and women. We are Hindus who have crossed the black water; we are Muslims who

eat pork. And as a result – as my use of the Christian notion of the fall indicates – we

are now partly of the West. Our identity is at once plural and partial. Sometimes we

feel that we straddle two cultures; at other times, that we fall between two stools.

(Rushdie 1992a, 15)

His novels often focus on the struggles of the marginal man trying to find his place in society,

which happens in many different ways and is often traceable to his own life and personal

experience. Prime examples are the novels Midnight’s Children, The Satanic Verses and

Haroun and the Sea of Stories. The concept of identity links these novels together in a kind of

chronological narrative of the migrant author. Midnight’s Children focuses on the

development of identity in the tumultuous period in India’s history after the Partition. The

Satanic Verses describes the challenges the migrant identity faces in new and different cultural

surroundings, while Haroun and the Sea of Stories gives a fantastical solution to the “serious

and problematic use of other worlds” (Morton, 85). Although the first two novels need not

necessarily be connected directly to Rushdie’s personal experience, Haroun and the Sea of

Stories presents the reader with another element of an identity crisis. The controversy over the

passages referring to the Qur’an in The Satanic Verses led to a Fatwa being proclaimed over

Rushdie and thus put him into hiding. Coincidently, or perhaps not, Haroun and the Sea of

Stories focuses greatly on the silencing of the storyteller, thus forming another link between

the identity of the author and his novel. In Rushdie’s novels there is another twist to this

theme, namely the aspect of magical realism. The characters in his novels who come to be
 10

placed in a state of exile between two different identities either encounter the supernatural, or

become a part of the magical world itself. For Rushdie this place in between two identities

provides “new angles at which to enter reality” (Rushdie 1992a, 15) and this becomes obvious

in his books. This thesis will provide an analysis of Rushdie’s use of magical realism to

characterize the struggle of identity of the marginal man in the novels Midnight’s Children,

The Satanic Verses and finally Haroun and the Sea of Stories. The analysis of Midnight’s

Children will show how, in the difficult period after the Partition of India, the protagonist

Saleem Sinai struggles to create, adapt and maintain his apparently pre-determined identity in

the face of an ever-changing nation filled to the brim with diversity. A look at The Satanic

Verses will show how the marginal identity of the migrants Saladin and Gibreel struggles to

find a place in a new world, and is literally mutated by the pre-conceived notions that are

automatically applied to the migrant identity by the new nation. Haroun and the Sea of

Stories will show how Rushdie has taken a different path towards writing after the fatwa,

placing his authorial identity under the scrutiny of the reader in order to question his

responsibility in the face of censorship. At the same time Rushdie is laying down moralistic

guidelines as to the path of the creation and understanding of a personal identity through the

fantastical adventure of Haroun to the world where stories come from. These analyses will

show that although Rushdie uses different styles and perspectives to illustrate the struggle of

those who are marginalised, the recurring theme constantly revolves around the concept of the

identity of the marginal man. Whether in a nation that is constantly changing, or surrounded

by difference, the marginal man must find a place where he can be himself but also be

accepted. Rushdie’s consistent use of magical realism provides a path for the seemingly

impossible to become probable even though eventual acceptance may seem to be only a

distant hope.
 11

Chapter 1: Midnight’s Children

 12

Newspapers celebrated me; politicians ratified my position. Jawaharlal Nehru wrote:

“Dear Baby Saleem, My belated congratulations on the happy incident of your

moment of birth! You are the newest bearer of that ancient face of India which is also

eternally young. We shall be watching over your life with the closest of attention; it

will be, in a sense, the mirror of our own.”

(Rushdie 1982, 122)

This celebration of the national significance of one person is the main problem for Midnight’s

Children’s main character Saleem Sinai, who, being born on the stroke of midnight on the

exact moment of the Partition, becomes one of India’s one thousand and one midnight’s

children. Being born on that day, on or around the stroke of midnight, provides these children

with magical powers or properties derived from the fact that they are now a decisive part of a

changing national history. Thus, their identities are now linked to the separated nations and

inevitably to the changes that occur in this turbulent period as their lives mirror the nation’s

history. The problem in this is that Saleem or the other children seem to have no choice in the

matter and that their identity is imprinted upon them by the nation and weighed down by this

huge responsibility to be a major part of the changes taking place. From the moment of birth

they are outsiders placed on the turning point of India’s past and future. The magical abilities

and characteristics of the one thousand and one midnight’s children signify an importance in

their identity as connected to India’s history; however, Saleem’s narrative creates a number of

problems with regards to reliability. The story is told solely from Saleem’s point of view,

leaving many things open to interpretation as his opinion on history and his place in it need

not necessarily imply truth. The magic, however, is never brought into question as is typical

of Rushdie’s magical realism. Instead, the historical facts that Saleem connects to his own life

can be put under scrutiny. Whether these facts can be proven outside of the novel is not
 13

important as Midnight’s Children is a work of fiction; however, as soon as Saleem connects

any part of Indian history to himself he defines his own identity as connected to India. The

responsibility of the midnight’s children then becomes a great deal less of a problem as it is no

longer forced upon them by fateful coincidence, but instead merely implied by Saleem

through his own perception of his link, and that of the other children, to the development of

India. This then brings about the question of personal identity and how it is shaped not only

by a person’s surroundings, but also through personal interpretation and a piecing together of

life’s memories as Saleem does when telling his story. One can argue that the circumstances

of his birth and turbulent period in India define Saleem’s identity as one that is in between the

past and the rapidly progressing future, however, at the same time Saleem is marginalised by

his own hand when he places himself in a position of significance by connecting his history to

that of India. This reasoning will show that although Saleem may seem like the epitome of

Indian national identity, he is in fact a marginal man seeking to define his own identity in an

ever-changing India.

Midnight’s Children is Saleem’s autobiography and starts years before the Partition

and his actual birth. The autobiography begins with Saleem’s grandfather Aadam Aziz thirty-

two years before the Partition and even though Saleem is not in the picture yet, except as the

storyteller, his identity is slowly being pieced together by fragments of his family’s past. The

problem is that Saleem could never know most of the details of this time as they happened so

long before his actual birth. Saleem explains that he knows all these things because: “[m]ost

of what matters in our lives takes place in our absence: but I seem to have found from

somewhere the trick of filling in the gaps of my knowledge, so that everything is in my head,

down to the last detail” (19). This is also how his grandfather pieces together an image of his

female patient and future wife Naseem Ghani. He must tend to her ailments by looking at

single parts of her body through the hole of a large sheet and in the end has a complete picture
 14

of her by putting the pieces together in his mind. Saleem too, as the storyteller, adds brief

glimpses of the future to his writing by adding details but leaving out just enough so that the

reader cannot piece things together completely: “…[a]nd already I can see the repetitions

beginning; because didn’t my grandmother also find enormous … and the stroke, too, was not

the only … and the Brass Monkey had her birds … the curse begins already, and we haven’t

even got to the noses yet!” (12). Most telling however is the prophecy of Ramram the fortune

teller:

A son, Sahiba, who will never be older than his motherland – neither older nor

younger […] There will be two heads – but you shall see only one – there will be

knees and a nose, a nose and knees […] newspaper praises him, two mothers raise

him! […] Washing will hide him – voices will guide him! Friends mutilate him –

blood will betray him! […] Spittoons will brain him – doctors will drain him – jungle

will claim him – wizards reclaim him! […] He will have sons without having sons! He

will be old before he is old! And he will die … before he is dead.

(87-88)

This prophecy turns out to be completely accurate, even though the reader can only guess at

this from Saleem’s interruption: “[...] listen carefully, Padma; the fellow got nothing wrong”

(87). Saleem’s body ages rapidly and in correspondence to the happenings in India. The two

heads can be seen as Saleem’s and Shiva’s, switched as babies and so his mother Amina only

sees him, never her biological son. The two heads also symbolise his hybrid identity as an

Anglo-Indian following from his actual origins and his Amina will never see the English side

of Saleem. Saleem has a huge powerful nose, while Shiva has immensely strong knees. The

newspapers praise the children that are born on the midnight of the Partition as being special

in the new and liberated India. Saleem is raised by Amina and also by Mary, the woman that
 15

switched the children after birth and in her guilt for this crime feels she must care for Saleem

as a nanny. Saleem develops a habit of hiding in the washing basket as a child where he feels

he is invisible. Saleem discovers he has the gift of telepathy, and the voices that guide him are

the ones he receives telepathically. He loses the tip of his middle finger between a door while

trying to escape from supposed friends and is thus mutilated, after which his blood type

reveals that he could never be Ahmed and Amina’s biological son. Saleem loses his memory

when his grandfather’s spittoon falls on his head and is somehow conscripted into the

Pakistani army. Together with the other midnight’s children he is eventually sterilised, and

thus “drained” (88). He escapes into the jungle and recovers his memory with the help of

Pervati-the-witch. The sons are the people of India, the country that Saleem embodies and

ages in time with, and his death before being dead can symbolise many things, however, only

as speculation because his death is only guessed at in the final chapter of the novel. It can be

said that it is a pessimistic view of India as dying before Saleem truly passes, or vice versa,

that Saleem dies and the nation he embodies lives on without him. So in a way this short

prophetic glimpse into the future defines Saleem’s identity to the reader, and Saleem also

accepts this description of who he is to become as a realistic description of his identity.

Through Saleem’s method of writing his thoughts on his identity become clear. The

reader learns where his origins lie and how his coming was prophesied, but most importantly

Saleem’s connection to India and world history. The moment that Aadam finally gets to see

Naseem’s face is the exact date of the ending of the First World War, thus signifying the end

of an age and the beginning of something new. Saleem often refers to his aging body as a

personification of India that is “falling apart […] literally disintegrating, slowly for the

moment, although there are signs of acceleration” (37) and he’s destined to crumble into

approximately 630 million particles of anonymous dust, symbolizing the population of India.

Stephen Morton states the following on Saleem’s method of storytelling:

 16

Saleem’s narrative is simultaneously a narrative of India’s national independence, and

it is for this reason that the story of Saleem Sinai in Midnight’s Children has been

described as a national allegory [where] events in his [Saleem’s] own family life

influence and even cause events of national significance, such as the Amritsar

massacre, the riots over language, India’s independence and subsequent partition and

the Indo-Pakistan war of 1965.

(36)

Saleem’s identity as one of the one thousand and one midnight’s children therefore identify

him as a person of great significance to India. Indeed he could even be seen as vital to India as

his experiences apparently reflect upon the country like the mirror foretold in the letter from

the Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru at his birth. In that sense all of the midnight’s

children personify the new India and all of its inhabitants as they are the ones born into the

new age of freedom. At the same time this notion creates a giant gap between them and all

other Indians, simply because they are different. According to Saleem’s considerations they

embody the entire Indian national identity; however there are only one thousand and one of

them bearing this responsibility laid upon them by their time of birth. Saleem did not choose

this identity for himself, but was instead (un)lucky enough to be born on the midnight of the

Partition. With the Partition, India gained independence from England and Pakistan was born,

thus harbouring in a new age for the people of the new nations. The midnight’s children are

symbols of this moment and so their identities are unique as a part of something new and

different. The otherness of the midnight’s children is emphasized by their magical abilities

and characteristics. Saleem is born with a huge runny cucumber-like nose and two birthmarks,

which he describes as being on the west and east sides of his face (Rushdie 1982, 124),
 17

making his face resemble the Indian subcontinent and earning him the nickname “Map-face”.

Although at first it seems as though there is nothing significant about his constantly running

nose, after being punished into a day of silence Saleem realizes he has the power of telepathy.

This proves to be due to his running nose that, after he had sniffed too hard, works as a radio

that he can tune and change the volume on at will (165-166). When later in his life his running

nose is cured through an operation, he loses his power of telepathy and at the same time gains

the power of supreme smell. He can smell anything, even emotions, and so maintains some

element of telepathy, only instead of a mindreader he is now a proficient mind-smeller. Before

that time, however, he realizes through his telepathy that he is not alone in his magical

prowess. Saleem telepathically connects to all the other midnight’s children of which “[b]y

1957, the surviving five hundred and eighty-one children were all nearing their tenth

birthdays, wholly ignorant, for the most part, of one and other’s existence” (196). The other

midnight children had passed away earlier on in life, either due to malnutrition, disease and

other misfortunes, leaving Saleem to briefly consider their place as true midnight’s children

and confirming his identity as one of the more powerful of the “chosen” (196). The fact is that

the closer to midnight the children were born, the greater were their powers:

So among the midnight children were infants with powers of transmutation, flight,

prophecy and wizardry … but two of us were born on the stroke of midnight. Saleem

and Shiva, Shiva and Saleem, nose and knees and knees and nose … to Shiva, the hour

had given the gifts of war […] and to me, the greatest talent of all – the ability to look

into the hearts and minds of men.

(200)
 18

Saleem takes on a position of importance among the midnight children as he brings

them together through his telepathy, uniting them, where first they knew practically nothing of

each other’s existence. Saleem is therefore an important part of the marginalised midnight’s

children, but in a sense he marginalises himself even further through a certain arrogance due

to what he practically claims as his superior birthright of being born on the stroke of midnight

instead of a few minutes earlier or later. This becomes very apparent when the Midnight

Children’s Conference he has set up begins to disintegrate as the children follow in the

footsteps of their biased parents: “The rich children turned up their noses at being in such

lowly company; Brahmins began to feel uneasy at permitting even their thoughts to touch the

thoughts of untouchables; while among the low-born, the pressures of poverty and

Communism were becoming evident” (255). Thus they step out of the marginalised position

to take their place in society and become accepted in the community in which they feel they

belong. Saleem feels that the children should be unique and that class has no place in their

marginalised world: “Do not let this happen! Do not permit the endless duality of masses-and-

classes, capital-and-labour, them-and-us to come between us! We [...] must be a third

principal, we must be the force which drives between the horns of the dilemma; for only by

being other, by being new, can we fulfil the promise of our birth!” (255). It is Shiva who puts

Saleem in his place as the snotty little rich boy and explains that “[w]hen you have things,

then there is time to dream; when you don’t, you fight” (255). Saleem has had the privilege of

a relatively easy life in comparison to many of India’s citizens. He comes from a wealthy and

relatively liberal background, and so it is easier for him to dream of uniting a marginalised

group into acceptance as such. Morton suggests that Saleem’s narrative derives from “his

elite, cosmopolitan family background. For Saleem traces his origins back to his grandfather

Aadam Aziz, a medical doctor who is born in Kashmir and subsequently undertakes medical

training in Germany where he becomes associated with European anarchists, before returning
 19

to India” (36-37). For the other children, however, the struggle to fit in overrules any will to

be a part of any identity other than what they have come to know from their surroundings, and

so for them it is an easier concept to follow in the path of their parents than to take the

alternate identity that Saleem proposes. The third principal that Saleem proposes is childhood,

and all of the children are growing up, leaving their dreams behind in pursuit of the reality

before them, instead of creating a new reality of their own “because children are the vessels

into which adults pour their poison, and it was the poison of grown-ups which did for us”

(Rushdie 1982, 256). Saleem also leaves these considerations of his third principal behind and

slowly but surely becomes angry at this responsibility he suggests has been thrust upon his

shoulders.

Why me? Why, owing to accidents of birth prophecy etcetera, must I be responsible

for language riots and after-Nehru-who, for pepperpot-revolutions and bombs which

annihilated my family? Why should I, Saleem Snotnose, Sniffer, Mapface, Piece-of-

the-Moon, accept the blame for what-was-not-done by Pakistani troops in Dacca? …

Why, alone of all the more-than-five-hundred-million, should I have to bear the burden

of history?

(382)

This anger stems from the fact that he feels he is unable to be what he wants to be due to the

identity that was forced upon him. He feels that the responsibility that India placed upon him

was too great, too much of a burden for him alone to bear. It is India’s history that has broken

him, the full force of the massive variations and changes in Indian national identity as it shifts

through the turbulent history is tearing him apart quite literally as his skin cracks and rips

through the tension his body sustains. This is also once again due to the “muddle” that is
 20

India, only Saleem refers to this element as the “many-headed multitudes’ who constitute the

Indian nation (462). “Saleem’s bodily disintegration mirrors the fracturing of the nation by the

multiple voices of the population” (Morton, 45). The midnight’s children, leaving their

childhood and marginalized status behind, take their place in the multitudes following in their

parents’ footsteps. For Saleem this is not such an easy matter, as he symbolizes the Indian

nation, and thus all of the multitudes within himself. His physical deterioration and the falling

apart of the Midnight Children’s Conference is therefore a metaphor for the impossibility of

unity within India among the multitudes that divide the people. Even though he struggles to

leave his predefined identity behind he realizes the futility behind it:

I am the sum total of everything that went before me, of all I have been seen done, of

everything done-to-me. […] I am anything that happens after I’ve gone which would

not have happened if I had not come. Nor am I particularly exceptional in this matter;

each ‘I’, everyone of the now-six-hundred-million-plus of us, contains a similar

multitude. I repeat for the last time: to understand me, you’ll have to swallow a world.

(Rushdie 1982, 383)

This, then, shows how Saleem’s personal identity, being completely interlinked with that of

India, has been shaped and kindled by the nation’s history, but at the same time the paradox is

that Saleem believes himself to be the influence of all these changes. Were it not for his

existence and his experiences, India would not have changed along with him, as was foretold

in Ramram’s prophecy and hinted at by Nehru’s letter. And so it is the purpose of his coming

that fills Saleem with the most anger, the fact that he had no choice in the matter, but was

instead predestined to cause great things for India, a burden he at first willingly accepted as
 21

his fate, but now fills him with anguish at what else he could have been, had his life not be

entwined with the history of his nation.

Saleem’s self proclaimed righteousness is the main dilemma in the concept of identity

within the novel, namely, where to draw a line of reliability when it comes to Saleem’s

autobiography. The story starts years before his birth and although he states that he has found

“the trick of filling in the gaps of my knowledge, so that everything is in my head, down to

the last detail” (19), the word “trick” automatically arouses suspicion as to Saleem’s

reliability. Moreover, at the end of book one it turns out that the family history he portrayed as

his own, actually has nothing to do with him or his origins, because he is really the offspring

of the British colonial landowner William Methwold and Vanita, his Indian servant.

Therefore, “this elite, cosmopolitan narrative is undermined by the revelation that Saleem’s

progenitors are false and that his genealogy is invented” (Morton, 37). The reader discovers

that, not only is Saleem living the life that should have been Shiva’s, being switched at birth,

but he is also an Anglo-Indian. Not much further is told about this revelation, in fact his being

a cultural hybrid does not obstruct Saleem’s life in any way. Loretta Mijares explains that

while “the hybridity of Anglo-Indians often forces them into a position of economic and

social marginalisation [...] Saleem’s identity as an Anglo-Indian is a metaphor for the multiple

and overdetermined genealogy of India rather than a concern over the marginality of the

Anglo-Indian per se” (132-133). More important is the fact that Saleem claims to have a

wealthy background, as mentioned earlier: “[...] the ambiguity surrounding Saleem’s birth

does not centre on whether he is to grow up Indian or English, but rather whether he will be

rich or poor” (134). After Saleem’s actual origins are revealed to the reader one has to wonder

at how Saleem can still claim to have an heroic destiny and a hand in India’s history while

technically not being the true son spoken of in the prophecy. The answer to this query

becomes apparent in the character that provides the only scepticism throughout Saleem’s
 22

autobiography: Padma. Although Saleem himself constantly interrupts his narration with little

notes on his present condition and his own story, it is Padma who provides the best insight

into the fact that perhaps Saleem is simply making it up as he goes along. It is Padma who

hurries Saleem’s story along with the time before he was even born stating “[...] you’ll be two

hundred years old before you even manage to tell about your birth. [...] You better get a move

on or you’ll die before you get yourself born. [...] To me it’s a crazy way of telling your life

story [...] if you can’t even get to where your father met your mother” (Rushdie 1982, 38).

Padma is the audience of his story, and in that way mirrors the reader of the novel. The reader

need not agree with her, but she hints to the fact that what Saleem is writing is not necessarily

a factual tale. In fact, Saleem’s method of writing denotes a certain intentional unreliability.

When Padma feels tricked after the revelation of Saleem’s Anglo-Indian blood and thus the

lies of his family’s background Saleem states:

[i]t made no difference! I was still their son: they remained my parents. In a kind of

collective failure of imagination, we learned that we simply could not think our way

out of our pasts. [...] In fact, all over new India, the dream we all shared, children were

being born who were only partially the offspring of their parents – the children of

midnight were also the children of the time: fathered, you understand, by history. It can

happen. Especially in a country which itself is a sort of dream.

(118)

All this mentioning of dreams and the use of imagination leads to the thought that

Saleem is not writing down factual history, but instead is writing his story. And although it

might be completely true in his mind, this could be due to the fact that the pressures he felt

were put on his shoulders have deluded him into thinking in this way. “It is partly Nehru’s
 23

letter to Saleem and the publicity he receives from national newspapers such as the Times of

India that prompts Saleem to imagine himself as a figure of national importance” (Morton,

36). Another important point that denotes the importance of this apparently intentional

unreliable narration is that:

Saleem’s greatest desire is for what he calls meaning, and near the end of his broken

life he sets out to write himself, in the hope that by doing so he may achieve the

significance that the events of his adulthood have drained from him. [...] He wants to

shape his material that the reader is forced to concede his central role. He is cutting up

history to suit himself”

(Rushdie 1992b, 24)

This, then, implies that Saleem’s memories of his life are simply adapted to suit what he

believes is his purpose in life. Following from that reasoning one can understand that the

pressures of his pre-supposed destiny force Saleem to embellish his story, making him more

significant to suit the importance of his place in Indian history. In this way he is creating his

own identity and marginalising himself. While the other midnight’s children choose to

become a part of the “multitude” of India, Saleem believes he embodies the entire

subcontinent and embellishes his life and his facial characteristics to emphasise this. To find

the meaning behind his existence Saleem must alter history to suit his story and the fact that

he knows he is doing this becomes apparent in the closing chapter. While at the very

beginning of his autobiography there is a sense of urgency about him and the telling of his

story: “I must work fast, faster that Scheherazade, if I am to end up meaning – yes, meaning –

something. I admit it: above all things, I fear absurdity” (Rushdie 1982, 9), the closing

chapters are very slow and calm. Saleem works at a chutney factory debating the symbolic
 24

value of the pickling process in comparison to his telling of his story: “I reach the end of my

long-winded autobiography; in words and pickles, I have immortalized my memories,

although distortions are inevitable in both methods. We must live, I’m afraid, with the

shadows of imperfection. [...] The process of revision should be constant and endless; don’t

think I’m satisfied with what I’ve done!” (459). He considers his discrepancies and the

seemingly impossible or implausible elements of his tale, but most importantly he gives the

reader a hint as to how and why his auto-biography has been adjusted to suit his intentions:

In the spice bases I reconcile myself to the inevitable distortions of the pickling

process. To pickle is to give immortality, after all: fish, vegetables, fruit hang

embalmed in spice-and-vinegar; a certain alteration, a slight intensification of taste, is

a small matter, surely? The art is to change the flavour in degree, but not in kind; and

above all (in my thirty jars and a jar) to give it shape and form – that is to say meaning.

(I have mentioned my fear of absurdity.)

(461)

This, then, characterises his struggle to find his place in Indian society, to discover the

meaning behind his existence as a marginal identity in the “muddle” that is the variety in the

multitudes of India. His struggle was not necessarily one of acceptance into the masses, but

rather a struggle to understand what his marginalisation meant in his life. He adapted his story

to make a distinct place for himself in Indian history, so distinct, in fact, that in his story the

nation’s history coincided with his life. “Saleem Sinai is not an Oracle; he’s only adopting a

kind of oracular language. His story is not history, but it plays with historical shapes”

(Rushdie 1992b, 25) in order to justify Saleem’s position in history as united with India and

also to give a greater meaning to his life. He purposely singles himself out as a marginal
 25

identity, but at the same time creates a life where he embodies the whole national identity into

one concept. It is the impossibility of this concept that he believes slowly destroys him.

Saleem’s story unites him with all of India’s history, and so, in a way, unites the Indian people

under one banner of national identity, even if it is an ever-changing concept, “because it is the

privilege and the curse of the midnight’s children to be both masters and victims of their

times, to forsake privacy and be sucked into the annihilating whirlpool of the multitudes, and

to be unable to live or die in piece” (Rushdie, 1982, 463). In this sense, the concept of a

national identity is an impossible one, as it continually changes through the generations of

Indians that hold on to their personal “multitude”. However, it can also be seen as exactly this

ever-changing principle as time moves on that unites the people in their differences. Saleem

represents Indian history as it moves along a time line and embellishes its past, but also

rapidly adapts to what the future may bring. Saleem’s history is his fantasy come true, his

meaning in life is justified by his adaptations to his life. It is through this same process that a

united Indian identity gains a foothold from the realm of the impossible into the real world as

Saleem describes the unity of India:

A world which [was] quite imaginary; a mythical land, a country which would never

exist except by the efforts of a phenomenal collective will – except in a dream we all

agreed to dream; it was a mass fantasy shared in varying degrees by Bengali and

Punjabi, Madrasi and Jat, and would periodically need the sanctification and renewal

which can only be provided by rituals of blood. India, the new myth – a collective

fiction in which anything was possible, a fable rivalled only by the two other mighty

fantasies: money and God.

(112)
 26

Chapter 2: The Satanic Verses

The Satanic Verses tells the story of two Indian men, Saladin Chamcha and Gibreel Farishta,

who find themselves struggling with the concept of their identity. Having ended up in

London, “the capital of British culture and civilization, the dream destination of immigrants

from former colonies” (Wells, 3), they find that things are not as they seem. London appears

to be a multicultural breeding pool, where foreigners are not seen as people and are

metamorphosed into surreal monstrosities. With so many questionable things surrounding the

protagonists, and so much doubt in the truth behind the surreal environment, the concept of

identity itself is questioned: “The question that is asked throughout this novel is ‘What kind of

an idea are you?’ In other words, on what ideas, experiences, and relationships do you base

your definition of yourself--your identity?” (Brians, 87). This question can be answered

through a look at the novel from the its post-colonial standpoint and show how the lives and

identities of the protagonists are changed by the impact of migration. Namely, how identity is

changed by the culture-clash between colonizers and colonized, and how migration can lead

to a distorted concept of a personal identity. This discussion will argue that The Satanic

Verses is a novel about the search for the immigrant’s place and identity in society.

Certain answers to the aforementioned question of identity can be found in the main

culture-clash between the Indians and the English. People like to think of their culture as a

unique thing, developed by their own people over time, and thus create for themselves an idea

of nationhood and national identity, which they can be proud of. However, all modern nations

have been shaped over time through cultural migrations. The English isles, for example, have

been conquered and reshaped so often that the concept of one true national identity is

practically impossible. The Romans tried to civilize the ‘barbarian’ Isles, and then the Saxons

claimed them as their dominion only to be conquered by the Normans who then imprinted
 27

their French culture onto the inhabitants. “The narrative reminds us from the start that Britain

is the product of countless invasions each of which has put new blood into its system”

(Finney, 17). Rushdie makes numerous references to William the Conqueror and the Invasion

of the Normans. Saladin and Gibreel fall to earth at Hastings, on the beach where William the

Conqueror landed during his invasion of Britain. Rosa Diamond, the first ‘native’ British

person the protagonists meet, still sees the ghosts of the conquering soldiers. Saladin

compares his eating of an English kipper to the conquering of England and when Gibreel

awakens on the beach after the fall his mouth is full of (English) snow: “William the

Conqueror, it is said, began by eating a mouthful of English sand” (Rushdie 2006, 44). As a

former colony of the British Empire the identity of Indian culture has inevitably been altered:

Imperialist rule on many continents favored a multilateral and progressive (…)

confirmation not only between different men, but also between different societies (...),

which result[ed] in the confrontation (…) between two identities which are totally

dissimilar in their historical elements and contradictory in their different functions

(Cabral, 55)

This suggests that the enveloping culture-clash results in a very literal gap between the two

different societies. There are certain benefits to be found in the idea of colonization, but they

are all from the point of view of the dominant society. For example “[a] creation of the British

colonial power, the city [Bombay (Mumbai)] prides itself on its European sophistication and

eclectic multiculturalism” (Wells, 2). Through colonization, Indian culture has lost some of its

traditional values. This is proven by the fact that the Indian city of Bombay (Mumbai) has

become more European than Indian. Naturally, the original Indian culture still remains, it has

however been torn by the effects of colonization. Colonization brings with it the idea of
 28

superiority, and thus also imprints the idea of inferiority upon the colonized. This is very clear

in the character of Saladin, who, at a very young age, is already completely entranced by the

city of London: “…[he would] gabble out, like a mantra, like a spell, the six letters of his

dream-city, ellowen deeowen. In his secret heart, he crept silently up on London, letter by

letter,” (Rushdie 2006, 37). He vouches for the English at cricket games and secretly feels that

everything Indian is inferior to that which is English. At the same time his mother tries to

discourage him by telling him of the poor British hygiene. “They wipe their bee tee ems with

paper only. Also, they get into each other’s dirty bathwater” (39). His migration to England is

an escape from the perceived inferiority of all that is Indian, as Saladin desires to be the

eloquent upstanding Englishman. Even when his mother turns out to be right about the

hygiene, Saladin never loses his desires for English culture and eventually becomes even

more British than the British themselves.

The questioning of identity becomes even more complicated as identity is formed and

moulded, not only by the person himself, but also through the eyes of those that behold him.

This means that people do not simply act on personal impulses from what they perceive as

their own identity, but also adapt to an identity that is imprinted upon them. Identity then

becomes a good deal less personal and more of a public expression. This imprinting of

identity is an important theme in The Satanic Verses as it is something that all immigrants

struggle with, namely, the leaving behind of a cultural identity that is not known and/or

understood in their new surroundings. Rushdie adds a twist to this alteration of identity in the

novel by turning the immigrants into mutations of mythological creatures, because this

symbolizes the way the English people reject and stigmatise their sense of belonging to a

diverse English culture. The problem arises when those foreign people eventually accept this

new shape as their own identity, because the stereotypes are what the locals understand and

accept. Immigrants, foreigners or members of a society otherwise excluded often struggle to

 29

gain a foothold in the new society as the locals treat them with a degree of hostility. They are

different, clichés are born and a stigma is imprinted upon them. This imposing of a certain

identity is called ‘Demonization’. In The Satanic Verses this particular word takes on a far

more literal meaning in reference to the mutations in the novel. Paul Brians explains its

implications as follows: “Saladin, the immigrant who is most determined to identify with the

English, literally [turns] into a demon” (87). Both characters experience a mutation of their

physical forms: Saladin into a devil and Gibreel into an angel. The imagery that connects the

demonic/angelic with the immigrant already becomes apparent in the epigraph to the novel by

Defoe:

Satan being thus confined to a vagabond, wandering, unsettled condition, is without

any certain abode; for though he has, in consequence of his angelic nature, a kind of

empire in the liquid waste of air, yet this is certainly part of his punishment, that he

is…without any fixed place, or space, allowed him to rest the sole of his foot upon.

Satan was cast out of heaven, exiled, homeless, and thus became an immigrant: “the Devil is a

wanderer, an image of the rootless immigrant” (Brians, 10). This mutation seems to be the

norm among immigrants, or at least foreigners in The Satanic Verses. Saladin is taken away

by the police following the fall from the plane and, after his identity as an English citizen

becomes apparent, he is incarcerated with all kinds of ‘monsters’ who later also roam the

London streets. “As a reflection of the disorientation and racism experienced by immigrants,

London as depicted in the novel is a phantasmagoric region in which […] people

metamorphose into mythological beasts and divine beings.” (Wells, 1). These creatures appear

as such because they are depicted as seen by the native inhabitants, different, and therefore

strange. When Saladin asks how they can take these strange shapes, a fellow creature answers:
 30

“They describe us...That's all. They have the power of description, and we succumb to the

pictures they create” (Rushdie 2006, 168). The identity of the immigrant, therefore, is directly

connected to how others observe him. The only option left to these demonised people is to

accept this imprinted identity as their own. Although Saladin considers himself as a true

Englishman, he now realizes that he is just as foreign as any other immigrant through the

scrutiny of the English. People fear what they do not understand and therefore create images

that might make understanding their fear easier, even if this means simplifying to the point of

mutation and stigmatisation. Also, the immigrant himself creates a personal identity that is

always in a balancing-act between two cultures. They need to become a part of their new

surroundings, but at the same time do not want to lose their own culture and identity. The

struggle of the marginal man is one of acceptance, not necessarily into one of the social

worlds that exclude him, but also simply as something new, as “a cultural hybrid, a man living

and sharing intimately in the cultural life and traditions of two distinct peoples” (Goldberg,

52), while at the same time being able to maintain his own cultural identity.

The protagonists in the novel adjust in a noticeably different way in the face of this

complexity. While Saladin embraces his idealistic Englishness, Gibreel eventually turns the

tables by making the country adapt to him instead of the other way around. During the initial

fall their contrasting characteristics are exposed to the reader:

As they fall through the air, their range of expression sets up the initial opposition

between the good and the bad immigrant. Gibreel, the angel, sings an old Hindi film

song whose patriotic text insists on the cosmopolitan’s “inviolately subcontinental

heart” (6), while Chamcha, the more-British-than-thou toady, counters this blasphemy

over England by singing [historical English] verses.

(Sharma, 607)
 31

Saladin believes that he is a completely integrated member of the English society and is

disgusted by his Indian background, while Gibreel simply believes that, although he is starting

a new life in England, he can still maintain his own heritage. While Saladin travels away from

that which he despises to what he desires, Gibreel’s journey to England is connected to the

central and recurring phrase throughout the whole novel: “To be born again first you have to

die” (Rushdie 2006, 3). His crisis of faith, which partly ruined his acting career through his

sudden gorging on pig meat, made him want to start over. He tries to let go of his old identity

and create a new one. “Me, I only half-expired, but I did so on two occasions, hospital and

plane, so it adds up, it counts. And now Spoono my friend, here I stand before you in Proper

London, Vilayet, regenerated, a new man with a new life” (31). This sentence clearly

expresses that when a person tries to change from one culture into another it is necessary to

abandon one’s former life completely and, therefore, figuratively, to die. Being born again

means starting over, and while this is definitely Saladin’s plan, Gibreel sees his new beginning

as a continuation of his Indian lifestyle. The only thing that is different for Gibreel is that he

lives without his former faith and also, slowly but surely, goes insane. His schizophrenia leads

him to believe that he embodies more identities than one. During his dreams early in the novel

he sees himself as the archangel Gibreel and also the prophet Mahound, sometimes

simultaneously. Later on in the novel these dreams become his own insane reality and he

wanders the streets of London preaching and blessing the surrounding people as the

archangel. “Gibreel, instead of fitting in, decides to ‘fix’ London to suit himself in a

marvellously portentous and bathetic scene. A vengeful postcolonial angel, he flies over

London personifying the return of the repressed” (Sharma, 611). Gibreel judges English

society from his own Indian point of view and looks for a way to improve London’s

habitability, not just for himself, but for every resident of the city:
 32

Gibreel Farishta floating on his cloud formed the opinion that the moral fuzziness of

the English was meteorologically induced. “When the day is not warmer than the

night,” he reasoned, “when the light is not brighter than the dark, when the land is not

drier than the sea, then all people will lose the power to make distinctions, and

commence to see everything – from political parties to sexual partners to religious

beliefs – as much-of-the-same, nothing-to-choose, give-or-take.

(Rushdie 2006, 354)

Thus, Gibreel concludes that Britain’s climate is the cause for all the dullness in England. He

seeks to bring India’s climate to England and thus liven up the country with all the different

cultural elements that he believes belong to a tropical ambiance. “[T]he traditional and

soulless English commitment to ‘high workrate’ […] rendered obsolete by the heat (…) No

more British reserve (…) closure of old folks' homes, emphasis on extended family. Spicier

food” (355). In short, the stereotypical Bollywood movie scene, but also exactly that which

Saladin considered to be the elements of India’s inferiority to England. Gibreel, although

delusional, desperately clings on to his Indian traditions and is completely unwilling, or

perhaps incapable (due to his insanity), of adapting to the English way of life, with its

radically different morals and values. Saladin on the other hand would be the perfect

candidate for adoption into the British lifestyle. However, as mentioned earlier, when he

returns to England he is demonised as much as any other foreigner and thus is reshaped into

the devilish goat form. When he comes across other Indian immigrants he systematically

denies their shared ethnicity: “I’m not your kind. You're not my people. I've spent half my life

trying to get away from you” (254). His dilemma is that he can no longer find himself in

either society, because he rejects the Indians and the English reject him. His goat-like shape
 33

does lead him to question the validity of his own identity because this is what puts him in his

unique position. As he observes the other Indian, Pakistani and Bengali people in London he

ponders his own concept of Englishness. Saladin aspired to become just as all the other

English people and so left his old identity far behind him; however, these inhabitants of

England also call themselves English but at the same time maintain their foreign values. He

becomes “[a]bandoned by one alien England, marooned within another” (269), i.e. abandoned

by the England he desired all his life and marooned in the England being shaped by the

multicultural communities. Even through all the hardship he has suffered he never lets go of

his self made Britishness as “still he knew ‘all that was good and living within him’ to have

been ‘made, shaped and quickened’ by his encounter with this islet of sensibility, surrounded

by the cool sense of the sea”(398). He does eventually resign himself to his fate as “a fact that

could not be unmade” (419), only to find that Gibreel was right in a way. To be born again,

and this time being able to understand his origins, first Saladin would (nearly) have to die. His

heart attack was his revitalization into the world as Salahuddin and from that point he travels

back to India to accept his roots, finally confident with his own identity.

The Satanic Verses pulls the reader into the experience of migration, which is to have

as identity taken away and replaced with something different. This balancing act of finding

one’s own place with being pushed in an unfamiliar direction is brought forth by the element

of mutation. Rushdie himself states that “the migrant is not simply transformed by his act [of

migration], he also transforms the new world. Migrants might well become mutants, but it is

out of such hybridization that newness can emerge” (Rushdie, Salman / ICA Video). This

hybridization is embodied by the many mutations throughout the novel as these immigrants

are trapped between two worlds “abandoned by one and marooned in the other”. In order to

set up a new identity in a different society the migrant needs to become a hybrid, but that

society also needs to accept these hybrids and change itself to accommodate the changes.
 34

Gibreel sets out to change his new world into that with which he is familiar and which he

desires over English society. In a lesser degree this is a concept all migrants struggle with,

namely to find a new life without losing themselves in another identity that is imprinted upon

them:

[Rushdie] is not asked how immigrants can become “English” […]; he is instead

asking how immigrants can create an identity for themselves in England which is

richer, newer, more interesting than the traditional stereotypes associated with the old

center of empire.

(Brians, 88)

However, Gibreel reflects the effects of colonization back at the English by forcefully

adapting their society to his wishes, just as the British did during their imperialism. Saladin

embodies the displaced migrant with a twist, as he has exiled himself from his ‘native’ culture

and also lost his self-made English identity. The recurring theme in the novel does well in

symbolizing the migrant’s search for identity because their old identity must pass away before

they will be accepted again. At the same time the new country must also lose a part of itself

for the hybrid society to be born.

 35

Chapter 3: Haroun and the Sea of Stories

A first glimpse of the short novella by Rushdie gives the idea that this is a children’s story,

and in many ways this is a correct interpretation. Rushdie wrote it primarily for his son Zafar

and the themes throughout the story reflect of the relationship between a storyteller and his

son as they go on a magical journey. In comparison to the previous novels by Rushdie,

Haroun and the Sea of Stories appears to contain far more fantastical elements and less of a

socio-political analysis of the identity of the marginal man. However, hidden beneath the

magical notions of the novel there is a lesson to be learned. As with children’s stories around

the world the adventure that the protagonist experiences comes with a moral. What makes this

novel different from other children’s tales is that the principals of storytelling are a main

feature of the story itself. The story is about Haroun and his quest to help his famous

storytelling father Rashid retrieve his storytelling ability by travelling to the magical realm

where all stories come from. Typically then, all the facts that a fantastical tale usually tries to

avoid when dragging children into the magical world of fantasy are brought to the fore in

Haroun’s adventure. This, then, forms a problem when trying to discover any underlying

moral that the story might have, as these messages are not only known to all the characters

playing a part in the realm of stories, but one would expect the lessons to lose their

significance when presented in such a blatantly obvious way. In Haroun and the Sea of

Stories, however, it appears that the exact opposite occurs. As the story itself revolves around

the principle of storytelling, one particular question asked by Haroun stands out: “[w]hat’s the

point of it [storytelling]? What’s the use of stories that aren’t even true?” (Rushdie, 1990, 22).

It is this question that halts Rashid’s abilities of storytelling and thus prompts the entire

adventure to begin. This also provides a hint at what the ultimate goal of the quest must be,
 36

namely to discover the answer to this question as it must be the key to retrieving Rashid’s

abilities.

Haroun’s problem is that his mind is full of disbelief and he suffers from a lack of

imagination. His problem with the concept of imagination starts with his mother leaving his

father purely because Rashid is too full of fanciful notions, as she writes in her departing

letter: “You are only interested in pleasure, but a proper man would know that life is a serious

business. Your brain is full of make-believe, so there is no room for facts. Mr Sengupta has no

imagination at all. This is okay by me” (Rushdie, 1990, 22). This leads, therefore, to Haroun’s

understanding that imagination and fantasy negatively influence any concept of reality. This is

accentuated by the fact that, because his mother left at eleven o’clock, Haroun can only

concentrate and “imagine” for eleven minutes at a time before he loses interest (23). Haroun

has thus made a clear distinction between true and false, reality and fantasy; however, instead

of accepting both positions as opposites of one another, Haroun dismisses one side altogether.

In this sense he marginalises his identity as he clearly picks truth over fantasy and so assigns

himself only one side of the dilemma, unwilling to even accept the existence of another

method of reasoning. It is exactly this distinction between opposites that creates an identity.

This follows the principle laid out by Terwilliger that a man must identify the differences

between himself and others to understand how he is united with them. Iff, the Water Genie

explains this principal to Haroun at the beginning of his adventure: “To give a thing a name, a

label, a handle; to rescue it from anonymity, to pluck it out of the Place of Namelessness, in

short to identify it – well, that’s a way of bringing the said thing into being” (63). His

adventure is the embodiment of Haroun’s dilemma of non-acceptance of anything beyond his

concept of reality. Haroun cannot understand his father’s genuine belief in what he considers

impossible, as he is stuck in his belief that fantasy has no use in the real world. It takes an
 37

adventure into a world consumed by opposing concepts of true and false, light and dark, good

and evil, to discover that there must be a middle-ground or a unity through discrepancy.

The major lesson Haroun learns in his adventure is that the world is full of opposites

without which neither side could exist. Haroun’s single pointed perspective is exactly that

which marginalises not only his own identity, but also that of the things he will not accept as

true. Haroun “will not trust in what he can’t see” (63) and so instantly exiles anything outside

of his own concepts of reality and identity. Iff warns him that this reasoning will get him into

a lot of trouble (63), because if there is nothing to oppose his personal reality he will never be

able to identify himself. An example of the problem of a limited perspective can be seen in the

characters of the Eggheads and their leader the Walrus. The Walrus is their leader due to what

the other Eggheads consider to be his walrus-like moustache. The other Eggheads are

completely hairless, thus the Walrus’ unique attribute grants him a position of power amongst

them. Haroun sees the Walrus’ moustache as a tiny little thing, nothing like what he would

expect from what he believes to be real walrus-like whiskers. Haroun admits, however, that

this is all due to perspective: “I suppose that if you’re as hairless as these Eggheads [...] even

that pathetic dead mouse on the Walrus’ upper lip looks like the greatest thing you’ve ever

seen” (90). The Eggheads identify their leader through that which separates him from

themselves, namely, his facial hair in comparison to their hairlessness. Thus it is the difference

between them that defines both the identity of the Walrus and that of the Eggheads.

This is just a small example of how Haroun learns his lesson that more than one

perspective is needed to define an identity. The greatest oppositions in the novel are those

between light and darkness, good and evil and also between speech and silence. The world

where stories come from is called Kahani and it is the Earth’s second moon. This world

contains the Sea of Stories and the lands of two different peoples: the Guppees, who live in

constant light, and the Chupwalas who dwell in perpetual darkness and follow a religion of
 38

silence. This constant division of light and dark is caused by the Eggheads who in some

manner have made it so that Kahani remains in the same position while rotating around the

earth. In the novel the people of Chup are immediately introduced as being the “bad guys”,

who’s leader is out to poison Sea of Stories and eventually cause the destruction of all stories

ever created and so silence the world. Through this the reader’s perspective is instantly drawn

to the fact that the people of Gup are good and opposing them are the bad people of Chup,

thus light and voice equals good, while darkness and silence are evil. Very quickly, however,

these lines between the opposing elements are blurred as Haroun learns, for example, that

Batcheat, the princess of the Guppees and, therefore, an important symbol of the voice-

praising people, goes “into the Twilight Strip [that lies between the lands of Gup and Chup]

just to go gooey over stars in the sky [...] and I haven’t even mentioned her singing, you

wouldn’t believe how horrible” (106). So this woman, who should really personify her

nation’s love of speech and light, actually forms a paradox through her horrible voice and

infatuation with the beautiful attributes of darkness. She is not alone in this, as the “heroic”

prince Bolo proves in his obnoxious and arrogant attitude, which is very unbecoming of a

fairy-tale prince. He is the only one of the Guppee armada that cares only for the rescue of

Batcheat after she has been kidnapped, leaving the healing of the Sea of Stories out of the

dilemma. He falls into a determined silence, “saying nothing. For him there was no argument;

Batcheat came first; the issue was beyond dispute” (120), while the people of Gup like

nothing more than a good argument or discussion and argue fervently on what is of more

importance, the Sea of Stories or the rescue of Batcheat:

General Kitab himself [...] was flitting from Barge-Bird to Barge-Bird to keep in touch

with the various discussions; [...] the old General seemed perfectly happy to listen to

these tirades of insults and insubordination without batting an eyelid. In fact, it looked
 39

to Haroun as if the General was on many occasions actually provoking such disputes,

and then joining in with enthusiastic glee, sometimes taking one side, and at other

times (just for fun) expressing the opposite point of view.

(119)

Very significant is Haroun’s entry into the Twilight Strip, beyond which lies the

darkness of Chup. Earlier in the novel Haroun acclimatised relatively easily to the major

changes in his life as his adventure took him into the illuminated world of Gup: “[i]t’s

amazing what you can get accustomed to, and at what speed [...] This new world, these new

friends. I’ve just arrived, and already none of it seems very strange at all” (87). Haroun has

accepted that his reality outside of Kahani is not the only reality, as is being proven to him by

this very real fantastical world. However, by accepting the world of Gup into his concept of

reality, he has also merged his concept of identity with that of his “new friends”. He accepts

what they tell him about the world of Kahani and the Sea of Stories without a second thought,

because he can now see it with his own eyes and, therefore, trust it as reality. The problem is

that he has only seen the light side of the world and its point of view. The stories he hears

about the land of Chup and its evil master Khattam-shud are therefore tainted by one side of

the story, or by one perspective only:

“How many opposites are at war in this battle between Gup and Chup!” he marvelled.

“Gup is bright and Chup is dark. Gup is warm and Chup is freezing cold. Gup is

chattering and noise, whereas Chup is silent as a shadow. Guppees love the ocean,

Chupwalas try to poison it. Guppees love Stories, and Speech; Chupwalas, it seems,

hate these things just as strongly.”

 40

It was a war between Love (of the Ocean, or the princess) and Death (which was what

Cultmaster Khattam-Shud had in mind for the Ocean, and for the Princess, too).

(125)

Haroun has taken the identity and point of view of the Guppees, along with their prejudices

about the land of Chup and it’s dark inhabitants and so develops a feeling of despair when

thinking on and entering that much darker, and in his mind more evil world. This feeling of

despair is what Butt the Hoopoe describes as being a “Heart-Shadow [which] happens to most

people the first time the see that Twilight Strip and the Darkness beyond [...] but but but don’t

worry. You’ll get acclimatized. It will pass” (121). This effect of acclimatisation is what

Morton speaks of when he writes that Haroun and the Sea of Stories is a “shift in Rushdie’s

oeuvre, away from the serious and problematic use of other worlds” (85). Haroun’s prejudices

about the concepts outside of his own reality slowly fade as he sees with his own eyes all the

things he could not understand at first. His journey into Kahani reveals to him the reality of

the realm of fantasy, which he doubted existed, thus getting rid of the first of his prejudices

only to fill him with new ones from the one sided perspective of the Guppees. Now his next

journey into the land of the Chupwalas is set to fill him with the “Heart Shadow” that all

Guppees feel when entering what they are not used to. The reassurance by Butt the Hoopoe

proves that this is remedied simply by a matter of acclimatisation, in other words, he must

once again let go of his prejudices by seeing the truth with his own eyes and so get rid of the

concept of otherness in either world.

The blatant oppositions between the two peoples make Haroun understand that there

are two sides to a coin. He realizes that the two sides of the Kahani moon are indeed very

different from one another but are at the same time both part of a single world. He sees the

shadow warrior Mudra do his silent dance of Chup gesture language called “Abhinaya”
 41

(Rushdie, 1990, 130) and immediately gains respect for the shadow people. The sheer

oppositeness of his appearance is at first daunting to Haroun, who compares them to a “film

negative that somebody forgot to print” (125), but he realizes that the oppositions he has

learned from his time with the people of Gup have distorted his perceptions:

‘But it’s not as simple as that,’ he told himself, because the dance of the Shadow

Warrior showed him that silence had its own grace and beauty (just as speech could be

graceless and ugly); and that Action could be as noble as Words; and that creatures of

darkness could be as lovely as children of the light. ‘If Guppees and Chupwalas didn’t

hate each other so,’ he thought, ‘they might actually find each other quite interesting.

Opposites attract, as they say.’

(125)

This is a lesson he could have picked up earlier on in the story when he is told no to judge a

book by its cover (114); however, for Haroun it is necessary that he sees all these opposites

contrasted against one another with his own eyes. Only when all the worlds he at first could

not accept come together in the Twilight Strip does Haroun understand the necessity of an

opposite to each concept. In that place of semi-dark twilight Haroun realises that without

anything to contrast a concept on, the concept itself cannot exist. Light cannot exist without

darkness, sound cannot be called sound unless there is silence and reality cannot be real

unless one knows the concept of fantasy. Thus, in order to find his own identity, Haroun

needed to be able to identify contrasting perspectives that ultimately lead to his identifying of

himself. In this sense the world of Kahani is divided into two marginal identities, namely that

of light and darkness, with in between those two opposing concepts of identity a strip of land

where both perspectives are blurred. The Twilight Strip represents the place where this
 42

identifying of self takes place and the marginal identities intermingle to form one universal

identity.

The rest of the story unravels from this point on as Haroun realises that Khattam-Shud

is alone in his evil enterprise to destroy the Sea of Stories and is not truly backed by his silent

people in any way. He and his shadow are destroyed by the united forces Gup and Chup and

then something very typical happens in a world based on the principal of storytelling. As

Haroun and the Sea of Stories is set up as a children’s novel in its style and general theme, it

is very fitting that it should have a happy ending. This quality of a definite happy ending is

something that the previous analyses of Midnight’s Children and The Satanic Verses have not

shown, and so indeed marks a shift away from the seriousness and the difficulties of using

other worlds to find an identity as Morton mentions. Where the other protagonists struggle

with their position as marginal men in society and never fully succeed in making a place for

themselves, Haroun is a symbolic figure in the success of the intermingling of opposites to

create a single varied identity. The Walrus gives a hint of Rushdie’s intention with this

fairytale principle of Haroun and the Sea of Stories as compared to the previous novels with

the following: “Happy endings are much rarer in stories, and also in life, than most people

think. You could almost say they are the exceptions, not the rule” (201). This can be seen as a

very positive reflection on the national identity of India, as Rushdie symbolises the multitudes

of India within the magical world of Kahani. At the same time, however, it becomes apparent

that this turn of events is an exception to the rule. The simple contrasting elements of the

people of Kahani and the fact this is a fairytale based on storytelling remind the reader that it

is only through Rushdie’s magic that a happy ending was achieved. Rushdie’s solution to the

predicament of the marginal man is, therefore, an idealistic one and only achievable when

people are able to literally set aside their differences and instead identify similarities between

one and other. The Twilight Strip presents the best of both worlds, but for the two opposing
 43

sides it is also the place where the differences between them become apparent. This is where

the marginal man wanders, balancing on a tightrope while being pushed and pulled in

different directions. He cannot be accepted by one side because he also presents the elements

of those who are different. Haroun’s success story reflects on the optimistic hope that one day

people will stop simply contrasting themselves to others in order to find their own identity.

The moral of this story is that there is only one world that people of all shapes and sizes much

share. People should not try to imprint differences upon one and other but instead follow

Terwilliger’s words of wisdom and identify the things that unite them.

The question then remains as to the reason behind this “shift in Rushdie’s oeuvre”

(Morton, 85). The reality behind this change in style becomes apparent when one looks at the

situation of the author himself: “After Salman Rushdie wrote The Satanic Verses (1988), the

Ayatollah placed a fatwah upon him, causing Rushdie to adopt a life of seclusion and hiding.

As a result, Rushdie suffered severe writer's block. Rushdie broke out of his slump in 1990

with Haroun and the Sea of Stories (1990)” (McDannald, 1). Although Haroun and the Sea of

Stories contains a success story about the creation of a personal concept of identity and an

escape from a marginal status, it also forms a bridge for the author himself to put a very

important point across; a point that Rushdie felt had to made after the threats to his life for his

novel The Satanic Verses. In Haroun and the Sea of Stories “Rushdie’s allegorical

representation of the censorship that plagues his life stands as the most discernible motif in

the novel” (McDannald, 2). As Rushdie was literally silenced by the fatwa, it comes as no

surprise that one of the key themes of the novel is the silencing of the storyteller. In that sense

Haroun’s question “[w]hat’s the use of stories that aren’t even true?” has a very haunting

quality, because it is exactly Rushdie’s fictional work of literature that has silenced him out of

fear for his life. In this sense, the major theme of storytelling and the possible destruction of

all stories reflects greatly on the identity of the silenced author himself. The book is literally
 44

full of allegorical themes that all reflect on Rushdie’s personal crisis with his identity as an

author under the heel of censorship. This is most apparent in the distinction between the two

peoples of Kahani, where the people of Gup cherish the freedom of speech, while Khattam-

Shud has forced his people of Chup into a religion of silence: “Rushdie seems to propose a

purely polarized dispute between sides of complete good and complete evil, showing his

displeasure with the censorship he has faced” (2). As mentioned earlier, however, the lines

that blurred Haroun’s perspective on the Chupwalas after seeing the beauty of their silent

language, and the extremes in the land of Gup like the horrible voice of Batcheat and arrogant

single-mindedness of Bolo show that Rushdie is also willing to accept that both sides of the

question of censorship deserve to be discussed. This is very clear in the section of the novel

where Haroun wishes for the sun to shine equally on both sides of Kahani, or as McDanald

states, the light of reason must shine “on both sides of the dilemma. Similarly, it seems

Rushdie ultimately wishes for both sides of the censorship crisis to view each other with equal

lighting, to abandon the differences between them and cease the destructive bickering,

murder, terrorism and other human rights violations” (12). However, this also implies that

Rushdie favours the land of Gup over that of Chup, which is understandable, because

allegorically it is the silence that the master of the Chupwalas represents that put Rushdie into

this authorial crisis.

Rushdie is of course most notably represented in the character of Rashid, who’s name,

together with that of his son, is derived from famous Arabian Nights’ character Haroun al-

Rashid (Rushdie 1990, 218) and also sounds like the name “Rushdie”. Rashid is seen by his

son as a kind of juggler: “I always thought storytelling was like juggling [...] You keep a lot of

different tales in the air, and juggle them up and down, and if you’re good you don’t drop any.

So maybe juggling is a kind of storytelling, too” (109). This is Rushdie’s reasoning behind the

creation of stories, namely that every possible story has already been written and is thus a part
 45

of the great Sea of Stories. The only thing a (good) author does is jumble the stories about and

create something new. This coincides nicely with the concept of the Plentimaw fishes who

swallow bits and pieces of the Streams of Stories that swivel and swirl around the great Sea,

“and in their innards miracles occur; a little bit of one story joins on the an idea from another,

and hey presto, when they spew the stories out they are not old tales but new ones” (86). This,

then, in a sense, justifies Rushdie’s use of Muslim scripture in his work The Satanic Verses. In

an allegorical sense, the Old Zone of the Sea of Stories represents the oldest and most

important stories that have influenced all stories that came after them, for example, religious

texts and old moralistic tales such as The Arabian Nights or the tales of the Grimm Brothers

(McDanald, 8) and it is exactly this part of the Sea of Stories that is no longer tended by the

Plentimaws or the Floating Gardeners, leaving it to “fall into disuse” (Rushdie 1990, 86). This

is also the point at which Khattam-Shud begins his poisoning process, making it practically

impossible for the tenders of the Sea of Stories to make use of its tales to influence new

stories. This, then, symbolises how Rushdie feels the effect of censorship has made those

ancient texts untouchable and as such have “poisoned” his work in The Satanic Verses into

something he never intended:

Rushdie proposes that all stories, even those in the Old Zone, must undergo constant

changes and mutations in order to remain healthy. Stories, even those of tradition,

religion, and culture, are not meant to lie stagnant forever, lest they become corrupted.

He does not suggest that writers ignore those stories, but take them and change them in

order to create new ones. Therefore, Rushdie’s solution to the problems in the Old

Zone serves as a retroactive justification of his own writing.

(McDanald, 8)
 46

As indicated earlier, Haroun and the Sea of Stories is the novel that Rushdie wrote

specifically for his son Zafar, as can be seen in the acrostic poem that opens the story. Rushdie

tells his son a story that reverberates across the realm of fantasy into the real world, both

telling the tale of a young boy on an adventure to help his father find his authorial voice, and

also paving a road through the crisis of identity. This dilemma of identity can be seen as that

of the author himself under the foot of censorship, but also as a semi-moralistic guide to

building a personal identity in a world of opposites and contradictions. Haroun and the Sea of

Stories uses a different method from Rushdie’s previous novels to portray a message to its

readers, but nonetheless, like Midnight’s Children and The Satanic Verses, it contains the

significant theme of the dilemma regarding displaced identity of the marginal man. If the

Twilight Strip represents the condition of the marginal man, then it is Rushdie’s hope that one

day all people catch a glimpse of twilight and so fall into the realm where contrast dissipates

and only similarities are visible.

 47

Conclusion

Salman Rushdie himself embodies a marginal identity and in that sense consistently reflects a

part of himself in each of his protagonists. Rushdie, like Midnight’s Children protagonist

Saleem Sinai, was born in the year that India gained its independence and so lived through

that tumultuous period, experiencing the changes in his country, perhaps not first hand, but at

least in heart as it was his nation and so his identity that was influenced by the historical

events at that time. Rushdie emigrational experience echoes in the struggle that Saladin and

Gibreel experience in The Satanic Verses. The prejudices of the English people forever

changed his identity as he struggled to adapt, while maintaining his Indian self. The

consequences of the fatwa silenced Rushdie, just as Haroun’s scepticism and anger at the

pointlessness of fabricated tales silenced his father Rashid, the Ocean of Notions, thus leading

to both storytellers, fictitious and real, seeking to find their authorial voice and responsibility.

Rushdie has gone through all of the trials and tribulations that he speaks of in his novels;

however, this does not mean that any story has even the slightest shred of biographical

information in them. This is because of Rushdie’s immense ability to imagine a magical

reality, and typically it is exactly this magical realism that forms the “new angles at which to

enter reality” (Rushdie 1990a, 15). Rushdie states that “literature can, and perhaps must, give

the lie to official facts” (14). Following from earlier analyses, this implies that to understand

and identify the facts, Rushdie opposes them with magical “lies”. This is corroborated by

Edward Said when he states that “texts are worldly, to some degree they are events, and, even

when they appear to deny it, they are nevertheless part of the social world, human life, and of

course the historical moments in which they are located and interpreted” (Morton, 12). It does

not matter how fantastical the tale, as can be seen by fairytale-like quality of Haroun and the

Sea of Stories, the account can always be reflected upon the real world and as such can be
 48

subjected to realistic interpretation. Rushdie, as a migrant author has also been placed in a

marginal position, however, it can be argued that through his literature he has stepped out of

this box to enter the realm of world literature and as such become a part of a whole. This

thesis shows that it can then be seen as typical of Rushdie that he desires to retain his

uniqueness, his personal identity through the descriptions of the process of identifying the

concept of identity in his novels. As Salman Rushdie himself has put it:

[B]lack and white descriptions of society are no longer compatible. Fantasy, or the

mingling of fantasy and naturalism, is one way of dealing with these problems. [...]

But whatever technical solutions we may find, Indian writers in these islands, like

others who have migrated into the north from the south, are capable of writing from a

kind of double perspective: because they, we, are at one and the same time insiders and

outsiders in this society. This stereoscopic vision is perhaps what we can offer in place

of ‘whole sight’

(Rushdie 1990a, 19)

These words perfectly sum up this process of retaining a personal identity and yet being able

to merge with the total picture.

 49

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