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Shame (1983) As Fantasy/ Historical Extravaganza/ As a satire/ Political Vasants

novel Speech
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Shame (1983)
VISITORS CHANC
As Fantasy/ Historical Extravaganza/ As a satire/ Political novel LANGU

Q- 1 Do you consider shame is and is not about Pakistan OR. 2. In shame Rushdie uses fantasy to comment on
Select
Indian and Pakistan political history” – comment OR Rushdie in ‘SHAME’ slips into “ nonsense” but only to achieve
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his political exposure in an effective way concerning Pakistan “ Discuss OR do you do consider “shame as a Powered b
political and historical novel about Pakistan ? Comment OR. comment on the political, cultural and social
dimensions of “shame”.
Be Friend IMP WE
v Introduction:
With just six novels like ‘Grimus’, ‘Midnight’s Children’, ‘Shame’, ‘The Satanic Verses’, ‘The Moor’s Last Sign’ and ‘The S.N.
Ground Beneath Her Feed’, Salman Rushdie (1947) has established himself as one of the best novelists of the world. Through Mak
his Post modern novel ‘Shame’ about Asia and Pakistan, Rushdie has emerged as a major novelist delineating the Edu
contemporary scene on the Indian sub continent. He also ranks among the world’s best contemporary novelists like Garcia STD
Marquez, Gunter Grass, John Irving and V.S. Naipaul. His ‘Midnight’s Children’ was awarded ‘The Book Prize’. His novels are ENG
nothing but the manifestation of a world-wide trend by which authorities have made all form of arts, a classic target or Word
censorship. Yet - *ST
There was an error in this
“ Despite all controversies regarding his fictional writing he remains a writer who deserves respect a writer of Engl
gadget
uncommon talents.” Book
time
Dictio
v Rushdie’s satirical venom
Send Your Question And teach
As reported in ‘The Time of India’ 30th June Issue of 1988, Bothe novels ‘Midnight’s Children’ and ‘Shame’ Salman stude
Get Answer on your email
Rushdie’s satirical venom applied with merciless come to the politic reportage of scenario countries. And both are supremely Edus
grotesque vehicles from linking fanciful family tale and murky political history His ‘Shame’ particular contains number of stories Than
Name fact of history of Pakistan. And each story is some how interlinked with each other. Commenting about his own novel Rushdie Pate
says, 6 mo
“It seems to be that everything in my books has to do with
Email * politics and with relationship of the individual and history.” Poem
Here Rushdie follows the great fantastical and satirical tradition manner like Gunter Grass, Melville, Cracia Marquez, - Tho
Joyce, and Beckett poem
. Poet
Message * Eng
-

v Historical and Personal Realism about Pakistan

Shame is a novel of historical and personal realism about Pakistan, the other divided part of British India since the
partition. The novelist considers its history ‘a disaster’ or ‘a failure of identity’ which is focal point in the novel. It is a crude Search
Send mixture of history, politic, sate and allegory, all combined in on. Apparently it deals with the fate and fortunes of the two
families of Raza Hyder (an image of General Zia) and of Iskander Harappa (an image and fictitious figure of Zanab Zulfikar
Bhuttto). Essentially it is a tale about life of men and women in Pakistan. The theme of it is repression of sham that breeds
violence and still more shame writ large in social and history of those people. The shameful environment he has chosen for
his subject in this novel that makes political expose of Zia Ul Haq’s Pakistan ‘a sort of modern fairytale’.
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v Political situation in Pakistan:-
Shame is about what happened to the other half of the sub-content after 1947. It depicts the contemporary political
situation in Pakistan. The main plot of the novel revolves around the lives of Omar Khayyam Shakil and Sufiya Zinobia. In the
sub-plot, the novelist describes the relationship between the two important architects of Pakistan’s history Raza Hyder and
Iskander Harappa based on General Zia and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.
S.N. Hingu The society in Pakistan is by and large repressive. It is a society which is authoritarian in its social and sexual code
which cruses its women beneath the intolerable burdens of honour and proprietary. For example Iskander Harappa once told
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his daughter,
‘As a nation we have a positive genius for self-destruction. We nibble away at
ourselves, we eat our children, we pull down anyone who climbs up.
Total Pageviews It is beset with careerism, cops, politics revenge, assassinations, execution, blood and guts. According to Rushdie, Pakistan
is the peeling, fragmenting palimpsest, increasing at war with itself. It is nothing but a failure of the dreaming mind. It is against
4 0 3 9 6 6 the background of this sort of political atmosphere that the character and events in ‘shame’ act and react. Hyder’s first son is
still born, strangled by the hollow cord of history. While the second child a daughter is retarded by incurable brain fever

v Cultural Climate:-
Home The heroine Sufiya Zinobia represents ‘Disorder of Pak society. She is a product of the cultural climate. Her violence
seems to be blind and pointless, but is also illustrated well known historical truth about dictatorship rule in Pakistan. The novel
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portrays a girl who suffers excessively from the emotion of shame. Individually speaking, it does not happen so in normal
pdf Material conditions. At times she represent mob violence, a rumour, a beast the collective fantasy of oppressed people and a dream
born of her rage. Referring to the character of Sufiya, Rushdie remarks, ‘Here you have to make connection between
Poets shame and violence. If you push the people too far and if you humiliate them too much then a kind of violence bursts
out of them I wanted to enclose that idea inside one person Sufiya.
SYLLABUS

Linguistics
v Relationships between an individual and the historical force
Literary Criticism Here Rushdie tries to highlight transcultural relationships between and individual and the historical forces. About
Pakistan’s history he bitterly remarks, It is history was old and rusted. It was a machine, nobody had plugged in for thousands
Dramatists of years, and here all of a sudden. It was being asked for maximum out put. One again Rushdie passes very bitter remarks
against Pakistan’s filthy history, ‘Well, there is a few voices saying if this is the country we dedicated to God, What Kind of God
Essayists
is it that permits but these voices were silenced before they had finished their question kicked on the shin und table, because
Novelists there are things that can not be said no. it is more than that; there are thing that can not be permitted to be true.
v A Fictionalized Picture about Pakistan:-
English Grammar What we see in the novel is a fictionalized picture of the novelist’s ideas about Pakistan. Some fact about characters
and events of history the country ‘Q’ (Pakistan) are fictionalized by Rushdie. He has tried to fictionalize the facts of the
Phonetics prevailing political situations in Pakistan. Pakistan is drawn as a country of shame. The failure of Pakistan in its political and
cultural dream has turned into a nightmare. The soldiers and dictator like Ayukhan, Yahya khan and Gen. Zia take to politics in
INDEX
alliance with fanatic and so called Mullah and Imams. White Politician like Iskander indulges in murders. The scene of
slapping of Genera Raza by President Iskander symbolizes the tend of Pakistan’s political supremacy. The women are free in
the matter of sex. Sufiya Zinobia is the shame incarnate and the darling child of the Present of Pakistan.

v Understanding of time and history:-

Thus ‘Shame’ is not an anti-Pakistan book only; it deals with the question of correct understanding of time and history.
This is what is important. Like T.S. Eliot, Rushdie believes that ‘the historical sense involves a perception, not only the past,
but its presence. The consciousness of history is a sense of the timeless as well as of the temporal. That way, Rushdie does
not underrate the value of past. He says, “What you were is forever who you are.” Most of what matters in your life
takes place in your absence.” In “Shame”, he says, “Men who deny their pasts become incapable of thing them real.”
In this way he combines diverse element like history and fantasy, fact and fiction, and transforms them into a new
creative whole which acts as a work of fiction.

Posted by S.N. Hingu at 12:47 AM 0 comments

Labels: Salman Rushdie

‘Shame’ The Title ‘Shame’

‘Shame’
The Title ‘Shame’
v Thematic and Suggestive Title:-
‘Sharum’ (Shame) is the keynote of the theme of this novel. This word applies to the characters, the actions and the
conflicts throughout the novel. But he questions that arise are, Whose Shame? How does it affect the action of the novel> and
Who are affected by this vice? As the story moves on we find that the hero, Omar Khayyam Shakil is haunted by Shame and
Shamelessness.

v Omar Khayyam Shakil; haunted by Shame and Shamelessness.

Omar is born of three mothers- Chhunni, Munee and Bunny but he does not know who is his real mother to the end of
his life. He does not even know ho is this father though he comes to know during his school day that he is an illegitimate child
born of a British Office by one of his mothers. Even his mothers do not show any felling of dihonour when Omar is conceived.
He enters life without befit of divine approval which is must for a Muslim Child. When he was twenty years old, His younger
brother was also claimed by three females. Thus the first chapter of the novel makes it clear that foul is fair and fair is foul.
Shame is honour and honour is Shame in Pakistan.

v Sufiya; The personification of Shame

Here Omar and his wife, Sufiya live in the shameful world of illusions and fanaticism. They can not enjoy the pleasures
of Islamic scriptures. Omar is not a true Muslim. Sufiya also feels ashamed of her childish way of thinking though she is a
young woman. The novelist calls her a wrong miracle. She never grows up in intellect. She is the personification of Shame.
She blushes at the slightest shameful things. The best of shame grows stronger gradually in her. She kills Pinky’s turkey birds
and also tries to kill Talvar Ulhaq. Later she becomes a dangerous woman in veil wandering at night and killing bad boys after
satisfying her sexual lust. When Omar reports this matter to her father, Raza Hyder, he wants to put an end of her life. Here
also it is a matter of Shame that a father wants to kill his daughter. Her Husband also chains her so that she may not be a
danger to other.

v The roots of violence:-

Further, the novelist gives two examples to show that Shamelessness and shame are the roots of violence. First he
describes the killing of a daughter by a Pakistan father for making love to a white boy in London. The father said, “She had
brought such dishonour upon her family that only her blood could wash away the sing. He gives another example
and says,’ “And not only men, I have since head of a case in which a woman committed the identical crime for
indention reason”, Rushdie sum up, “Between shame and shamelessness lies the axis upon which we turn…
shamelessness, shame, the violence. He put comments that shame is not the exclusive property of the East’.

v Shame on three levels:-

Thus this novel revolves on the two wheels of shame and shamelessness. This theme of shame runs on three levels –
political –cultural and social. It is a documentary film on the political situation of contemporary Pakistan. On the cultural level it
deals with poets and artists who are humiliated in Pakistan. On the social level it is about superstitious Islamic society that
lives on shame through unlimited repression and violence.

Posted by S.N. Hingu at 12:46 AM 0 comments

Labels: Salman Rushdie

‘Shame’ Character of Sufiya Zinobia

‘Shame’
Character of Sufiya Zinobia
v Introduction:

“Shame is more compact than other novels of Rushdie. It is a three dimensional novel- political, social and cultural. It
is a story of the rise and fall of three families, three sisters and three queens- Biquis, Sufiya and Naveed. The tree sisters are
Chummy, Munee and Bunny. The three countries are Pakistan, Bangladesh and India.

Shame is about what happened to the other half of the sub-content after 1947. It depicts the contemporary political
situation in Pakistan. The main plot of the novel revolves around the lives of Omar Khayyam Shakil and Sufiya Zinobia. The
society in Pakistan is by and large repressive. It is a society which is authoritarian in its social and sexual code which cruses
its women beneath the intolerable burdens of honour and proprietary.

v Sufiya; The personification of Shame

Here Omar and his wife, Sufiya live in the shameful world of illusions and fanaticism. They can not enjoy the pleasures
of Islamic scriptures. Omar is not a true Muslim. Sufiya also feels ashamed of her childish way of thinking though she is a
young woman. The novelist calls her a wrong miracle. She never grows up in intellect. She is the personification of Shame.
She blushes at the slightest shameful things. The best of shame grows stronger gradually in her. She kills Pinky’s turkey birds
and also tries to kill Talvar Ulhaq. Later she becomes a dangerous woman in veil wandering at night and killing bad boys after
satisfying her sexual lust. When Omar reports this matter to her father, Raza Hyder, he wants to put an end of her life. Here
also it is a matter of Shame that a father wants to kill his daughter. Her Husband also chains her so that she may not be a
danger to other.

v Sufiya; a product of Cultural Climate:-

The heroine Sufiya Zinobia represents ‘Disorder of Pak society. She is a product of the cultural climate. Her violence
seems to be blind and pointless, but is also illustrated well known historical truth about dictatorship rule in Pakistan. The novel
portrays a girl who suffers excessively from the emotion of shame. Individually speaking, it does not happen so in normal
conditions. At times she represents mob violence, a rumour, a beast the collective fantasy of oppressed people and a dream
born of her rage. Referring to the character of Sufiya, Rushdie remarks, ‘Here you have to make connection between
shame and violence. If you push the people too far and if you humiliate them too much then a kind of violence bursts
out of them I wanted to enclose that idea inside one person Sufiya.

v Victim of Male Violence

Sufiya represents the effort to imagine a different outcome for women are the victims of male violence. Both the
murderer East End girl and the other beaten on the underground train wear their silence as badges of shame. Although the
punishing hand of the father secures one of the silencing emblems, the other is self imposed. She is an exceptional woman
because she not only feel her own shame but also the unfelt shame of others, men in particular. Men are forbidden to feel
shame that would destroy their price. This means that they hold their head high only disavowing their shameful actions.

Posted by S.N. Hingu at 12:45 AM 0 comments

Labels: Salman Rushdie

‘Shame’ Narrative Technique in ‘Shame’ Or Non-fiction novel Or Anti-

novel.

‘Shame’
Narrative Technique in ‘Shame’ Or
Non-fiction novel Or Anti-novel.
v Introduction:-
In “Shame”, Rushdie heralds a novel technique in the field of Indo-Anglican fiction. He makes experiments with
narrative techniques and usage of the English language. He shows a new direction in the art of narration. In this connection
William Walsh remarks “Combining the elements of magic and fantasy, the grimmest realism, extravagant farce, multi mirrored
analogy and a symbolic structure. Salman Rushdie has captured the astonishing energy of the novel unprecedented in scope,
manner and achievement in the hundred and fit years old tradition of the Indian novels in English.

v The first Person Narrative Techniques:-

Raja Rao was the first Indian novelist in English who made experiment with new narrative techniques. In “Kathapura”,
he used a grandmother as the narrator. The old lady has herself participated in the freedom struggle. The first prose narrative
technique is used by Kamala Markandaya in his novel where the narrator is again a grandmother who tells the story of her life.
In ‘The Guide’ R.K. Narayana used the flashback techniques as we find some modern films.

v A logical Narrative:-
Salman Rushdie’s narrative technique in “Shame” goes beyond all the above technique. He realized that a story of an
Indian sub-continent is generally so complex that it could not be described in a simple and straight-forward style. Besides
social, political and historical realities in a sub-continent defies logical narrative. L.M. Ester faced the same problem of
narrative when he wrote “A Passage to India. The old narrative tradition emphasized on story and plot-construction. While an
awareness of the chaotic and complex nature of experience of Indian sub-continent led him to evolve a new theory of the
novel which he describes in “Aspect of the Novel. He says, “Expansion is the idea that he novelist must cling to not
completion, not rounding off but opening out? Thus Forster suggests that the novelist attempts to communicate through
expensing and not trough any positive statement.

v The Open Ended Technique:-

Salman Rushdie uses the same open-ended technique in “Shame”. AS we fin “Khushwant Singh’s “Train to Pakistan”,
Manohar Malgaonkar’s “A Band in the Ganges”, Atta Hussain’s “Sunlight on a Broken Colum and Chaman Nahal’s “Azad”.
Here Rushdie also transmutes facts of history into a significant work of art. This novel is not merely a political history but it is a
fantasy also. Ashutosh Banergee remark, ‘Shame achieves a singular synthesis between the recent Anglo-American
genre of “non-fiction novel and far older one of political allegory. The narrative technique of this novel also rits into the
mode of post modernist fantasy based on uncertainly of perception and meaning. There are no easy notions of objective
reality. This novel is at once experimental, interrogative, confessional, polemical and subjective. Here we Chronological
autobiographical and social-historical dimension of narrative.

v Use of Parody
Rushdie is a master of parody. He says that when individuals come unstuck from their native land, hey are called
migrants. When nation do the same thing (Bangladesh, the act is secession. He further says “I may be such a person,
Pakistan may be such a country” the following dialogue between Omar and Farah is a parody of a courtship. He tells her,
“The sight of you through my beloved telescope gave me the strength to break my mother’s power’, she replies,
“Voyeur, I split on your words, you balls dropped too son and you got the shots, no more to it than that. Don’t load
your family problems on to me.
v Great Use of Word & Phrases
Rushdie cleverly and artistically plays the game of words and phrases. He is a master manufactures of beautiful
phrases. They are diffused all over this novel. For example, he call Biquis Raza, ‘Khansi ki Rani’ or ‘Queen of Coughs’. He
describes medical student’s instruments as small aluminum etherizing box in which to murder frogs. He describes Doctor
Khayyam’s Stethoscope as ‘the weapon of leaving over his hsouler. He pass very bitter remarks on Omar’s three-mother-
in0on “Wolf children, sucked on the feral multiple breasts of a hairy moon\howling dame.

v His Unique use of Language:-

Rushdie playfully introduces new language rhythms in this novel. He makes use of the north Indian vernacular
language habits such as double usage of the same word, ‘chhi chhi’. In “Midnight Children”, Padma covers her ears and says,
“My God, such a dirty-filthy man, I never knew!’ In “Shame” character says, “Put here and there and there some secreted
panels which can shoot out eighteen inches stiletto blades sharp, sharp. Hasmat Bibi says, “Only child, always, always, they
live in their poor head. The three male servants laugh and says, “listening to you baba, we are thinking this house has grown
so huge huge, there must not be room for anywhere else in the world . Sometimes Rushdie uses befitting vernacular word and
phrases quite effectively. He says, “Your fatherji is sending himself to the devil” he further says, “You stop being
someone’s daughter and become someone’s mother instead, ek dum, fat-a-fut-. Sometime the novel translates
vernacular idiom into English, such ‘donkey from somewhere’. And ‘all these person left simultaneously after a very few
moments with having broken bead or eaten salt”. Sometime he uses metaphorical English language form simple native word.
For example, he sues the phrase, “garment of womanly honour for the word ‘duplatta’ for which he could have used a simple
word like scarf’.

v Different modes of narrative:-

Here we often find frequent shifts of perspective end drifts of narrative into a dream. Sometimes the narrative shifts from the
third person to the first person. That way, no individual entity is maintained throughout the novel. The story does not move
ahead on a clear chronological out. The unities of time and place are also not continuously observed throughout the novel.
Omar use different modes of narrative to convey his views on various lives, events, miracles, places, rumours, the improbable
and the mundane.

v A great Interplay of past, present and future.

At times the narrative present cross-section of dates, facts and figures related to public and private issues. At times, it
slips into past, present or future in a deliberate unchronological manner. This mode of narration is quite befitting to the
description of varied life and manners of the people of Pakistan. Here Omar identifies Pakistan’s present and future along with
his own. The interplay of the personal and the national history is most significant feature of ‘Shame.’ The interaction of
individual and historical forces gives unite to then novel .Like Saleem Sinai, the hero of Midnights’ Children’, here Omar say,
“Who, What am I ? My answer; I am the sum total of everything that went before me, of all I have done of everything
done to me. I am everyone. Everything. I am anything that happens after I have gone which would not have happened
if I had not come.” Thus Rushdie lays stress on the historical sense. He does not under-estimate the value of the past. His
approach remind us of Burnt Nortion’s life, “Time present and time past, Art both perhaps present in time future, And time
future contained in time past.”
v A memory novel:-
Logically speaking, it is difficult to understand the unfolding scheme of events in “Shame”. Events are narrated in a
zigzag manner. The narrator shifts from one matter to another in a most illogical manner. We can consider this novel as ‘a
memory novel’. Memory truth is a special kind of truth. It selects estimates. Alters, exaggerates, minimizes, glorifies, and
vivifies also, but in the end it creates its own reality. Here we find synthesis between the recent Anglo-American genre of non-
fiction Novel’ and the older one of political allegory.

Posted by S.N. Hingu at 12:44 AM 0 comments

Labels: Salman Rushdie

‘Shame’ Character of Omar Khayyam Shakil

‘Shame’
Character of Omar Khayyam Shakil
v Introduction:-
Shame is more compact than other novels of Rushdie. It is a three dimensional novel- political, social and cultural. It is
a story of the rise and fall of three families, three sisters and three queens- Biquis, Sufiya and Naveed. The tree sisters are
Chummy, Munee and Bunny. The three countries are Pakistan, Bangladesh and India.

Shame is about what happened to the other half of the sub-content after 1947. It depicts the contemporary political
situation in Pakistan. The main plot of the novel revolves around the lives of Omar Khayyam Shakil and Sufiya Zinobia. The
society in Pakistan is by and large repressive. It is a society which is authoritarian in its social and sexual code which cruses
its women beneath the intolerable burdens of honour and proprietary.

v The identification between Omar’s life and the public life:-

The identification between the public and the private’s affairs is so complete in each of Rushdie’s novel that it is not
possible to separate them. It is his feature that gives unity to the plots of his novels. The interaction of historical and individual
force has made each of his heroes what he is. In “Shame” Omar identifies Pakistan’s present and future along with his own.
The interplay of the personal and the national history is most significant feature of ‘Shame.’ Like Saleem Sinai, the hero of
Midnights’ Children’, here Omar say, “Who, What am I ? My answer; I am the sum total of everything that went before
me, of all I have done of everything done to me. I am everyone. Everything. I am anything that happens after I have
gone which would not have happened if I had not come. I repeat for the last time; to understand me, you will have to
swallow world. ”
Thus Omar has a deep influence on the fate of a nation. He is linked with the history both literally and metaphorically,
actively and passively. He is inevitably and unavoidable related to his own world.

v Omar Khayyam Shakil; haunted by Shame and Shamelessness.

Omar Khayyam Shakil, the hero of the novel; is haunted by Shame and Shamelessness. He is born of three mothers-
Chhunni, Munee and Bunny but he does not know who is his real mother to the end of his life. He does not even know ho is
this father though he comes to know during his school day that he is an illegitimate child born of a British Office by one of his
mothers. Even his mothers do not show any felling of dihonour when Omar is conceived. He enters life without befit of divine
approval which is must for a Muslim Child. When he was twenty years old, His younger brother was also claimed by three
females. Thus his character makes it clear that foul is fair and fair is foul. Shame is honour and honour is Shame in Pakistan

v Omar; An unspeakable Personality:-

Omar is an unspeakable personality. He is fat, ugly and scandalous to the lowest degree. He is a rascal, a voyeur who
takes advantage to gullible women in the guise of mesmeric medical treatment. He marries unspeakable a woman who is as
good as a beast, who has a child’s mind in a woman’s body. He is bred and brought up by three mothers simultaneously and
borne in three legendary wombs as a foetus. Yet his marriage links him to the topmost people in Pakistan’s history and
becomes the son in law of President Razor Guts Hyder Raza who is a caricature of Zia. Thus he has unmentionable pedigree.

v Omar and Sufiya; products of Cultural Climate:-

The hero Omar and the heroine Sufiya Zinobia represent ‘Disorder of Pak society. They are products of the cultural
climate. Their violence seems to be blind and pointless, but is also illustrated well known historical truth about dictatorship rule
in Pakistan. They represents mob violence, a rumour, a beast the collective fantasy of oppressed people and a dream born of
their rage. Rushdie remarks, ‘Here you have to make connection between shame and violence. If you push the people
too far and if you humiliate them too much then a kind of violence bursts out of them.”
He tries to highlight transcultural relationships between and individual and the historical forces. About Pakistan’s
history he bitterly remarks, “It is history was old and rusted. It was a machine, nobody had plugged in for thousands of years,
and here all of a sudden. It was being asked for maximum out put”

v Omar: Representative of novelist’s ego and satirical venom

In “Shame”, the role of Omar Khayyam is quite identical with that of Saleem Sinai in “Midnight’s Children”. Both
represent the novelist’s ego and satirical venom against filthy politics of India and Pakistan. Both are supremely grotesque
vehicles for linking fanciful family-tale and murky political history. Through Omar’s character, Rushdie mercilessly attacks the
so-called political leaders like a wolf or wolf child. His unnatural surroundings make him suspicious of what he himself calls the
corpses of his useless, massacred history. Raza call such a history ‘a rite of blood’ and his wife, Biquis, grows suspicious of it
and pushes it away like a poor relation.

v Conclusion:-
Through Omar’ character, Rushdie shows the significance of the past in an individual’s life. He remarks, “What you
were forever who you are. Most of what matters in your life takes place in your absence.” That way, he has made a sincere
effort in this novel to explore bi-othicity and bi-culturalism. In “Grimus”, the character named Ignatius Quasimodo Gribb defines
race-memory as “the sediment of highly concentrated knowledge that passed down the ages, constantly being added
to and subtracted upon. “

Posted by S.N. Hingu at 12:43 AM 0 comments

Labels: Salman Rushdie

Shame (1983) As Fantasy/ Historical Extravaganza/ As a satire/ Political

novel

Shame (1983)
As Fantasy/ Historical Extravaganza/ As a satire/ Political novel
Q- 1 Do you consider shame is and is not about Pakistan OR. 2. In shame Rushdie uses fantasy to comment on
Indian and Pakistan political history” – comment OR Rushdie in ‘SHAME’ slips into “ nonsense” but only to achieve
his political exposure in an effective way concerning Pakistan “ Discuss OR do you do consider “shame as a
political and historical novel about Pakistan ? Comment OR. comment on the political, cultural and social
dimensions of “shame”.

v Introduction:
With just six novels like ‘Grimus’, ‘Midnight’s Children’, ‘Shame’, ‘The
Satanic Verses’, ‘The Moor’s Last Sign’ and ‘The Ground Beneath Her Feed’,
Salman Rushdie (1947) has established himself as one of the best novelists of the
world. Through his Post modern novel ‘Shame’ about Asia and Pakistan, Rushdie
has emerged as a major novelist delineating the contemporary scene on the
Indian sub continent. He also ranks among the world’s best contemporary
novelists like Garcia Marquez, Gunter Grass, John Irving and V.S. Naipaul. His
‘Midnight’s Children’ was awarded ‘The Book Prize’. His novels are nothing but the
manifestation of a world-wide trend by which authorities have made all form of
arts, a classic target or censorship. Yet
“ Despite all controversies regarding his fictional writing he remains a writer who deserves respect a writer of
uncommon talents.”

v Rushdie’s satirical venom

As reported in ‘The Time of India’ 30th June Issue of 1988, Bothe novels ‘Midnight’s Children’ and ‘Shame’ Salman
Rushdie’s satirical venom applied with merciless come to the politic reportage of scenario countries. And both are supremely
grotesque vehicles from linking fanciful family tale and murky political history His ‘Shame’ particular contains number of stories
fact of history of Pakistan. And each story is some how interlinked with each other. Commenting about his own novel Rushdie
says,
“It seems to be that everything in my books has to do with
politics and with relationship of the individual and history.”
Here Rushdie follows the great fantastical and satirical tradition manner like Gunter Grass, Melville, Cracia Marquez,
Joyce, and Beckett
 .

v Historical and Personal Realism about Pakistan

Shame is a novel of historical and personal realism about Pakistan, the other divided part of British India since the
partition. The novelist considers its history ‘a disaster’ or ‘a failure of identity’ which is focal point in the novel. It is a crude
mixture of history, politic, sate and allegory, all combined in on. Apparently it deals with the fate and fortunes of the two
families of Raza Hyder (an image of General Zia) and of Iskander Harappa (an image and fictitious figure of Zanab Zulfikar
Bhuttto). Essentially it is a tale about life of men and women in Pakistan. The theme of it is repression of sham that breeds
violence and still more shame writ large in social and history of those people. The shameful environment he has chosen for
his subject in this novel that makes political expose of Zia Ul Haq’s Pakistan ‘a sort of modern fairytale’.

v Political situation in Pakistan:-

Shame is about what happened to the other half of the sub-content after 1947. It depicts the contemporary political
situation in Pakistan. The main plot of the novel revolves around the lives of Omar Khayyam Shakil and Sufiya Zinobia. In the
sub-plot, the novelist describes the relationship between the two important architects of Pakistan’s history Raza Hyder and
Iskander Harappa based on General Zia and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.
The society in Pakistan is by and large repressive. It is a society which is authoritarian in its social and sexual code
which cruses its women beneath the intolerable burdens of honour and proprietary. For example Iskander Harappa once told
his daughter,
‘As a nation we have a positive genius for self-destruction. We nibble away at
ourselves, we eat our children, we pull down anyone who climbs up.
It is beset with careerism, cops, politics revenge, assassinations, execution, blood and guts. According to Rushdie, Pakistan
is the peeling, fragmenting palimpsest, increasing at war with itself. It is nothing but a failure of the dreaming mind. It is against
the background of this sort of political atmosphere that the character and events in ‘shame’ act and react. Hyder’s first son is
still born, strangled by the hollow cord of history. While the second child a daughter is retarded by incurable brain fever

v Cultural Climate:-
The heroine Sufiya Zinobia represents ‘Disorder of Pak society. She is a product of the cultural climate. Her violence
seems to be blind and pointless, but is also illustrated well known historical truth about dictatorship rule in Pakistan. The novel
portrays a girl who suffers excessively from the emotion of shame. Individually speaking, it does not happen so in normal
conditions. At times she represent mob violence, a rumour, a beast the collective fantasy of oppressed people and a dream
born of her rage. Referring to the character of Sufiya, Rushdie remarks, ‘Here you have to make connection between
shame and violence. If you push the people too far and if you humiliate them too much then a kind of violence bursts
out of them I wanted to enclose that idea inside one person Sufiya.

v Relationships between an individual and the historical force

Here Rushdie tries to highlight transcultural relationships between and individual and the historical forces. About
Pakistan’s history he bitterly remarks, It is history was old and rusted. It was a machine, nobody had plugged in for thousands
of years, and here all of a sudden. It was being asked for maximum out put. One again Rushdie passes very bitter remarks
against Pakistan’s filthy history, ‘Well, there is a few voices saying if this is the country we dedicated to God, What Kind of God
is it that permits but these voices were silenced before they had finished their question kicked on the shin und table, because
there are things that can not be said no. it is more than that; there are thing that can not be permitted to be true.
v A Fictionalized Picture about Pakistan:-
What we see in the novel is a fictionalized picture of the novelist’s ideas about Pakistan. Some fact about characters
and events of history the country ‘Q’ (Pakistan) are fictionalized by Rushdie. He has tried to fictionalize the facts of the
prevailing political situations in Pakistan. Pakistan is drawn as a country of shame. The failure of Pakistan in its political and
cultural dream has turned into a nightmare. The soldiers and dictator like Ayukhan, Yahya khan and Gen. Zia take to politics in
alliance with fanatic and so called Mullah and Imams. White Politician like Iskander indulges in murders. The scene of
slapping of Genera Raza by President Iskander symbolizes the tend of Pakistan’s political supremacy. The women are free in
the matter of sex. Sufiya Zinobia is the shame incarnate and the darling child of the Present of Pakistan.

v Understanding of time and history:-

Thus ‘Shame’ is not an anti-Pakistan book only; it deals with the question of correct understanding of time and history.
This is what is important. Like T.S. Eliot, Rushdie believes that ‘the historical sense involves a perception, not only the past,
but its presence. The consciousness of history is a sense of the timeless as well as of the temporal. That way, Rushdie does
not underrate the value of past. He says, “What you were is forever who you are.” Most of what matters in your life
takes place in your absence.” In “Shame”, he says, “Men who deny their pasts become incapable of thing them real.”
In this way he combines diverse element like history and fantasy, fact and fiction, and transforms them into a new
creative whole which acts as a work of fiction.

Posted by S.N. Hingu at 12:42 AM 0 comments

Labels: Salman Rushdie

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Sukhadev N. Hingu (B.A. M.A. B.ed. with English). Powered by Blogger.