The Black Album and Rushdie's The Satanic Verses British writer C.C. Colton once claimed, "Men will wrangle for religion; write for it; fight for it; die for it; anything but--live for it" (Copeland 345). Indeed, if nothing else, Hanif Kureishi's The Black Album shows the depths to which people concern themselves with questions of religion, ethnicity, and the identity associated with them. Kureishi's themes and symbolism work within a larger context of the politics of identity, race, and nationality. Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses and the larger religious question associated with it, serve to polarize the British community between Muslims and non-Muslims, as well as to polarize people supporting liberation and those supporting containment. Combined with other cultural references, Kureishi uses the literary allusion to create his themes and symbolism. The question of the racial, religious, and socioeconomic identity of Shahid becomes a central question posed as Shahid undergoes translation from his Pakistani ancestry to his desired identity as a Briton. Shahid's translation parallels the translations of the former Asian colonies of Britain into their new postcolonial identities. Unfortunately for Shahid, the struggle over The Satanic Verses catches him as he is translating himself, presenting him with a series of tough choices. The quest for identity in Indo-English writing has emerged as a recurrent theme, as it is in much of modern literature (Pathak preface). Indeed, often the individual's identity and his quest for it becomes so bound up in the national quest for identity, that the individual's search for his identity becomes allegorical of the national search (Pathak pr... ... middle of paper ... ...pular Quotations for All Uses. Garden City, New York: Garden City, 1942. Gorra, Michael. After Empire: Scott, Naipul, Rushdie. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1997. Kureishi, Hanif. The Black Album. New York: Simon, 1995. Lings, Martin. Muhammad: His Life Based on the Earliest Sources. Revised edition. Bartlow, Cambridge, UK: Islamic Texts Society, 1991. Pathak, R.S., ed. Quest for Identity in Indian English Writing. New Delhi: Bahri, 1992. Rusdie, Salman. The Satanic Verses. First Owl Book edition. New York: Henry Holt, 1997. Saynor, James. Rev. of The Black Album, by Hanif Kureishi. The New Statesman & Society, March 3, 1995, p. 40(2). Wilkie, Brian, and James Hurt. Literature of the Western World. 2nd edition. In Galloway, Stan. "The House of Bernarda Alba." http://www.bridgewater.edu/~sgallowa/203/alba-notes.htm, April 26, 1999.
Ibn Munqidh, Usama. "From Memoirs." McNeill, William and Marilyn Robinson Waldman. The Islamic World. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1973. 184-206.
Wilmore, Gayraud S. "Chapter 1-3." Black Religion and Black Radicalism. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1972. 1-71. Print.
The United States involved themselves in Vietnam for four main reasons: they wanted to contain communism, prevent the domino effect, support a very weak South Vietnam, and get retaliation for being attacked. After seeing China fall to communism in 1949, Lyndon Johnson did not want to watch the same thing happen in Vietnam. He decided that the United States must fight to contain communism in Vietnam and prevent the domino theory. The domino theory simply stated that if one country fell to communism, neighboring countries would soon follow suit, falling like a set of dominos. Essentially, Americans believed that if South Vietnam fell, Laos, Cambodia, and Thailand would follow. Also, South Vietnam could not stand against the Vietcong alone because they were too weak and ill-equipped to fight. The United States believed that with good government, a large scale and ...
The war in Vietnam began as a civil war which dated back long into Vietnamese history. Although it was a communist revolution, it was first and foremost a people’s war, in which the people of South Vietnam were revolting against the right-wing dictatorship of their government. The Vietnam War was the second of the two Indochina Wars, where the first was fought and lost by France. American intervention, because of the policy of containing communism, had already begun during the First Indochina War, under President Eisenhower. Although Eisenhower had refused to commit US troops to the war, he supplied military support to the French. And when they lost the war, he continued to supply aid to the anti-communist government in Saigon, the capital of the South Vietnam. The end of the First Indochina War resulted in the Geneva Conference of 1954 between France and the Viet Minh, who decided to split Vietnam in to the communist North and the pro-western South. This therefore recognised North Vietnam, known as the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV), as an independent state. However, an insurgency in the Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam), led by the National Liberation Front (...
Lawall, Sarah N., and Maynard Mack. The Norton Anthology of World Literature. 2nd ed. Vol. A. New York: Norton, 2002. Print.
Muhammad was a complex man who was driven by ideology and who often did things that puzzled his followers and convert...
The Vietnam War started off as a nationalist struggle before turning into a class struggle as foreign powers became involved in the war. However, it is the view of many Vietnamese scholars that see the conflict as mainly a nationalist struggle for national independence and reunification (Marr). Although the role of exogenous factors is acknowledged, it is, according to this view, the force of Vietnamese nationalism and patriotism that motivated and encouraged th...
Salman Rushdie’s novel Midnight’s Children employs strategies which engage in an exploration of History, Nationalism and Hybridity. This essay will examine three passages from the novel which demonstrate these issues. Furthermore, it will explore why each passage is a good demonstration of these issues, how these issues apply to India in the novel, and how the novel critiques these concepts.
Ibrahim, I. A.. A brief illustrated guide to understanding Islam . 2nd ed. Houston: Darussalam, 1997.
Literature of the Western World, Volume 2. 4th edition by Brian Wilkie and James Hurt. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1997.
The Vietnam War has gone down in United Sates history as one of the longest conflicts the country has faced. This prolonged war was not only costly in economic standards but also in American lives. In a time when the cold war turned hot disputes erupted in the various areas in Vietnam. Along with its southern allies, otherwise known as the Viet Cong, Northern Vietnam raged war against South Vietnam. With its main ally, the United States continued to fight to “save” South Vietnam from turning into an entirely communist country. While the war continued it became increasingly unpopular in the United States. With media advancing and increasing, the people of the United States could comprehend the war in ways never seen before.
In his short story, “The Prophet’s Hair,” Salman Rushdie make use of magic realism, symbolization and situational irony to comment on class, religion, and the fragility of human life. The story is brimming with ironic outcomes that add to the lighthearted and slightly fantastic tone. Rushdie’s use of the genre magic realism capitalizes on the absurdity of each situation but makes the events relevant to readers’ lives. In addition, the irony in the story serves as a way to further deepen Rushdie’s commentary on class and religion. Finally, his use of symbolization focuses on the concept of glass, and just how easily it can be broken.
... Aside from power, the recurrent leitmotif is the constant comparisons that Changez makes between America and Pakistan. (‘Lahore, the second largest city in Pakistan, home to as many people as New York...’) Also, he resents the grouping of Islamic identity as one by symbols such as the beard, burqa, etc. Yet, he too homogenizes the American identity to an extent. He frequently describes other Americans as ‘not unlike yourself’ and their actions as ‘just as you are doing now.’
The Prophet Muhammad (SAW) is the messenger of God and a model for mankind. Conceived in the city of Makkah on the Arabian landmass in 570 CE, he became an orphan at a very young age and was then raised by an uncle, Abu Talib. He wedded a more established lady, the widow Khadijah, for whom he had worked in the band exchange. As a trader, he was referred to by notoriety as al-Amin, the believed one. At the point when Muhammad was forty years of age, he had a significant experience that changed his life. He was the last prophet from God and will not be any other Prophets after him. The life of this incredible Prophet comprises of numerous examples and key moments, which helped, fulfill the ultimate mission to spread the message of Islam to mankind. Out of those many examples, I
The Vietnam War was a war between the Capitalist United States and the Communist North Vietnamese army. This war started in 1964 and it ended in 1975, when the US withdrew its soldiers. The US joined the war to stop the spreading of Communism, because they didn't want Russia to gain more allies, as they had been in a cold war with them for years.