The Annexation of Puerto Rico
Chris DePriest
Professor Simonian
Why Read?
13 November 2012
Imaginary Prophecies It was said that "a book is not justified by its authors worthiness to write it, but by the quality of what has been written.......the real risks of any artist are taken in the work, in pushing the work to the limits of what is possible, in the attempt to increase the sum of what is possible to think" (Rushdie 14-15). Literature has exemplified these certain risks for many years now, however although these artists are increasing what is possible for us to think, are each of them truly expressing what actually happened at that time? For some, literature is used to describe certain things that they have been told, or have heard about through generations of story-telling; for others however, it is simply an open canvas for them to use to paint a portrait of their life experiences. In Imaginary Homelands by Salman Rushdie, this is the very topic that is at hand, and he explains that the difference between one writing from experience, and one writing from an imaginative sense are monumental. For instance, an English man who writes about the components of India is more likely to generate a text based on what is perceived in his mind, more so than an individual living in India at the time. An imaginary Homeland, as described by Rushdie, is a fiction, not an actual city or village, but an India of the mind. In the Prophet 's Hair, along with the various ways in which class, and religious barriers are broken through the magic realism of the narration, the concept of this imaginary homeland is also fulfilled. The Prophet 's Hair is essentially a story within a story, meaning that within the actual text, a story is being told by the main character. Huma is the sister of the unfortunate young man who was beaten and robbed by two men in an abandoned yard, and travels to an unknown city in search of a thief. She is taken into a dark alley where she comes upon a house, standing in the
Professor Simonian
Why Read?
13 November 2012
Imaginary Prophecies It was said that "a book is not justified by its authors worthiness to write it, but by the quality of what has been written.......the real risks of any artist are taken in the work, in pushing the work to the limits of what is possible, in the attempt to increase the sum of what is possible to think" (Rushdie 14-15). Literature has exemplified these certain risks for many years now, however although these artists are increasing what is possible for us to think, are each of them truly expressing what actually happened at that time? For some, literature is used to describe certain things that they have been told, or have heard about through generations of story-telling; for others however, it is simply an open canvas for them to use to paint a portrait of their life experiences. In Imaginary Homelands by Salman Rushdie, this is the very topic that is at hand, and he explains that the difference between one writing from experience, and one writing from an imaginative sense are monumental. For instance, an English man who writes about the components of India is more likely to generate a text based on what is perceived in his mind, more so than an individual living in India at the time. An imaginary Homeland, as described by Rushdie, is a fiction, not an actual city or village, but an India of the mind. In the Prophet 's Hair, along with the various ways in which class, and religious barriers are broken through the magic realism of the narration, the concept of this imaginary homeland is also fulfilled. The Prophet 's Hair is essentially a story within a story, meaning that within the actual text, a story is being told by the main character. Huma is the sister of the unfortunate young man who was beaten and robbed by two men in an abandoned yard, and travels to an unknown city in search of a thief. She is taken into a dark alley where she comes upon a house, standing in the
Cited: Rushde, Salman. Imaginary Homelands. New York: The Penguin Group, 1991. 9-21. Print. Rushdie, Salman. "The Prophet 's Hair." The Norton Anthology of English Literature. 8th edition. New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2006. pg 2854-2863. print. H