The Existing Body of Contemporary Literature - Research Paper Example

Multiculturalism in Contemporary English Literature Multicultural is relating to, or adapted to diverse cultures; as in a multicultural society, multicultural education, or multicultural menu.” Multicultural contemporary English literature is that body of written works which incorporates a theme of multiculturalism, characters, and reflects the diversity of society wherein coexist two or more groups of persons from distinctly .different cultures. Keywords: English Literature; Contemporary English Literature; Multicultural English Literature; Contemporary Multicultural English Literature; Salmon Rushdie. Introduction Multiculturalism as defined by the Merriam Webster On-Line Dictionary, as “of, relating to, or adapted to diverse cultures; as in a multi-cultural society, multicultural education, or multicultural menu.” As pertains to contemporary English literature, contemporary multicultural English literature would be that body of written work by authors whose work comes to fruition during the twentieth century, incorporating themes and characters of a cultural diversity; such as the works of Salman Rushdie, wherein Rushdie’s work, as Deepika Bahri (2004) suggests, is reflects a body of work that represents “’hybrid temporalities of ‘of colonialism.” Rushdie’s work, as Bahri suggests, falls within the “paleocolonial” era; or those post-colonial writers who by time and space in a post-colonial empire, whose work has not been the subject of post-colonial resentment and suppression.1 While there indeed exists a variety of contemporary English literary works from which to select that include a multicultural diversity by way of author and theme, with the exception of a limited, albeit growing, body of works, they tend to be works portraying the English protagonist in a foreign setting. The goal of this paper became one of searching the existing body of contemporary literature for a work of literature reflecting a multicultural setting, written by author of other than a British born English heritage, and whose story presents a protagonist as hero, or heroine of that story in a multicultural setting and of a multicultural heritage. To that end, the focus rested on the works of author Salman Rushdie, whose body of work emanated from lands other than England, and brought to the reader the opportunity to both discover the essence of a rich multicultural environment and tradition through interesting multicultural characters. Narrowing down the selection within Rushdie’s body of work to the multicultural work encompassing the goals previously discussed, the focus of this paper is Rushdie’s The Moor’s Last Sigh (1997).2 Methods Inclusion of Materials for Use The selection of support materials for inclusion in this paper were made on the basis of available sources of a multicultural contemporary English literature nature, and found to be available from the databases through the Brunel University’s library system. A general query was made on the main library system, beginning with the keywords: “contemporary English literature,” which led to the use of the selected data bases from which subsequent queries and results made and drawn. The keywords: contemporary English literature generated seven responses; English web resources, from the library’s own selection of web sites and resources – although web sites were immediately ruled out as being inappropriate for use in this paper. The main library response to the keywords also directed the user to the library’s A-Z databases; its Brunel Library collection of E-Journals, the Literature On-Line link to the classics, the American Studies web and resource page; and Useful Web Resources. Going to the university’s database collection, the keywords were then modified, and using the words “multicultural English Literature.” JSTOR returned a response on those keywords of 103,713 relevant responses. ABES generated a list of journal articles by various authors, and amongst the names of authors who were either themselves or their work the subject of the journal articles, Salman Rushdie’s name came up as an author whose name I was instantly familiar with. The ABES entry read “English fiction and prose since 1945,” Rushdie was selected as the author whose work would be considered for this paper.3 The bibliography of works authored by Rushdie, which was compiled by using a modified search of Rushdie, Salman, yielded results from the MLA, JSTOR, and ABES databases include Shalimar the Clown (2005), Midnight’s Children (1981), Shame (1983), The Satanic Verses (1988), Haroun and the Sea Stories (1990), East West (1995), The Moor’s Last Sigh (1995), The Ground Beneath Her Feet (1999), and Fury (2001). Rushdie, then, was selected an author whose relentless and prolific contributions to the body of contemporary multicultural works warrants acknowledgment and recognition and critical evaluation. Identification and Selection of Support Sources The secondary sources used in support of the discussion on multicultural literature and postcolonial literature were selected from the databases previously mentioned and using the keywords previously mentioned. The works were read to assess the relevance of their content to the discussion on contemporary multicultural literature. Using the keywords: Rushdie, Salman, Project Muse database generated 350 responses, while JSTOR generated 790 responses. Of those responses, 12 selections were made for inclusion in this paper as support and secondary sources.4 An initial evaluation of the material was made to assess each of the 12 selected responses for relevance based on article content and presentation. The focus of the approach to assessing the usefulness of the 12 articles was each particular article’s focus on the selected Rushdie novel, The Moor’s Last Sigh. The 12 responses were then narrowed down to four articles for inclusion in this paper, based on their relevance to the author and work selected for focus in this paper.5 Use of the Sources Greenberg (1999) talks about “hybridity of culture (p. 93) as a recurring theme found in Rushdie’s work, “…the keynote to his postmodern aesthetic; new stories come into the world when old ones are re-told and recombined (p. 93).” However, as the point which Greenberg makes in his article (pp. 93-107), in The Moor’s Last Sigh,Rushdie successfully escapes the aesthetics postcolonial past, and smoothly transitions into the paleocolonial era of the contemporary literary present, about which Deepika Bahri (2004) spoke, and which was referenced in the introduction to this paper.6 It is Rushdie’s use of language, the “layering, of the old with the new, that creates a new era literary language through this book. This is not what Rushdie has strived to do in the past, or, if he has worked towards that end, it was either not successful or went unnoticed by critics and scholars alike. In The Moor’s Last Sigh, Rushdie has – as Greenberg suggests – as a product of Rushdie’s own “exile”, created the product of his exile through the character of the protagonist Mores “Moor” Zogoiby.7 This protagonist, of course, serves to remind us of the multiculturalism which at some point in time must be exorcised from postcolonial author by way of his/her pen. Zogoiby, as Rushdie writes from his exile imposed by the death sentence ordered carried out against by the Ayatollah Khomeini for Rushdie’s “blasphemous,” portrayal of Islam in The Satanic Verses;8 is the product of that process, moving Rushdie into the new era postcolonial multicultural authorship. Greenberg points to the poignant passage in book that exemplifies Rushdie’s transition, when he describes the protagonist having been “Ejected from parent’s house, Moor turns to the Hindu nationalist Raman Felding and, drawing on childhood boxing lessons from his mother’s servant, Lambajan, realizes that his club-like hand is a source of strength, a secret power like those of the superheroes whose figures adorned his nursery wall.”9 What the essay by Deszcz (2004) takes a completely different and contrasting view to that of Greenberg (and to mine, as the author of this paper).10 Deszcz contends that Rushdie is an escapist, that he has created a literary utopian world in which to escape to, in order to resist confronting the “Euro-American normative representations of Other.”11 That Greenberg and Deszcz can be so far apart in their perspectives of the work, and of Rushdie’s place in time and space, is in and of itself a case study. Deszcz further contends that The Moor’s Last Sigh was an effort to create the fairytale world that he had carefully crafted for the reader in The Satanic Verses, which had been “shattered abruptly and brutally by reality.”12 Deszcz makes it difficult for the reader to read into The Moor’s Last Sigh a progression into the new era of contemporary multiculturalism; but it is, nonetheless, and arguably that. Deszcz is off mark in his analysis of the book, and of Rushdie’s place in time and space post Moor. Narain (2006) discusses Rushdie’s own comments about The Moor’s Last Sigh, and light is shed upon the author’s place and time; the book, Rushdie says, “. . . was the product of exile, of not being able to visit India for eight years since the Iranian fatwa sent him into hiding.”13 Rushdie goes on to talk about how he “recreated” India in his mind, which would explain the much touted and much talked about “fairytale” sense of the work.14 A man in exile, longing for the place where he, by whoever, and for whatever reason, excluded, but is nonetheless the place from which he originates, gains his identity; will resort to that recreation of a more than perfect world from which he hales in his own mind perhaps; which does not make the penned story less romantic, less interesting, and can only serve as the catalyst or vehicle for the “metamorphous,” into the paleocolonial era. Baker (pp. 43-54), agrees, saying, “We see this in the fiction’s celebration of cultural eclecticism and hybridity, the reification of local cultures and tradition into so many consumerist choices and lifestyle options.”15 Approaches For Future Study The approach to future study of Rushdie should be one of complete reading of the main body for works from Rushdie’s bibliography. There are those works pre and post Iranian fatwa; thus the expectation would be the pre and post exile works to reflect the telling transition from the postcolonial Rushdie, to the paleocolonial Rushdie; the interpretative “western” Rushdie, to the new language of the paleocolonial Rushdie. That Rushdie was not just deprived of that cultural familiarity with which he identified, but that he was, for fear of his life, forced to go into hiding, wherein he had to “recreate” for himself through his written word the world with which he identified himself, that he missed, that he had once moved about freely; is of significant literary and social significance, and warrants study for the literary product that we now might avail ourselves of and study for that value and insight. Conclusion As is appropriate here, it must be acknowledged that Salman Rushdie’s body of work is one of great social and literary significance to the contemporary multicultural body of works that now exist. Rushdie – whether from exile or writing from his now and long since appreciated place of freedom; has been prolific in the contribution of multicultural literary works, which should assume its rightful place on the agenda of study and scholarly discourse. Rushdie has provided the outcome of the goal of this paper; he has created again and again, a protagonist, a story, a setting that is other than the classic pre-contemporary multicultural era that existed during the years of empire building, and even for many years postcolonial period, when nationalism would have served to suppress the multicultural voice and story. In The Moor’s Last Sigh, we find in the protagonist Moor a man who is of mixed ethnic and cultural personality, living in an exotic world, who is nonetheless interesting and can carry the reader through the story based on the character attributes assigned him by a skilled author and story teller. Rushdie is to be celebrated for this accomplishment, this contribution, and the opportunity with which he provides the reader to have a new experience of cultural exchange and integration. In The Moor’s Last Sigh, Rushdie writes: “At the head of his tombstone are three eroded letters; my fingertip reads them for me, R.I.P. Very well, I will rest, and hope for peace. The world is full of sleepers waiting for their moment of return: Arthur sleeps in Avalon, Barbarosa in his cave. Finn McCool lies in the Irish hillsides and the Worm Ouroboros on the bed of the Sundering Sea. Australia’s ancestors, the Wandjina, take their ease underground, and somewhere, in a tangle of thorns, a beauty in a glass coffin awaits a prince’s kiss. See: here is my flask. I’ll drink some wine; and then like a latter day Van Winkle, I’ll lay me down upon this graven stone, lay my head beneath these letter, R.I.P, and close my eyes, according to our family’s old practice of falling asleep in times of trouble, and hope to awaken, renewed and joyful in a better time a better time.”16 Read More