RECAPITULARE 1. Salman Rushdie, SHAME : Shame is Salman Rushdie's third novel, published in 1983.

Like most of Rushdie's work, this book was written in the style of ma i! realism. "t portrays the lives of #ulfikar $li %hutto &"skander 'arappa( and )eneral *uhammad #ia+ul+'a, &)eneral Ra-a 'yder( and their relationship. .he !entral theme of the novel is that violen!e is born out of shame. .he !on!epts of 'shame' and 'shamelessness' are e/plored throu h all of the !hara!ters, with main fo!us on Sufiya #inobia and 0mar 1hayy2m. Shame dis!usses herita e, authenti!ity, truth, and, of !ourse, shame and shamelessness, as well as the impa!t of all these themes on an individual, the prota onist 0mar 1hayy2m. 3riti!s have often des!ribed the literary fi!tion of Salman Rushdie as postmodern, pre!isely be!ause it ,uestions realist modes of knowled e and representation. Linda 'ut!heon &1988( has des!ribed Rushdie4s *idni ht4s 3hildren and Shame as e/amples of postmodern historio raphi! metafi!+ tion be!ause of the ways in whi!h these novels employ literary self+!ons!iousness to draw attention to the pro!ess of writin throu h whi!h histori!al events, su!h as the $mritsar massa!re or the for!ed displa!ement of "ndia4s *uslim population after parti+ tion, are !onstru!ted and made intelli ible as fa!ts. .o !orre!t this mistaken readin of Rushdie, $hmad ar ues that Rushdie4s fi!tion uses the metaphor of mi ran!y as a metaphor for the 5ontolo i!al !ondi+ tion of all human bein s4 as well as the 5so!ial !ondition of the 6.hird 7orld8 mi rant4 &$hmad9 1:;(. .he effe!t of this !onflation of post!olonial narratives of mi ration with postmodernist theo+ ries of sub<e!tivity is, a!!ordin to $hmad4s *ar/ist !riti,ue of

Rushdie, the pa!ka in of .hird 7orld !ulture for 7estern !on+ sumption. + + the representation of politi!al violen!e9 the a!ts of violen!e !arried out by Sufiya #enobia in Shame arti!ulate the violen!e of state repression in =akistan. yet in both novels Rushdie su ests that it is the politi!al formation and parti+tion of South $sia after de!olonisation that ives rise to su!h politi!al violen!e.

& ve-i 'aywood ( > identity and post!olonianism in Shame hybridi ed identity + Salman Rushdie pla!es the immi rant and !ultural hybrid at the front and !enter of the ma<ority of his fi!tion works. 0ne !ould des!ribe a reat deal of his !hara!ters as 6!ultural hybrids,8 meanin that his !hara!ters, for one reason or another, have split !ultural identities. "n other words, they are !au ht between two !ultural influen!es. $s a result of bein !au ht between !ultures, the !ultural hybrid both e/perien!es feelin s of dislo!ation and seems to fi ht between the dual !ultural influen!es lookin for some sort of !ultural e,uilibrium. $t the same time, the !ultural hybrid is des!ribed as havin a keener sense of the world and the stren ths and weaknesses of ea!h !ulture in whi!h they are a part. 7hile Rushdie seems to support the notion that there are benefits to !ultural displa!ement, he also seems reatly !on!erned with so!ial and psy!holo i!al dan ers of this displa!ement &su!h as .he Satani! ?erses and Shame(. Spe!ifi!ally, he seems !on!erned that if a !ulture &or one who is part of a !ertain !ulture( is dislo!ated whether or not it is possible for that !ultural herita e to survive. 'e is also !on!erned for the ne ative rea!tion that a homo eneous !ulture typi!ally ives the hybrid9 6"n the same passa e in Shame in whi!h he e,uates mi ration with freedom, on whi!h he spe!ulates on an anti ravity pill that would 5make mi rants of us all,4 he oes on to refle!t, more soberly, on the pri!e of su!h mobility9 on the loss of moral meanin , the lapse of !ultural !ontinuity8 &3ook :@(. Rushdie5s works show that he stron ly believes in mi/in !ultures and identities, rather than limitin identifi!ation to a sin ular pla!e or idea. Salman Rushdie ar ues for hybridity of !ulture, assertin that in today5s post!olonial, postmodern world, no one !an or should try to retain a sin ular identity. "n fa!t, he affirms, livin between Aast and 7est or embra!in the hybrid mi/ture of "ndia is a positive thin , one whi!h brin s about newness in the world. "mmi rants do not have to feel !ompelled to return home or to resist bein influen!ed by their new lo!ations. "n the same way, those livin in "ndia today do not have to support divisive !ommunalist movements or the essentiali-in efforts of the nation5s leaders. Refusin Bational 'ybridity in Shame, e/plores Rushdie5s depi!tion of the national narrative of =akistan. 'e ar ues that =akistan, whi!h was intended to be a CLand of the =ure, is fundamentally flawed be!ause su!h a sin ular national identity is impossiblein the postmodern and post!olonial world. 'e asserts that su!h a refusal of hybridity in a nation !auses violen!e, repression, and !orruption of its leaders. "n Shame, he tells the story of a nation that is almost, but not ,uite, =akistan, thus usin this Cmodern fairy tale to show the inherent weakness and ba!kwardness of tryin to for!efully !reate homo eneous nations. Dltimately, Rushdie uses this story as

a warnin of the dire !onse,uen!es for nations that turn away from the national hybridity. "n Drdu and =ersian, in fa!t, the name =akistan translates to Cland of the pure, reinfor!in that ori inal intention for the nation. "n his novel Shame, Salman Rushdie !ondemns the idea of the Cpure nation, a !onstru!ted entity founded upon stri!t binaries like maleEfemale, pureEimpure, and usEthem. Rushdie uses the story of an ima ined !ountryFa thinly+veiled =akistanFto show the instability of su!h !onstru!tions and hierar!hies. .his novel tells the story of the families of two men who rise to positions of power in a !ountry that pursues its vision of a perfe!t and pure nation as ruthlessly as the men pursue politi!al power. $s Rushdie refle!ts elsewhere in his work, be!ause mi rants are dis!onne!ted from their history and ori inal identity, they must find a new way to understand themselves. "n Shame he states, C$ll mi rants leave their pasts behind, althou h some try to pa!k it into bundles and bo/esFbut on the <ourney somethin seeps out of the treasured mementoes and old photo raphs, until even their owners fail to re!o ni-e them. 'avin been stripped of their personal histories, these mi rants have no !hoi!e but to a!!ept as truth the new myth of =akistan5s purity. %ut Cfortunately, the narrator says, C" am only tellin a sort of modern fairy+tale, so that5s all ri ht, nobody need et upset. So while the story is !learly meant to be an indi!tment of both the !orruption of =akistan5s leaders and the instability of its national narrative, he asserts that the lessons of not+=akistan5s story !an be appli!able for many nations and peoples around the world. Rushdie5s narrator asserts that, despite the similarities, his ima ined nation is not e/a!tly =akistan. Gust like the true palimpsest of =akistan, he states, Cthere are two !ountries, real and fi!tional, o!!upyin the same spa!e, or almost the same spa!e. *y story, my fi!tional !ountry e/ist, like myself, at a sli ht an le to reality &S ::(. .he fa!t that his ima inary !ountry and the real =akistan o!!upy the same spa!e shows that the real nation is <ust as fi!tional, ima inary, and false as the other. "n Rushdie5s ima ined =akistan, the one hierar!hy that is most stri!tly upheld is the dominan!e of men over women. 7hen Ra-a 'yder5s wife fails to ive birth to a son, he hysteri!ally tries to persuade the do!tor that he misdia nosed the baby5s se/. 7hen "skander 'arappa de!ides to have a mistress in the !ity, he banishes his wife Rani to a solitary life at his estate in the !ountry. Rushdie fre,uently embra!es !onfusion and ambi uity in his fi!tion + 0ne of the !learest ways he does this is throu h Cthe !areful !onstru!tion of dual oppositionsHonly to de!onstru!t those oppositions by demonstratin that the apparent polar opposites are in fa!t inter!han eable and mutually interdependent &%ooker 9;8(. .his is a very important aspe!t of Shame. $t the same time that the !hara!ters insists upon stri!t !ate ori-ation, Rushdie frustrates their efforts by blurrin !hara!ter, ender, and nature boundaries. .he story be ins with three sisters, 3hhunni, *unnee, and %unny, who are so !lose to one another that, despite a lar e differen!e in a e, they Cbe an to resemble ea!h other so !losely that even the servants made mistakes &S 1:(. 7hen one of the sisters be!omes pre nant, the other two fei n the symptoms as well, and they raise their son to ether, so that he never knows e/a!tly who his mother was. $nother !hara!ter who under oes a transformation is Sufiya #inobia 'yder, the

dau hter who suffered from Cbrain fever, free-in her mind in !hildhood while her body rew. .he narrator states that he made Sufiya slow Cto make her pure &S 1:3(. %e!ause of his slowness, he says, Cshe remains, for me, somehow !lean &pak( in the midst of a dirty world &S 1:3(. %e!ause she is !lean, however, she be!omes a sort of s!ape oat for all of the Cemotions that should have been felt, but were notFsu!h as re ret for a harsh word, uilt for a !rime, embarrassment, propriety, shame &S 1:I(. She seems to sense these unfelt emotions and somehow take them into herself. $s the years pass, the !rimes of the politi!al leaders, the publi! lies, the repression of womenF all of whi!h o by unashamedlyFin!rease, until Sufiya is transformed by the Shame inside her. 'er father noti!es that Cthe ed es of Sufiya #inobia were be innin to be!ome un!ertain, as if there were two bein s o!!upyin that air+ spa!e, !ompetin for it, two entities of identi!al shape but of tra i!ally opposed natures &S :@8(. .his des!ription e!hoes that of the ima inary nation Csharin the same spa!e as the real nation. Jinally, Sufiya literally transforms into a physi!al representation of that Shame. Dltimately, as Rushdie shows in Shame, the true nature of thin s will show throu h, no matter how hard one works to !over it up. .he monster within Sufiya hunts down and destroys the men who had !ontrolled her life, her father Ra-a 'yder and her husband 0mar 1hayyam Shakil, the powerfully shameless leaders of the nation. .he novel ends when =akistan5s unfelt shame finally overwhelms Sufiya, sendin out a Csho!kwave that demolishes the house, and after it the fireball of her burnin , rollin outwards to the hori-on like the sea &S 3KI(. "n the end, the pressure rew too reat and the suppressed truth broke forth, destroyin the entire nation. Ma!i" realism + .he representation of the banal and the ,uotidian is a !entral tenet of nineteenth+!entury realism, and ma i! realism !ontinues this pro<e!t. Like many modernist movements, however, ma i! realism re<e!ts nineteenth+!entury positivism, the privile in of s!ien!e and empiri!ism, returnin instead to mytholo ies, folklore and mysti!ism in what Gameson !alls La rea!tion a ainst the reifi!ation of realism.L .his in no way represents an abandonment of historyM in fa!t, the representation of histori!al !onfli!t is !entral to ma i! realist prose. 3entral to early ma i! realism is the emphasis on per!eption. #. $. %r&ell, 1'()