Shame

Shame

In the novel Shame by Salman Rushdie, the character Sufiya embodies the inner struggle brought on by shame in Pakistan and the ruling class that she grew up in. Sufiya is constantly at war with herself, she thinks with the mind of a six year old girl but when things turn truly shameful (such as when her mother was tortured by the turkeys of her husband’s ex-lover) she snaps and her inner demons, the division inside of her, emerge. This is seen again when the blissful almost bride to be almost kills her sister’s groom because of the shame that he has brought her family. Her last inner division comes when her husband chooses to not make her his “wife” in the bedroom and it opened up the curiosity that a six year old has and it also brought out the division in her and her inner demon, which causes her to go out and have sex and murder the young boys.  Sufiya’s war with her inner demons is finally over, but the inner demons had won and she becomes a wild and murderous creature and a thing of fables. Also, throughout the novel there is always the rise and fall of political leaders. We watch as Iskander rises to power after powering through his inner struggle (he tries to separate himself from the partying, sexual man and rise up to be a great man of power, but the division never really happens because he keeps up with his old ways but just more privately.) Izkander is killed and Raza Hyder rises to power only to be over powered by someone else, showing the inner struggle with power in the nation itself. There is an inner struggle with all of the characters, Biliquis struggles with only loving one daughter, and where she didn’t produce a male heir her shame slips her slowly into madness; and “Good News” has her inner struggle of choosing love (or lust) only to be punished for it repeatedly and to be swallowed up in the makings of her love where she chooses the way out and commits suicide. The best visual image of the inner struggle is seen on page 140, “Sufiya Zinobia at the age of twelve had formed the unattractive habit of tearing her hair…she would sit in the enormous cot…and tear each damage hair in two all the way down to the root.” This is a powerful statement of the inner division that is in all of the characters and the country itself. It shows each hair being split in two just as each person is being split in two with all of the shame built up in side of them. 

My Opinion: 

I absolutely loved this book! It is extremely chaotic with twists and turns and an air of fantasy mixed into the reality.The characters in this book are completely multidimensional. You Sufiya a young girl who's shame piles up inside of her and releases an evil monster, all of the political figures who rise to power and then fall due to betrayals, and Omar, the one who the story mostly follows, is a child born from fantasy and grows to become a city doctor only to die not once but twice in a chaotic way. The book tells many different stories but they all end up together at the end. It takes you down path after path and yet you end up seeing everything fall together and the people connect and the stories are wrapped up with deaths or disappearances. It can also be seen as a Post Modernism critique of Pakistan's nationalist narratives, because of the two story lines of Raza d Iskander's rise to power and then fall from power. 

- this cover was interesting :) 

.Shame, Vengeance, and Magical Realism: 

 Magical Realism is when magical elements are blended into a realistic scenario. In this novel it can be seen as a critique of the West's knowledge of the East. It starts out in a mythological back story about three women who conceived at a party and they all were "pregnant" with the child. The child is then born and grows up in isolation until he is old enough to demand to go to school. It is then that the books switches into a realistic setting with the life of the military families. It is with these families that we start to see the flashes of "magic" through Sofia. Her murderous episodes and snaps occur during highly stressful and shameful situations until finally not even the chains that her husband and father have put on her can hold her back and she escapes. At the end of the novel we are back at the three mothers' house after the fall of Raza from power and they are all fleeing the country. The mothers are furious that Raza had their other son killed and they poison him and then have him impaled with mechanical spikes. They disappear and it is their son Omar who takes the blame for the murders. The mother's get their vengeance and then Omar dies by a gun shot because he is seen as being responsible for Raza's death and he dies again when his blushing bride finally finds him and crawls to him in her animalistic state and kills him. The book is constantly back and forth and in between reality and fantasy. I think that is what makes it so unique. 

- Visualizations of Magical Realism -