Short Stories East By Salman Rushdie

* Why did Mary defy Mr Neal? What did she achieve? What role does the character of Mary play in the text?

As Mary’s story unravels, she continues to suffer long hours of work, starvation, and separation from her family. She reads her holy bible and is constantly reminding herself that God is with her and will see her through these trials. Her spirits are lifted her master agrees to sell Mary to her husband, and her mistress begins the journey with her, but before long the mistress decides not to go any further and they turn back. Not long after, she starts to loose hope that she will ever be reunited with her family. She becomes discouraged, and her spirit

When she enters the bedroom, her voice changes from present to past tense and she starts to reminisce and begins to talk about her mother and aunts. She seems happy to remember her mother’s room and introduces her aunts to the audiences. Mary delivers her dialogue saying that the dressing table and the small elephant statue figures are all same. When Mary gently touches her mother’s photo, she delivers a sad tone. Her performance conveys to the audiences that she misses her mother. The tone of her voice represents that she is a gentle, innocent and a loving child. Her verbal and non-verbal interactions conveyed the viewers with a message that she is an orphan.

To him, contrary to Mary’s belief, his “old self” is not separated from “his current self”, rather, he is aware of the fact that his history/past is a part of his realities. He regrets that Mary “is trying to separate [him] from [his] history.” (p.84) and identifies and rejects it as an American attitude: “it is so American. The belief that people can be remade from scratch in the promise land, leaving the old self behind.” (p. 84).

Mary begins the story as a doting housewife going through her daily routine with her husband. She is content to sit in his company silently until he begins a conversation. Everything is going as usual until he goes “ slowly to get himself another drink” while telling Mary to “sit down” (Dahl 1). This shocks Mary as she is used to getting things for him. After downing his second drink, her husband coldly informs her that he is leaving her and the child. This brutal news prompts the first change in Mary, from loving wife to emotionless and detached from everything.

Throughout Haroun and the Sea of Stories, Salman Rushdie provides a fundamental, yet intricate variety of literary usage. These instances of literary usage provide and framework of support for the text which is to follow and to further accentuate the smaller and unnoticeable details of the story in to vital parts which are necessary for better comprehension and understanding of the meaning of the upcoming events. Symbolism is the most commonly used and most imperative literary device used by Rushdie. 'With the land of Chup, on the dark side of Kahani?This looks like the doing of the leader of the Chupwalas, the Cult master of Bezaban.'(H.S.S. Pg 75) This statement from the text has a very symbolic meaning behind it, both in terms of the

My next question was what they expected to find in America. Mary was very clear that they wanted to find success and happiness. Her great grandmother wanted to better her life for her children and give them more opportunities. This was, and still is, the image that America tends to emit. America stood for a better future and off of that, a future filled with hope. When they got to America Mary’s family came through Coney Island and settled in The Bronx. They

When first analysing the situation that Mary Reibey had gotten herself into, you would initially think about the unfortunate position for such a young girl. Mary’s criminal life and sentencing was caused by an act of horse stealing. Her act of crime was taken action on and two years after her initial sentencing she arrived in Sydney. One of the main factors influencing the negative impact of the convict experience on Mary’s life is the long and strenuous voyage she had to face. Her trip to Sydney aboard the Royal Admiral was one full of harsh treatment, terrible food, filthy and unhygienic conditions and loneliness. In a letter that Mary wrote to her aunt Alice Hope, she spoke about

The Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson reveals that the ghastly depiction of the Indian religion (or what Rowlandson perceives as a lack of religion) in the narrative is directly related to the ideologies of her Puritan upbringing. Furthermore, Rowlandson's experiences in captivity and encounter with the new, or "Other" religion of the Indians cause her rethink, and question her past; her experiences do not however cause her to redirect her life or change her ideals in any way.

She comes from the Sioux tribe which has constantly been facing the conflict between their traditional ways against the white culture. This struggle is made complex due to insufficient solutions being proposed to end this quagmire. Mary notes at the end of the memoir that there are no resolutions towards this and that life should continue. Mary suffers significantly due to having parents from different cultures. This makes her integration into society be tedious; her mother is Indian while the father is an American.

“Imagine there’s No Heaven” is a letter written by Salman Rushdie who is a British Indian novelist and essayist. He is an atheist and is known for his unflinching criticism of religion. Rushdie contributed this letter to a UN-sponsored anthology, addressed to the six-billionth human child who was expected to be born that year. He attempts to discuss and answer two fundamental questions of life. “How did we get here? And, now that we are here, how shall we live?” However he diverts from his central thesis and most of his text malign and smear all religions while the two questions go almost completely unanswered. His tone is demeaning, scornful and he presents religious beliefs as being ridiculous. He makes absolute statements without any

Mary should acquaint herself in a different cultural and academic setting. By experiencing and learning about cultural diversity in a new environment, she would be able to “stand back” and take a more critical look at her culture. Mary has been influenced tightly by her upbringing and background. I think she is facing cultural encapsulation wherein she limits herself to one specific culture her Scottish background. She needs to step outside her comfort zone, for instance, “put herself in somebody else’s moccasins” to increase awareness, diversity skills, diversity consciousness, and understanding.

The Pressure to Assimilate in Mary Rowlandson’s A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson

Salman Rushdie’s novel, Haroun and the Sea of Stories, can be interpreted using Joseph Campbell’s Hero Cycle analytical tool. With this tool, the theme of Haroun’s development as an independent through his experiences in the novel can be effectively analyzed. In the preliminary events of the novel, Haroun is largely dependent upon his father, Rashid. However, once Soraya, Haroun’s mother, runs away with Mr. Sengupta, a reversal of roles occurs. Now, Rashid is dependent upon Haroun, and Haroun must learn how to handle his newfound responsibility fairly quickly and under a considerable amount of stress.

Nobel Prize winner Nadine Gordimer once stated, “Censorship is never over for those who have experienced it. It is a brand on the imagination that affects the individual who has suffered it, forever.” This was a problem faced by Salman Rushdie. After years of suffering from writers block, he overcame his obstacles and published "Haroun and the Sea of Stories". It is not only a story for his son, but a proclamation of the triumph of the writer over the oppressive forces that sought to silence him. When read literally, the resolution of "Haroun and the Sea of Stories" is the defeat of Khattam-Shud as dictator. However, Rushdie’s true resolution is the conquest of freedom of speech over oppression. This is seen in how the characters’