The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie - Book Report/Review Example

It must be known that postcolonial theory works as a section within the doubly confusingly labeled area of ‘cultural studies’: the entire corpus of commonly nonconformist deep-seated literary theory and criticism which embraces Foucauldian, Gramscian, Marxist, and a variety of feminist perspectives, among others (Cundy 1997). These perspectives share the purpose of exploring unbalanced power relationships as shown in cultural works such as literature, art, music, film, etc. (Afzal-Khan 1993).

Advocates usually regard themselves politically involved and dedicated to some selection or other of the process of liberation.    It is also significant to recognize that not all scholars of postcolonial literature are literary intellectuals. Postcolonial theory is used in history, political science, and in other similar disciplines (Ashcroft et al. 1995). Individuals who regard themselves as postcolonial intellectuals commonly view themselves as part of a major, if unclearly defined and confused, movement to reveal and fight against the influence of powerful, wealthy nations, generally European, in addition to the United States, on underprivileged nations, generally in the southern regionю  Taken plainly, the concept ‘postcolonial literature’ would appear to name literary works written by individuals residing in countries once invaded and occupied by other nations (Cundy 1997).

This is unquestionably what the concept initially implied, but there are several setbacks with this description (Cundy 1997). Nevertheless, these problems in defining the ‘postcolonial’ concept are beyond the scope of this paper. The objective of the paper is to make a postcolonial literary analysis of Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses. In doing this, four prevailing themes of the literary piece will be explored: (1) the use of the language; (2) cultural hybridity; (3) magic realism; and (4) debunking of hierarchies or hegemonies.

  The Satanic Verses has a hidden agenda at work: it constructs British pluralism by mentioning who it accepts and who it disallows (Gorra 1997). There are other postcolonial authors who have failed to achieve the same limelight, but not because they are less talented than Rushdie, but because their style of approaching issues and politics have secluded them, possibly prohibited them, from the campaigns of expressive beauty that Rushdie has proficiently developed in his ascendance into the Fabian movements of British literary culture (Kuoriti & Mittapalli 2007).

Historical realms which declare to work within democratic principles should bear out their sense of pluralism, they positive broadmindedness of the sense of political necessities of the Other. Rushdie exposes the barest account of liberalism, clinging to conservatism as much as possible without wandering too far into the domain of supporting actual or theoretical neo-Fabian power and violence (Hassumani 2002). It is a form of developed and scholarly compromise for the movements of protected and worldwide literary nobility which views at least one of its goals as the creation of literature intense, dank and rich with easily controlled surrealism, but with a great portion of it grounded in unthinking, riskless exploration (Hassumani 2002).