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Different Worlds, Different Realities
E3 Haroun Alice
by sstewar2

When talking to her kitten, Alice explains “how nice it would be if we could only get through into Looking-glass House!” (143). Exploring the depth of her imagination is Alice’s primary conflict. Interested in figuring out what lies beyond what she is able to see in the looking-glass, Alice’s determination ultimately leads her to enter the world of the looking-glass in order to satisfy her curiosity. As for Haroun Khalifa, he tells Iff the Water Genie that “you must take me to Gup City to see the Walrus, so that I can get this stupid blunder about my father’s Water supply reversed before it’s too late” (59). Haroun’s conflict lies in saving his father’s life, career, and also the people that are benefited from his father’s stories. Both Through the Looking-Glass and Haroun and the Sea of Stories focus on protagonists crossing into other worlds to complete personal quests while coming to terms with the differences between both worlds and also gaining a new perception of reality. As both novels focus on their characters passing from a “normal” world into an “unreal” world, Salman Rushdie and Lewis Carroll have similarities and connections that exist between both of their stories. These connections exist between the characters, the settings, the plot, and other aspects of both stories.

In order for Alice and Haroun to solve their dilemmas, it is necessary for both of them to travel into another world that extends beyond the boundaries of their own reality. Alice and Haroun cross into these worlds with the initial purpose of completing their quests but once they arrive, they have to overcome their doubt in order to succeed. Before beginning her journey, Alice has to pretend that “the glass has got all soft like gauze, so that we can get through” (143). As Alice pretends this, the glass actually does become a mist and she quickly enters. Similar to Alice, through his determination to save his father and through his trust in the words and actions of the Water Genie, Haroun was able to enter the world of the Sea of Stories where he would complete his mission. Their determination to enter the new worlds and their faith in being successful at their obstacles led them to arrive at the necessary destinations.

After entering their alternate worlds, Alice and Haroun now have to deal with getting used to the modes of travel within these new realms. After learning that moving forward in the looking-glass world requires walking backwards, Alice is still unfamiliar with all the odds and ends for perfect travel. The Red Queen tells Alice that, “it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!” (165). It is now evident that speed plays a major role in traveling around the looking-glass world. Similarly to Alice, Haroun’s progress improves through his understanding of travel within the world he ends up in. As Haroun leaves the earth to travel to the land of Gup, he is amazed at the movement of the moon and the speed of Butt the Hoopoe. Butt informs Haroun that movement of the moon and the style of travel in his world “is because of Speed… Speed, the most necessary of qualities!” (67). As Haroun continues traveling throughout the new world, he comes to recognize the importance of speed. As Alice and Haroun learn more about travel in their alternate worlds, the reader recognizes that the understanding of speed is essential to not only travel, but also many other aspects of life within the world of the looking-glass and the world of the Sea of Stories.

After a period of time, Alice and Haroun learn about many of the rules and standards set in each world. Even though they are beginning to grasp many of the “realities” of the new worlds they are in, Alice and Haroun still have to get accustomed to the rules of their alternate worlds in order to reach their goals. As Alice learns from the Red Queen about traveling in the looking-glass world, she still does not understand why no ground was covered after running for a period of time. Alice stated to the Queen “in our country… you’d generally get to somewhere else—if you ran very fast for a long time as we’ve been doing” (165). Alice still has not accepted the fact that she is in another realm where the rules of her world do not apply. Another condition Alice must come to accept is when she learns that the Red King sleeping in the forest is dreaming her. Tweedledum informs Alice that there is no use talking about waking the Red King when she is “only one of the things in his dream” (189). A saddened Alice responds to Tweedledum, “I am real!” (189). Unfortunately for both Alice and Tweedledum, none of them realize that their argument is useless because no one has the authority to decide what reality is since they both come from different realities. Alice also encounters new rules when she meets Humpty Dumpty. After arguing about the definition of the word ‘glory,’ Alice objects that “‘glory’ doesn’t mean ‘a nice knock-down argument” (213). Humpty Dumpty explains that he can choose whatever definition he wants for a word, but Alice states “The question is… whether you can make words mean so many different things” (213) and Humpty responds that the real question is “which is to be master—that’s all” (213). Humpty’s final response proves that in the looking-glass world, there can be no correct definition to a word because the power lies in the decision of the individual.

Haroun has to deal with a similar dilemma when learning about forms of travel in the world of the Sea of Stories. Before Haroun learns about the importance of speed in the world of the Sea of Stories, Iff the Water Genie tells Haroun to choose a bird for them to ride the land of Gup. Unfortunately for Haroun, he was only able to see that, “The only bird around here is a wooden peacock” (63). Iff pointed out “A person may choose what he cannot see” (63). By telling Iff “that may be true where you come from… But in these parts stricter rules apply” (63), Haroun implies that his reality is dominant since they are currently in his world. Since Haroun is used to the regulations of his reality, he doubts whatever Iff is able to present from the world of the Sea of Stories. When Haroun enters the land of Gup, he encounters even more people and events that question his common understanding of reality. As the pages in the Gup army assemble and scatter about trying to find their proper order, Blabbermouth and Haroun get into an argument about the order of numbers in the “real world.” Blabbermouth states that, “Things aren’t quite as simple as that in the real world, mister” (114). Later on Haroun snaps back with the statement that he is aware of what Blabbermouth saw and he also states that the world of the Sea of Stories “isn’t the ‘real world’, not at all” (114). Haroun has fallen victim to the same conflict that Alice has in stating that his world is the real one when in reality (and who knows what that is now), no one really has the power to decide which world is real. Just as Alice is exposed to opposing views about reality, Haroun later on learns that no one is really able to decide what is real or normal because the reality of one world doesn’t exist in the other.

While reading these stories, the audience is taken on a trip from two settings of reality to two alternate worlds that are considered unreal or imaginary by the characters’ standards. These alternate worlds are very different from each other, yet there are various elements that make both worlds very similar. Haroun and Alice may have had different reasons for entering these realms and their experiences are different from each other, but the transition from what they consider to be the ‘norm’ into what someone else considers the ‘norm’ is the same. Their view of what is considered reality is challenged as they are expected to become accustomed to the rules of the new world they have arrived in. From being exposed to different characters, to learning the similarities and differences of their own worlds and the new worlds, their experiences can be considered as a learning experience about truth and opinions. These new worlds that have their own sets of laws, cultures, customs, and other factors that make them stand apart from the “normal” life of the characters as well as from the reality of the reader. As a reader, we are challenged with the idea of multiple realities and are also presented with the question: Who is it to decide what is real or normal from what isn’t? Even though we haven’t been able to travel to another realm or dimension where the laws differ from our world, the possibility still lies in the idea that there may be other realities present in our lifetime.

May 13, 2005, 01:37 AM

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