Final Paper

Text-self Stage

Rushdie’s Haroun and the Sea of Stories was one of my favorite novels of the semester, but so was Strapi’s The Complete Persepolis and Iweala’s Beasts of No Nation. Saying that, it was a difficult decision to decide which book to choose to write this paper on, but in the end Rushdie’s novel ended up being the winner. I leaned more towards that book because it was when the term “magical realism” was introduced, and the concept of the book is one of my favorite types. I really enjoy anything that has people from a character’s “real life” show up in their dreams, or in another “world.” I think it is because the first time I saw Wizard of Oz and Alice in Wonderland I wished that something like that would happen to me. Maybe it was the idea of escaping real life issues or just the idea of, “what characters would the people in my real life be in my other ‘realm.’” I often found myself placing these roles while I watched Wizard of Oz, sometimes my mom would be the Wicked Witch other times it was a teacher or a different family member. It is a little embarrassing to admit it but even now I find myself doing this. Sometimes when I read stories like Rushdie’s I wish that they could be true stories and not fiction. Growing up my dad was contently telling stories that I wish I could live, and I think that is another reason I was drawn to Haroun and the Sea of Stories. Like Haroun I would ask my dad “Where do these stories come from?”(Rushdie, 16) and like Rashid Khalifia my dad would reply with silly answers. I learned to appreciate the stories that my dad would tell, but still to this day I wonder how he came up with them.
The pages that I chose to focus on were pages forty-seven to fifty and pages sixty-three to sixty-eight. Pages forty-seven to fifty are when Haroun and Rashid Khalifa are on Dull Lake with Snotty Buttoo, and Haroun is realizing that his father’s “Tale of Moody Land” might actually be true. To test his theory he tells everyone to “…just stop talking. Not a word” (Rushdie, 49), and right away the lake settles down. The end of this section has one of my favorite quotes from the book, which is one of the reason why I selected these pages, “He knew what he knew: that the real world was full of magic, so magical worlds could easily be real” (Rushdie, 50). I like this quote because it reminds me of the idea “not to take life so seriously,” which a lot of people do in the busy world that we live in. It reminds the reader to take a second to reflect on the good things in their life, and worry about the serious things. I think that is an important thing to remember, because anything can happen in a matter of seconds. This is something Haroun learns in the next section of pages that I selected. Pages sixty-three to sixty-eight are right after Haroun meets the Water Genie and steals his “Disconnector.” The Water Genie tells Haroun to pick an ‘any bird’ to travel to see the Walrus. One second Haroun is sleeping and the next he is flying through the air to a world he never thought was real. This section also has a quote that stuck out while I was reading, “Believe in your own eyes and you’ll get into a lot of trouble, hot water, a mess” (Rushdie, 63). I like this idea it reminds me of “thinking outside the box.” Many people want everything done for them or the easy route, but that is not what life is about. That is one of the many lessons that a reader can learn from Rushdie’s novel.
I liked this book because it was filled with lessons that a reader can take from it, and it kept the reader interested the entire time. It taught me that life is an adventure, and depending on how you take things as they are presented, depends on how life will end up. Although Haroun was scared through each adventure, he stilled faced them and got through each one, making them seem like a piece of cake. This story reminded me about situations that I have gone through in my life, sometimes I thought I could never get through them, but in the end I did. While going through those experiences I learned lessons, but one thing that I always remind myself is life is what you make it, and how things are handled. At the end of the story Haroun’s life goes back to the way he wanted it; he tells the Hoopoe, “‘it’s really good to know you’ll be here when I need you. But the way things are just now, I honestly don’t need to go anywhere at all’” (Rushdie, 211). Like in the novel, everything works out when you go through rough patches in your life.
Text-text stage
For this part of the paper I decided to use Rushdie’s Imaginary Homelands, and The Wizard of Oz. In Imaginary Homelands, Rushdie says, “…our response to the world is essentially imaginative: that is, picture-making” (Rushdie, 377). He is basically saying that everyone is stuck believing in their picture they have painted of the world. People believe what they want to believe, and pick and choose what is “right” and what is “wrong.” These beliefs are also constructed in the way people in power present things to the public; they will tell people in society what they want to hear, even if it is wrong. In Haroun and the Sea of Stories, this is exactly what Snooty Buttoo wants Rashid to do when he tells his stories, “You will tell happy stories, praising stories, and the people will believe you, and be happy, and vote for me” (Rushdie, 47). Even though Rashid does not agree with what Buttoo is telling him to do, he will do what is asked of him. Rushdie is saying that the picture that people paint of this world comes from what we are told by politicians and people in higher power, and these people do not care if what they are saying is true, as long as our pictures are happy. Another idea that Rushdie presents in Imaginary Homelands is, “Human beings understand themselves and shape their futures by arguing and challenging and questioning and saying the unsayable; not by bowing the knee, whether to gods or to men” (Rushdie, 394,395). This idea goes along with his other idea of the way people imagine the world. They just accept what is being told to them, and do not argue their own beliefs. He wants people to fight for what they believe is the right thing, and question what they do not understand. This is what Haroun does many times in Haroun and the Sea of Stories; he questions things that are not normal to him and says what is on his mind. The Water Genie helps him open his mind to new ideas. When Haroun is questioning the Water Genie about what type a bird to choose, the Water Genie shows him things are not always as they seem and just because he has not seen something does not mean it is not there, “Africa, have you seen it? No? Then is it truly there? …Believe in your own eyes and you’ll get in a lot of trouble…” (Rushdie, 63). Rushdie shows the reader that things should be questioned, so you can learn new things and again think outside of the box. Finally when Haroun is approaching Gup City and the Butt the Hoopoe tells him that Kahani is the Earth second moon, Haroun replies very confused, “ But but but…surely the Earth has just one Moon?” (Rushdie, Haroun and the Sea of Stories, 67). This maybe true, but Rushdie may say that the Earth in fact could have two moons, we are just told there is only one moon. In Imaginary Homelands Rushdie states that, “...imposed orthodoxies of all types, from the view that the world is quite clearly This and not That” (Rushdie, 396). This is how many people view the world, for example some people think you should live your life by what the bible says. These people believe that this is the right way to live and the “tolerate” people who live their lives differently. Rushdie would say that these people can live the way they want to, but should educate themselves on other ways to live, and not be so quick to judge those who do not agree to live the way they do. The idea that the world is “This and not That,” is the same as it is “black and white,” and Rushdie definitely does not see the world this way. He wants his readers to expand their minds, and think of things differently than they normally would.
Just like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz sets off to meet the Wizard of Oz, Haroun sets off to meet the Walrus, and both characters are hoping to get something from the person they set out to meet. Haroun and Dorothy meet people along the way who remind them of people in their “real lives” or in Haroun’s case stories he has heard in his real life, and become friends with these people. In the movie Wizard of Oz the viewer sees everything in black and white, but when Dorothy travels into Oz everything is very colorful and magical. In Haroun and the Sea of Stories, Haroun sees things in black and white in the beginning. He does not appreciate his father’s stories, but when he sets out on his journey he begins to see the purpose of the stories told by his father. When he enters Gup City it seems like things are unbelievable to him, just like Dorothy views things in Oz. In the pages that I looked focused on Haroun can not wrap his head around the idea that one of the little birds in the Water Genie’s hand will be big enough for him to ride on, but to his amazement it grows big enough, “And although it seemed obvious to Haroun that these magical creatures were so small that they couldn’t possibly have carried so much as a bitten-off fingernail…” (Rushdie, 64). This is something that Haroun is not used to, but accepts that it is happening. In the Wizard of Oz when Dorothy comes across the scarecrow, she does not believe that it is the scarecrow who is speaking to her, but just like Haroun she accepts and invites him to see the Wizard so he can get a brain. When Haroun gets on the Hoopoe he starts thinking of how similar the ride on the Hoopoe is to his ride with the Mail Coach Driver and comes to realize how the Butt the Coach Driver and the Hoopoe have same characteristics, “Come to think of it, this Hoopoe with its crest of feathers reminds me quite a bit of old Butt with his quaff of hair standing straight up on his head! – And if Butt’s whiskers were somehow feathery, then this Hoopoe’s feather…have a distinct hairy feel” (Rushdie, 66). In the Wizard of Oz people from Dorothy’s real life are other characters in the Land of Oz. In the end of the movie Dorothy is in her bed and she is telling the people in her real life who they were in the Land of Oz, and of course they do not believe her, so she just laughs it off. In the end of Haroun and the Sea of Stories, Haroun like Dorothy is in his bed.
Text- world Stage
For this last step of the paper I decided to focus on the idea of censorship. I found an article on CNN.com titled “Fighting back against Censorship.” It is a piece from a book edited by Judy Blume called Places I Never Meant to Be. Judy Blume like Salman Rushdie has gotten a lot of criticism for the books that she has written, many of which have been banded from libraries and schools. I have read novels Blume has written both for young adults and adults, and recalling these novels I do not remember anything that could not be applied to everyday life or similar experiences a person will face in their life. Rushdie wrote in Imaginary Homelands that, “It has been bewildering to learn that people, millions upon millions of people, have been willing to judge The Satanic Verses and its author, without reading it, without finding out what a manner of a man this fellow might be, on the basis of such allegations as these” (Rushdie, 397). This just shows how ignorant people can be. Should it be left up to a parent to decide what their child can and can not read? Yes, but when it gets to a point when the parent is not letting their child read something because it might be too realistic, seems a little out of hand to me. When Blume wrote the book, Are You There God? Its Me, Margaret, in 1970 it became a target for censorship. The story is about a young girl’s “feelings towards menstruation, religion, and growing up” (Blume, 2). Blume gave copies to her children’s elementary school but the books never reached the shelves, Blume says, “The male principal decided on his own that they were inappropriate for elementary school readers because of the discussion of menstruation…Then one night the phone rang and a woman asked if I was the one who had written that book. When I replied that I was, she called me a communist and hung up. I never did figure out if she equated communism with menstruation or religion” (Blume, 2). When I read the last line of the quote it sounded like something that Rushdie would also say. Along with the idea of censorship Rushdie also talks about freedom of speech in Imaginary Homelands, “What is freedom of expression? Without the freedom to offend, it ceases to exist” (Rushdie, 396). Both Rushdie and Blume wrote things that offended readers, or in some cases non-readers, but both think that they should have the right to say what they want. Rushdie shows through Haroun’s father in Haroun and the Sea of Stories. When Snooty Buttoo wants Rashid to tell only happy stories Rashid replies, “Surely you don’t want me to tell just sugar-and-spice tales?...Not all good stories are of that type. People can delight in the saddest of sob-stuff as long as they find it beautiful” (Rushdie, 48). This sounds as if it came straight from Rushdie’s mouth, since he is the author it obviously is his view on stories. All authors realize that not everyone is going to like what they put out there, but they do want people to approach it with an open mind.
Every author writes something for a reason, even if it is only for them. I believe that Rushdie writes to help his readers look at things from different points of views, and does not necessarily want them to like it. Reading his works I came to the understanding that he wants them to be questioned and most importantly read standing outside the box.











Works Cited
Blume, Judy. “Fighting Back Against Censorship:” ‘Places I Never Meant to Be’. CNN. December 5, 2008 http://www.cnn.com/books/beginnings/9908/places.never/index.html?iref=newssearch
Rushdie, Salman. Haroun and the Sea of Stories. London: Granta Books, 1990.
Rushdie, Salman. Imaginary Homelands. London: Granta Books, 1991.