Filozofická fakulta

The Satanic Verses – Fall and Metamorphosis

Fictions were walking around wherever he went, Gibreel reflected, fictions masquerading as real human beings (Rushdie 1992, 192).
The novel The Satanic Verses was published in the United Kingdom in 1988. What followed its publication is a well-known issue - a few months after, the book was banned in India and subsequently in other Islamic countries. Finally, in February 1989, Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran proclaimed a fatwa⁵ on Salman Rushdie (Appignanesi IX). I do not want to deal with the problem of fatwa and thus I will not neither present the different views on it nor the development of it. I would like to look at the novel from the literary point of view.

One of its main themes is the problem of immigration and the clash between Western and Eastern culture in general. As far as the theme is concerned, The Satanic Verses together with Midnight´s Children and Shame creates a kind of trilogy focused on the mixing of East and West (Seminck 7). If there is a comparison between the “two worlds“ in Rushdie’s novels, the elements of magic realism are usually employed to show these differences. The author himself stresses that his novel is about a clash of languages or cultures in general and his attempt was to write about migrants from India to Britain. Ironically, the people who could recognize their faith in it, rejected and subsequentely burned the novel (Appignanesi 75).

Rushdie´s novel begins with two Muslim men (Gibreel Farishta and Saladin Chamcha) falling from the sky after the plane they were on explodes. During their fall, they as if take for the first time the roles they will be carrying through the whole story. “[...] but for whatever reason, the two men, Gibreelsaladin Farishtachamcha, condemned to this endless but also ending angeldevilish fall, did not become aware of the moment at which the processes of their transmutation began” (Rushdie 1992, 5). From the beginning they are predestined to be inseparable in their ways and lives – one becomes devil, the other angel – two sides of one coin.

The metaphor of a fall from the sky is often commonly interpreted as an unexpected and unprepared entrance to a new environment (either psychical or physical). In this novel the fall and entrance really take place; what is impossible in realism is not only feasible but also realized in magic realism. As one of the postmodern elements of magic realism is literalization of metaphors, we can consider this fall as an instance of it. As was already mentioned in the previous chapters, the magic happens when a metaphor is made real (Zamora 176). Thus, in this novel the fall is made real and the characters are thrown down to survive and change their lives by entering a new life. “´To be born again,´ sang Gibreel Farishta tumbling from the heavens, ´first you have to die. Ho ji! Ho ji! To land upon the bosomy earth, first one needs to fly” (Rushdie 1992, 3). The fall is also associated with the metamorphosis – change of people´s essence. “Higher Powers had taken an interest, it should have been obvious to them both, and such Powers (I am, of course, speaking of myself) have a mischievous, almost a wanton attitude to tumbling flies. And another thing, let´s be clear: great falls change people“ (Rushdie 1992, 133). The author reveals here that he is not only the creator of the character´s destiny but also the one who decides what is true. He is the Higher Power (as he claims) that dictates the direction of the story and creates the reality of his own world. And it is only up to the reader whether he will believe in what the author is proposing or not.

As suggested before, the main magic-realist elements in this novel are fall and metamorphosis (transformation). These two notions are considered magic in the sense that they occur suddenly, without previous warning and the people concerned are unprepared and have no time to cope with them properly. This does not mean that they are surprised or even jolted by the situation. They are reconciled with their destiny but as I already mentioned, they are not prepared properly for the new situation (entering a new life in a foreign country) and that could be one of the explanations for their change. Each of them looks at their fall from a different point of view. This perspective could predestine their new lives, but the highest power in the story is the narrator and he has the uppermost decision. The reader can only speculate why he has chosen the roles he has. “I know the truth, obviously. I watched the whole thing [...]. I’m making no claims at present, but I can manage this much, I hope. Chamcha willed it and Farishta did what was willed” (Rushdie 1992, 10).

The use of metamorphosis is perceived as the power of racist definitions of the Other⁶, as experienced by the Third World immigrant community in the United Kingdom (Zamora 351). This is clearly shown when Chamcha is admitted into a hospital where he meets other people transformed into animals (for instance a manticore). Chamcha asks the manticore how it is possible that so many people are metamorphosed and subsequentely finds out that the “native inhabitans” of England (non-immigrants) are responsible for it. “ ‘But how do they do it?’ Chamcha wanted to know. ‘They describe us,’ the other whispered solemnly. ‘That’s all. They have the power of description, and we succumb to the pictures they construct’ ” (Rushdie 1992, 168). It follows, that the immigrants as Other are in reality defined and described in terms of degrading and animalistic racist stereotypes (Zamora 351). The actual metamorphosis into a devil (Saladin Chamcha) or a manticore then seems to be another instance of the case when a metaphor gains its literal meaning.

What amazes the reader most is the notion that the book’s characters show an acceptance of the magic that takes place in the real world. Chamcha´s own metamorphosis into a pop mythology devil (horns, cloven hooves, and enlarged phallus) is not seen by the police who are taking him away as anything extraordinary (Zamora 352). It seems that Saladin himself (or perhaps together with the reader) is the only character that is surprised by his transformation. “What puzzled Chamcha was that a circumstance which struck him as utterly bewildering and unprecedented – that is, his metamorphosis into the supernatural imp – was being treated by the others as if it were the most banal and familiar matter they could imagine” (Rushdie 1992, 158). This clearly supports the view that immigrants are generally considered as inferior animals. Even though this idea of immigrants or foreigners as animals or devils is rather exaggerated, Rushdie wants to direct the attention to the problem of racism and xenophobia. The device he regards as the most effective is the magic-realistic use of metaphor and conflict between reality and fiction. Therefore “Rushdie consciously exploits and even enhances the tension between the text’s evident fictionality and the reader’s knowledge that it does deal with real-life entities all the same” (Seminck 30).

Not only does Saladin undergoe the metamorphosis into a goat but also Gibreel is changed even though not as markedly as Chamcha. At the beginning (after their fall) it is not clear whether he has somehow changed or not. Anyway his future metamorphosis (which is more mental than physical) is foreshadowed shortly after their landing on the earth. “[...] that a pale, golden light was emanating from the direction of the man in the smoking jacket, was in fact streaming soflty outwards from a point immediately behind his head“ (Rushdie 1992, 142). There seems to be a halo around his head. Saladin was transshaped into a goat-like devil and this metamorphosis is highly visible, though almost nobody is surprised. On the other hand, Gibreel’s transmutation developes throughout the whole novel and is treated more as a case of schizophrenia. Nobody believes him when he claims he is the Archangel Gibreel or the Avenging Angle later on. He is possessed by the need to help other people but he fails.

Gibreel leaned forward, grasped the ka’s face between his hands, and kissed it firmly upon the mouth, for the spirit that it kissed by an archangel regains, at once, its lost sense of direction, [...] The lost soul, however, had a most surprising reaction [...] ’Sod you,’ it shouted, ‘I may be desperate, mate, but I’m not that desperate,’ after which, [...] it struck the Archangel of the Lord a resounding blow upon the nose [...]. (Rushdie 1992, 323)
Without any doubt, this passage is very funny, but at the same time it could be seen as another example of mingling of the two notions of “magic” and “reality”. Magic is represented by Gibreel, who behaves and thinks as if he was the Archangel; but he encounters the reality – the inhabitants of London who have no understanding for miracles, since they are very rational. The problem with this interpretation⁷ is that it could be applied only on Gibreel’s case, not on Chamcha’s, who as a devil is viewed by the people as if he has always looked that way.

One of the interpretations of Gibreel’s mental transformation explains, that “Gibreel’s real problems only begin when his dreamworld ‘leaks into’ reality, so that he starts behaving as if he were the archangel of his dreams” (Seminck 37). It is necessary to say that Gibreel’s dreams comprise half of the novel. The world of his dreams looks like a mythological world but at the same time ‘quite’ real. In The Satanic Verses dreams and visions has its place since these concepts are evidently among the elements of magic realism; I will deal with the problem of dreams later.

Now, I would like to focus on the main question that arises when both metamorphoses are mentioned. Why did Saladin become devil and Gibreel angel (archangel)? Primarily, these characters should express the true personalities of these two men. But is it really so? From what we have learnt from the beginning of the story, Saladin is the ‘better’ character. Even though he is not on speaking terms with his father (who is in India anyway), to other people he behaves politely. To the contrary, Gibreel is spoiled, rude and shows great disrespect to people around him. It seems that their roles are miscasted. As I have mentioned before, the only power that decides is the Higher Power – the author in this case⁸. But even to the author, the characters and their relationship were not very easy to handle at first. He says: “I had thought that the devil-angel relationship would be straightforward. What I found was that my view of them changed radically. And it was when I came to see how the emotional lives of these two characters connected that I began to know how to write the book. But it took ages“ (Appignanesi 8). The reader is faced with a similar problem as the author – he is left to his own interpretations of the angel-devil relationship. Only almost at the end of the book the division of roles is explained by the narrator. “Gibreel [...] has wished to remain, [...] continuous – that is, joined to and arising from his past; [...] he fears above all things the altered states in which his dreams leak into, [...] his waking self, making him that angelic Gibreel he has no desire to be; - so that his is still a self which, [...],we may describe as ‘true’” (Rushdie 1992, 427). Gibreel’s transmutation could be thus interpreted as deserved status in both senses of the word. According to this quotation, Gibreel did not forget his past and remained tied to his roots (even though he lost his faith). He had no desire to change his self and forget his origin. He is in essence a ‘true’ character and deserves to become angel (which suggests also his name – Farishta means angel). On the other hand, he does not want to be an archangel – he cannot deal with this fate and therefore becomes confused and even schizophrenic. And since he rejected his faith he cannot explain the miracle of metamorphosis that happened to him. He also left his homeland where the miracles could be probably explainable thanks to the rich mythology. He is neither proper Indian nor proper Englishman, he is somewhere between; between the real and the magic.

The terror of losing his mind to a paradox, of being unmade by what he no longer believed existed, of turning in his madness into the avatar of a chimerical archangel, was so big in him that it was impossible to look at it for long; yet how else was he to account for the miracles, metamorphoses and apparitions of recent days? ´It´s A, I´m off my head, or B, baba, somebody went and changed the rules.‘ (Rushdie 1992, 189)

Gibreel’s opposite – Saladin Chamcha considers himself a genuine Englishman. He studied in England, lives there and wants to live as long as possible. He abandons his home country and forgets it immediately.

[...] whereas Saladin Chamcha is a creature of selected discontinuities, a willing re-invention; his preffered revolt against history being what makes him, in our chosen idiom ‘false’?...- While Gibreel, to follow the logic of our established terminology, is to be considered ‘good’ by virtue of wishing to remain,..., at bottom an untranslated man. (Rushdie 427)

However ‘polite’ and ‘unspoiled’ Saladin was at the beginning, it is clear that the predestination to look like a devil had to change him. He revenges himself on Gibreel for what he had done to him after their landing in England. Gibreel handed Saladin over to the police and that was the beginning of Saladin’s troubles. As Gibreel ‘acts’ as the archangel he forgave Saladin everything and yet saves his life.

Yet my intention was to present the magic-realistic element of metamorphosis not to analyze the complicated relationships between the two main characters. For that reason I will now concentrate on other characteristics regarding magic realism.

One of the important elements in this novel is the presence of dreams. They create a great part of the plot. Gibreel’s dream goes through the whole novel and comprises independent chapters. In the works of magic realism the use of a frame story is quite usual. In most cases the frame story is explained as a dream. The visions or dreams used in an individual story signifies that these dreams must be very vivid and real-like because they must work independently of the main storyline (Wikipedia). Their plot is set in a fictional city of Jahilia where miracles and mythology are a commonplace. At first Gibreel is aware of the fact that it is only a dream, but suddenly he takes part in it, which he is not able to comprehend and becomes puzzled. And “eventually dream becomes reality, and Gibreel Farishta believes that he has become the archangel Gabriel in order to save London from apocalyptic destruction“ (Zamora 356). The world of magic and the real world are mixed again; this time inside the head of Gibreel but with the consequences in the outer world. Not only Gibreel has strange dreams, also Saladin’s dreams are important though not as vivid as Gibreel‘s. He is dreaming about a little boy riding a bicycle. Later on, while walking in a park he sees the scene from his dream. “Saladin gives great significance to this synchronous coincidence of a real scene and a dream scene“ (Zamora 364). Again, the magic world of dreams becomes mingled with the world of reality. What increases the magical substance of this dream is the discovery that also another male character has the same dream – Jumpi Joshi. Interestingly, he is a man with whom Saladin’s girlfriend lives.

When speaking of dream, we must not avoid the magical events that take place inside the dreams. These events usually take up the form of a detail that appears repeatedly thoughout the story. “The best magical realist fiction entices us with entrancing-magic-details, the magical nature of those details is a clear departure from realism“ (Zamora 169). In connection with The Satanic Verses several theoretic studies mention glass as one of these details. First it appears in Saladin’s dream during the flight to England. “[he had] been visited in a dream by a bizzare stranger, a man with a glass skin, [...]” (Rushdie 1992, 33). The man in his dream begs to be released from his imprisonement, for that reason “Chamcha picked up a stone and began to batter the glass” (Rushdie 1992, 34). Instead of being released the man starts to bleed and scream. At this point Chamcha wakes up to find out that he again lost his British accent and speaks in a Bombay accent. Later, this dream again becomes reality when after the fall Chamcha lands on the coast and “all his body [was] cased in a fine skin of ice, smooth as glass, like a bad dream come true” (Rushdie 1992, 131). Third important mentioning of glass skin is in the hospital. There is a woman with glass skin and one of the patients explains to Chamcha: “ ‘And the bastards smashed it up for her. Now she can’t even walk to the toilet’ ”(Rushdie 1992, 169). Michael Cody in his study in The Explicator interprets the notion of glass skin from the immigrant perspective. The woman, like Saladin, came to England with the vision of becoming (and already being) English. “The fragile vision now is of the glass that her new countrymen shatter by making her see herself as they see her: an immigrant” (Cody). This interpretation applies also to Chamcha, who at first feels like an Englishman and that is the reason why he smashes the man’s glass skin (in his dream). After that he loses the British accent and becomes also an immigrant which is evident in his own glass-like skin after the fall.

Most of the magical events and details occur in somebody’s dreams. It is natural since the dream is something that happens in one’s subconscious. Thus the magic there is more straightforward and easily understandable. “Wonders are recounted largely without comment, in a matter-of-fact way, accepted as a child would accept them“ (Zamora 177). In the fictious city of Jahilia there appears a girl Ayesha who is surrounded by thousands and thousands of butterflies. Their presence originates in a myth about their sudden disappearance after the death of a holy woman who died at the age of two hundred and forty-two and their re-appearance one hundred and one year after their departure (Rushdie 1992, 217). Now they encircle the girl (who claims to be a prophetess) and serve as her clothes. The myth and their present ‘service’ are a sufficient proof for the people to believe her, since the butterflies “are a sign that she does have connections with another world, that she really is a visionary” (Seminck 35).

At the end of this chapter I must not forget one of the most obvious elements of magic realism – the ghosts. Almost in every magical realist fiction there appears at least one ghost. They are the figures that ‘live’ in the gap between two worlds – the world of the dead and the world of the living. At the same time they belong to the local lore and mythology. In The Satanic Verses a ghost of Rekha Merchant (Gibreel’s ex-lover) pursues him wherever he goes (in England). She could be explained as the personification of Gibreel’s unresolved past. She killed herself because he left her and now she wants to revenge herself. “ ‘What do you want,’he burst out, ‘what’s your business with me?’ ‘To watch you fall,’ she instantly replied” (Rushdie 1992, 200).

In The Satanic Verses the magic realism is omnipresent. Although not always explicit in the plot (since some scenes are ‘purely’ realistic), the reader is aware of its presence owing to imperceptible references to miracles and other magical happenings. “[...] the surrealism of the newspapers, in which butterflies could fly into young girls’ mouths, asking to be consumed, and children were born with no faces [...]” (Rushdie 1992, 24). It shows that the magic has its place in otherwise realistic space.

Rushdie claims that The Satanic Verses “was the least political novel [he] had ever written, a novel whose engine was not public affairs but other kinds of more personal and cultural crisis” (Brennan). We can only guess if he claimed this in the reaction on the fatwa or if he really wrote a personal declaration without any political intentions. If only for the reason that his novel deals with the problem of immigrants in general⁹, some people may consider it as a political book, I think he accurately depicted the immigrant’s experience in the ‘new’ country. While the main theme is migration, the author cannot entirely avoid some political attitude.

4.