46 • “Wall of Force” Channels 2022 Introduction Many scholars believe Salman Rushdie’s Haroun and the Sea of Stories presents a strong critique of censorship disguised in magical realism, but this children’s book lends itself to other interpretations. The book follows Haroun Khalifa on his journey to the moon of Kahani where he finds the Ocean of the Streams of Story. Two groups inhabit this moon: the Guppees in Gup and the Chupwalas in Chup. The Guppees have mechanically halted the rotation of the moon, rendering the Land of Gup always day and the Land of Chup always night. Khattam-Shud, the Cultmaster of Chup, and the Chupwalas poison the Ocean and kidnap Princess Batcheat of Gup, causing the Guppees to declare war. While in Chup with the Guppees, Haroun wishes that the moon will return to its regular cycle, and magically his wish comes true. The return of sunlight into Chup helps the Guppees defeat Khattam-Shud and his cult, and the Guppees and remaining Chupwalas later become allies. Critics often point out censorship themes in the book due to the fatwa that preceded Haroun’s publication. However, Eva König’s reading of the text interprets Gup and Chup as the colonizer and the colonized and describes the separation through postcolonial stereotypes. While her interpretation better accounts for the textual evidence than the censorship interpretation, her analysis focuses on postcolonial theory and neglects to bring in historical evidence to inform her reading. The partition of India and Pakistan, which influenced Rushdie’s other writing, should also influence the analysis of Haroun. Much of the scholarship on the text views the separation of Gup and Chup as a critique of either censorship or colonialism, but an analysis of the partition, the harmful ideologies resulting from it, and its influence on Rushdie’s previous work encourages viewing Haroun through a historical lens. Rushdie equates the splintered relations between India and Pakistan to the separation and othering in Chup and Gup in order to break down the binary between them and suggest the possibility of reconciliation. Introduction to Postcolonial Theory Though the censorship analysis accounts for the novel’s context, König’s postcolonial lens addresses elements in the text that the censorship interpretation does not explain. Adherents of the censorship interpretation emphasize two important historical factors: the publication of Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses in 1988 and the Iranian Ayatollah Khomeini’s fatwa in 1989, “a legal opinion or learned interpretation provided by a qualified Islamic jurist or religious leader,” that led to the censoring of Rushdie’s book (Mari 5-6, 6n4). König’s interpretation of Gup and Chup encourages a discussion of Orientalism and the stereotype of the Other. Edward Said published Orientalism in 1978, a foundational text in postcolonial theory, and his book discusses how Western colonizers often constructed stereotypes that separated the Orient, colonized M
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