Salman Rushdie's

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Salman Rushdie's
Haroun and the Sea of Stories
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Background on Rushdie around the time he wrote
Haroun and the Sea of Stories

• Finished Satanic Verses in 1988 which caused the
  Ayatollah to place a fatwah on him. (Islamic
  fundamentalist)
• Had to go into hiding due to death threats, which
  led to writers block.
• Wrote Haroun and the Sea of Stories in 1990 to
  explain his situation to his younger son, through
  Allegory.

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Structure of the novel

• Haroun, a young boy is troubled with his father
  Rashids inability to tell stories anymore.
• Through traveling with his father Haroun meets a
  Genie, who helps him get to the Earths second
  moon, Kahani, where the Sea of Stories is
  located.
• Haroun wishes to get back his fathers ability to
  tell stories, and by doing so is exposed to two
  unique groups of people.

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• The Gup- Who live in a land of sunshine and are
  very talkative. Silence is often considered
  rude (85)
• The Chup- Who live in a cold land of darkness
  where there is nothing but silence.
• The leader of the Chup- Khattam Shud is refered
  to as the arch enemy of stories and The Prince
  of Silence
• Throughout the novel Rushdie hints that If the
  Guppees and the Chupwalas didnt hate each other
  so , they might actually find each other pretty
  interesting (125)

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Major themes in the book

• Kashmir conflict
• Censorship
• Differences
• Love
• Gender
• Travel-literal and metaphor
• Orientalisim

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Kashmir conflict

• First part of story occurs around Dull lake, a
  play on Dal Lake, which is found in Kashmir
  (Northwestern India)
• Around the time Rushdie was in exile, Kashmir
  witnessed the outbreak of insurgency causing
  India to deploy four hundred thousand security
  personnel.
• India has fought three wars with Pakistan over
  Kashmir (1947 1966 1999) resulting in thousands
  of deaths.

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Description of Dull lake

• heavily armed soldiers (42)
• ordinary people wore extremely hostile
  expressions (42)
• Trouble has found its way to the area
• Kosh-mar means nightmare (40)
• Border disputes K has many names

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The Gup and the Chup

• Rushdie could have used these two groups of
  people to not only represent censorship and
  freedom of speech but the Pakistani and Indian
  populations.
• He states throughout the book that these two
  groups of people have many differences, but no
  one group is better than the other. (Silence is
  ok sometimes. Nonstop talking is rude sometimes).
• Rushdie also portrays both groups of people
  throughout the novel in a foolish light when it
  comes to them fighting each other.

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Resources

• http//www.fl.nctu.edu.tw/ericyu/Notes/Haroun.htm
  
• http//www.dailycal.org/images/art/Orion20Pitches
  .jpg
• http//www.mostlyfiction.com
• http//www.nouse.co.uk
• http//en.wikipedia.org