Haroun and the Sea of Stories Closed Reading

So Iff the Water Genie told Haroun about the Ocean of the Streams of Story, and even though he was full of a sense of hopelessness and failure the magic of the ocean began to have an effect on Haroun. He looked into the water and saw that it was made up of a thousand thousand thousand and one currents, each one a different colour, weaving in and out of one another like a liquid tapestry of breathtaking complexity; and Iff explained that these were the Streams of Story, that each coloured strand represented and contained a single tale. Different parts of the ocean contained different sorts of stories, and all the stories that had ever been told and many that were still in the process of being invented could be found here, the Ocean of the Streams of Story was in fact the biggest library in the universe. And because the stories were held here in fluid form, they retained the ability to change, to become new versions of themselves, to join up with other stories and so become yet other stories; so that unlike a library of books, the Ocean of the Streams of Story was much more than a storeroom of yarns. It was not dead but alive. (Rushdie 72)

In Salmon Rushdie’s’, Haroun and the Sea of Stories various themes are explored presenting numerous arguments to the reader. One of the main themes within the novel is the importance of stories. Within the passage above Salmon Rushdie presents the changing nature of stories and their ability to become new versions of themselves, this is explored through the use of literary devices. These techniques allow interpretation of the themes, present Rushdie’s ideas and further engage the reader. Some of the techniques used within the above passage are; third person narrative, repetition, synonyms, sentence structure and metaphor.
The above passage is key to Rushdie’s story, Haroun and the Sea of Stories and its themes as this is when Haroun is first introduced to the Sea of Stories. Haroun is challenged to make a decision between two