Haroun And The Sea Of Stories :: essays research papers

Haroun and the Sea of StoriesI thought the book Haroun and the Sea of Stories was well written and a fun book to read. This is a story about friendship, action for justice and honesty. It makes the reader feel like a child again. Rushdie showed in this book his good knowledge of human imagination. This is a reminder of that magical demesne with bad creatures and the ones with big hearts that always win a war. The book is about the land where stories be make, Rashid who is "the Shah of Blah, with oceans of notions and the Gift of the Gab," and his son Haroun. When Rashid loses his gift, his son embarks on a quest to recover it.     This story is comparable to other stories like Alice in Wonderland in that it is a fairy tale, since the novel is based around this place, Kahani, the earths second moon, where stories ar made and kept alive. Rushdies characters and dreamlike settings are deliriously inventive. It is similar to Alice in Wonderland where Alic e is in her own fantasy land. In this tale are some powerful moments dealing with freedom of speech and expression. The force of evil in this story is silence, an enforced silence, the quashing of language, fantasy, satire - even the truth itself. There are plenty of allegories and light-hearted commentary woven into the tapestry. The Princess Batcheat is a bit much to put up with, as are the people we must sometimes defend on principles such as freedom of expression.      I found the ending interesting when you find out that the city Haroun and Rashid live in, the city that forgot its name, has the same name as the fantasy land, Kahani, that Haroun was just in. Also, during the story Haroun would hint that people in the fantasy land reminded him of people he knew in his own city. Also the fact that what made Harouns father lose his talent of telling stories, Soraya, Rashids wife, left him for someone else, was back and she referred to the man she left the same a s Khattam-shud.