The major part of his supernatural characters seems to represent an allegory of a particular notion or phenomenon of real life. It might be assumed that Rushdie attempts to address the most ambiguous philosophic dilemmas with the help of parallelism. The supernatural elements that the author integrates into the text have strong connotations for the eternal questions of real life. In other words, Rushdie intends to revive the significance of the forgotten dastan tradition showing that story-telling is a true art that is above the norms of reality. Hence, when the main character of the book asks the core question – “What’s the use of stories that aren’t even true?” – the author welcomes the readers to speculate on the stories’ role in the modern world (p. In the meantime, the author puts a particular emphasis on the stories’ value trying to determine whether it resides in the truthfulness or the interesting plot. Haroun’s father is a skillful storyteller – his stories are both exciting and magical. Thus, the entire book is built on oral history structure-preserving the old storytelling tradition of the East.

The author has successfully incorporated the basis of the genre into the novel. Dastan GenreĪnother aspect that should be necessarily discussed in the presence of the elements of the dastan genre in the book. From this perspective, a parallel to Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland might be drawn – serious themes are elucidated in the context of a magic environment. The book discusses real problems and situations, although the characters experience them within imaginary settings. It would be most rational to characterize the book’s genre as magic realism. Even if its end cannot be characterized as sad, it is at least ambiguous. That of Haroun and the Sea of Stories does not offer such a bonus. Also, romance is typically expected to offer the so-called happy ending. While it contains the elements of romantics, it likewise comprises those of an adventure story and fantasy. In the meantime, Haroun and the Sea of Stories are more than a classic romance. Thus, a romantic genre implies the dominance of a love story over other plotlines. Trying to determine the book’s genre, it would be unfair to claim that it is a romance. Rushdie’s background lets him create an inimitable blend of stylistic devices such as zeugmas and puns that have vivid implications for the culturally-related jokes. The author’s style is rather unconventional as well. Even though the novel is initially targeted at children audiences, the themes it elucidates are equally interesting to grown-ups. In his novel, Haroun and the Sea of Stories, Salman Rushdie provides a wonderful synthesis of the best literary elements of Indian and Western traditions.

Haroun sea of stories