Roderos 1 Ma. Via Jucille Roderos Mr. Maximo Pulan Jr.

Lit 13 M02 1 October 2011 Fantasy: A Process Too Complicated to Explain Salman Rushdies Haroun and the Sea of Stories is a book that oozes a lot of fantasy and magic in every page turned. It caters almost mainly to the children since the style of writing is somehow similar to that of a storybook with dreamlike sceneries and dramatic sequence of events with fantasy creatures and settings that leads to extraordinary situations. This book won the Writers Guild Award for Best Childrens Books. The book takes on a genre of magic realism wherein fantasy is incorporated in reality. Magical creatures and events are blended with real life situations. In this book the main characters travelled into a world, in fact the Earths second moon, where there exists a magical water genie, a telepathic Hoopoe, talking fish duo, a floating gardener with a flower for a head and many more creature with more or less extraordinary features. At first they seemed to be impressed with what they have witnessed but they were not frightened with what they saw. Not asking for a deeper explanation of things, Rashid and Haroun easily accepted and digested the fact that these creatures no matter how outrageous the explanation can and have the right to exists and mingle with their world, the real world. This same book also had allusions to popular things, for example the Arabian Nights. The main characters of the story are inspired by this. There are also some words, particularly names of characters and places in the stories that have reference to existing words in Hindi. The names and their allusions are presented at the back of the book.

Roderos 2 The Characters of the story and how they are portrayed, their traits contribute to the turn of events in the story. Haroun Khalifa, the main character in the story, is a curious but outspoken and clever, somehow defiant boy who in the beginning is skeptical to make believe stories or fantasy stories. Because of the guilt he felt when he offended his father of his remark, he ventured into the fantasy world where water genies exist and machines communicate for his ultimate goal: to bring back the happiness and merriment not only of his father but also of the whole city. Only then he realized the value of his fathers stories. Rashid Khalifa is the father of Haroun Khalifa who works as a storyteller. He is known as the Ocean of Notions to those who admire him and Shah of Blah those who are envious of him. Amidst the sadness of his environment, Rashid is the person who is always seen as jolly. He tells people stories because his stories amuses them. Although he is very straightforward about his stories being a product of his imaginative mind, more and more audiences are being drawn to him because of this frank attitude. Politicians even pursue him to win his support for campaign because of his impact on the people, like what Snooty Buttoo, another character, did. But his jolly attitude vanished the day his wife left him. Later on, he joins his son in his adventures in the fantasy world. Soraya is Rashids wife and Harouns mother. In the start of the story she is also portrayed to be jolly like her husband and she sings but it is discovered later on that she ran away from her husband because she thinks he is too much imaginative that he seems to be escaping reality and he does not take things seriously. Both Rashid and Haroun were affected of her leaving. Snooty Butto is politician asking Rashid help him in his campaign. He is described as being very obnoxious and insensitive, despite having known what Rashids wife did he [Buttoo] still told him that that there are plenty of fish in the sea not minding the grief of Rashid. This is the reason why Haroun disliked him. Mr Sengupta is a clerk who ran away with Soraya. He often backstabs

Roderos 3 Rashid, telling Soraya that telling stories which are not true is utterly stupid and nonsensical. Soraya was allured by this and with that he ran away with him leaving a devastated father and son. He also had wife Mrs Oneeta whom he left frustrated when he ran away with Soraya. In Rashid and Harouns adventures they have met friends, who are very unusual to be real, Iff the water genie, Hoopoe Butt the telepathic bird-like machine, Mali the floating gardener and Goopy and Bagha the Plentimaw fish duo with, as their name suggest, plenty of mouths. The element in focus in this story is the symbolism of the things being mentioned that would contribute to dramatic build-up of the story that would eventually lead to the theme. Magical and Fantasy elements also contribute to the point of the whole story. The story begins with an exposition, a description of the setting and characters. Note that the story begins with the words: There was once in the country. . . This gives a feeling of a typical childrens story book. The beginning of the story happens in a city of a country called Alifbay. Alifbay is an allusion of the Hindustani word for alphabet which is called Alifbay. Alifbay which means alphabet may hint something about the theme of the story which would involve words and their meaning. This city was a sad one with sad factories and fishes called glumfish. It was so sad that the citizens living in this city even forgot what its name was. There was a play of words happening at the start an example is glumfish. It magnifies the fact that this city is very sad indeed with the word glum which means miserable. Even though he was living in a sad city with even sadder people, Rashid was jolly as he is. A storyteller, he is usually lively and he continues to amuse people with his stories. It was that way until his wife left him to run away with a clerk called Mr. Sengupta when she was convinced that there is no use of believing stories which are not even true. This left Rashid and his son Haroun shattered. Haroun was Rashids son who was very skeptical about the stories of his father. he once asked him where his stories came

Roderos 4 from. Rashid answered him with a more fantasy-ridden explanation in which his story came from a sea of stories from the water genie. This left him all the more confused, adding to his skepticism. When his mother left him he, although not intentionally, snapped at his father telling him that it was pointless to tell stories which are not true. This caused his father to lose confidence in himself and his stories. Haroun vowed to bring back the jolliness his father has lost and so begins his adventures. Haroun depth of character was revealed in instance where he constantly blames himself of the agony and misfortunes of the people around him but he makes sure that he does something about to make his wrongs right. He went to a place called Kahani which was actually, according to the story, Earths second natural satellite. Kahani is an allusion of a Hindustani word for story. The characters went to a place which means a story. Kahani symbolize that their adventure may mean another story in their lives. In Kahani a war is on the verge of breaking out, a war between Gup City and the Land of Chup. Gup city is described to be a land full of brightness and light where all people love to talk, discuss or debate. It is where the Sea of Stories can be found. On the other hand, the Land of Chup is where Perpetual Darkness is found and ultimate silence is a major rule in their community. People residing in the land of Chup possessed a shadowy-like quality around them which is can be mysterious and at the same time unreliable. The reason of the hostilities between the two countries is that the Land of Chup headed by their leader, Khattam-shud continues to pollute the sea of stories making the warm sea cold. They also abducted their princess Batcheat which provoked the non-violent Guppees to go to war with the Chupwalas. Because Guppees learned how to communicate with each other well they easily emerged victorious, as opposed to the Chupwalas who remained silent ending up killing each other. Rashid and Haroun alongside

Roderos 5 the guppees celebrated their triumph and because of their bravery and help they were rewarded with anything that their heart desires, which was later found out to be a happy ending. The Guppees and Chupwalas can be inferred to be a symbol of light and darkness, of faith and lack of trust, of good and evil. Because Guppees learned how to communicate and understand each other, they won the battle against the Chupwalas who were silent and who did not trust their allies too much to help them and in the end made them kill each other. One could infer that theme of the story is that communication is key and it is not only restricted to words but to thoughts, as proved by Hoopoe and Haroun and actions, as proved by Mudra and Rashid as well. Another theme of the story is good always triumphs over evil and no matter how many obstacles one may go through every person as a hope of a happy ending.