Analysis Of The Fall Of A City By Salman Rushdie

The Importance of Story “What’s the use of stories that aren’t even true?” (Haroun and the Sea of Stories, 22). Stories have existed all throughout history and storytelling has evolved significantly throughout the years. Humans, as narrative species are natural storytellers. We tell stories everyday of our lives, whether it is for entertainment, to teach lessons, or to communicate experiences, storytelling is both important and prevalent in our daily lives. Salman Rushdie is an infamous author who is best known for his novel, The Satanic Verses; the novel was very controversial and was even banned in several countries. Rushdie’s novel caused such uproar that a Fatwa -a death sentence- was declared upon him by Islam extremists and Rushdie
“The city was as he left it. Yet everything had changed. Always before when he had come here, his flesh had tingled, his eyes had shown with excitement. Now there was only a taste like that of a spoilt nutmeat” (Nowlan). The protagonist, Teddy was initially a very creative boy with a lot of imagination. However, after being berated by his Uncle, his imagination is completely destroyed. There was a time when he looked at his fantasy city with excitement and eagerness but he now looks at it with contempt. This article is similar to Haroun and the Sea of Stories, in the sense that both Teddy and Rashid lost their imaginations. This is truly tragic because imagination is important and can change the way a person sees the world, it also broadens a person’s horizon and helps one think outside the box. Additionally, without imagination everything would be rather bland and uninteresting. Einstein once said “Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.” Einstein, an extremely intelligent individual even recognises the necessity of imagination. Additionally, from a scientific point of view, imagination plays a key role in the achievement of success. Likewise, it is proven that imagination and creativity is compulsorily for the
During Kolesmikov’s final moment he wrote one last message for his wife. This is not unheard of. It has also been noted throughout time that when in a dire situation, one feels a compulsion to write notes or letters in their last moments of life. “We are narrative species. We exist by storytelling –by relating our situations– and the test of our evolution may lie in getting the story right” (Rosenblatt). The author of the article, Roger Rosenblatt, states that humans are narrative species which is why storytelling comes naturally to us. This explains the great loss Rashid felt in Haroun and the Sea of Stories when he was unable to tell a single story. Everyone naturally tells stories everyday of their lives, so being unable to story tell can certainly feel horrific. Therefore, the authors Salman Rushdie and Roger Rosenblatt wrote the article/story to demonstrate to the audience that human beings are narrative species and life is hard to live without either telling or listening to stories (since they are prevalent everywhere).
In conclusion, the novel Haroun and the Sea of Stories can be considered both adult and children fiction because the themes and concepts in the story relates to everyone. Rushdie’s story teaches significant lessons to both the young and older readers. However, some of the themes and ideals can only be understood by the older readers.