Location: Main Index / Individual Entries

Through the Looking Glass into a Sea of Stories
E3 Haroun Alice
by jsimpson

Jonique Simpson

English-021

2005-05-12

Salman Rushdie, the author of Haroun and the Sea of Stories, and Lewis Carroll, author of Alice and Wonderland’s Through the Looking Glass, are two very talented writers both of whom have perfected a craft and managed to affect readers by taking them into fanciful worlds that they have only dreamt of dreaming about. These stories are ones that challenge the reader’s open-mindedness and dares them to think outside of that box that, as beings of logic, were taught to inhibit themselves via its perimeters. The author’s have styles that are similar, yet there are aspects when they differ greatly and one prevails in overall affectability as oppose to the other. According to an unofficial census taken, the Creative Reading English class seemed to enjoy Haroun and the Sea of Stories more so than Through the Looking Glass. Is there something that Rushdie did that Carroll failed to do? Why is one style more affective than the other?
In Through the Looking glass, there is a dream world and a real, world that exists. The “real” world in this book is more like the real world that is more relative to the real world of the reader. It is easy to distinguish what the limitations are for Alice in this “real world” because the reader lives in the same world. Although the real and dream worlds are different, there were many elements of one world that transfers over to the other. For instance, Alice remembers nursery rhymes from the real world that resonates with her when she comes across characters from the songs in the dream world. Also, the characters in her dreams turn into actual occupants of the real world once she awakens. Themes from the real world also transfer over. Alice is punished and punishes in the real world, and there is also an occurrence of the exercising of authority in the dream world. Yet, once Alice awakens from this dream, these imagined things do not transfer over into the real world. They cease to exist past her memory.
The Looking Glass begins, and the characters, are ones that the reader has seen in the real world. There is a little girl with a big imagination, and kittens. There is nothing special about that. However, in Haroun and the Sea of Stories, even in the real world there are magical and made up beasts and such. And unlike in Alice’s tale, the elements and characters from the dream world do transfer over to the real world. After he leaves this dream world, it is not like those elements did not or ceased to exist; the Hoopee is underneath his pillow and the sea of stories flows and rains down on the city of Kahani.
In Haroun and the Sea of stories, there are also two worlds, one of which is more fanciful and dreamlike than the other. However, even the “real world” in this book is dreamlike by the reader’s standards and in comparisons to their personal experiences. This element is one that Rushdie includes in his book and Carroll does not. The personification used in this book begins with the first sentence of it, wasting no time and captivating the audience upon contact. Rushdie knows how to hook a reader. His book gives the reader a warm feeling and sense of lightness and maybe even hopefulness that there is a world beyond the one familiar to them. He gets his readers to think critically, outside of the box and encourages them and even walks them through a world with endless possibilities. In Through the Looking glass, the story ends with the world that the reader is familiar with, and gives them that feel of, “everything ends with this”, a feeling of slight disappointment. When in Haroun, even his real world has possibilities galore where the reader’s real world would end and continue to be routine or unexciting. Haroun opens the reader’s minds and dares them to explore themselves. Many of the reader’s from the English class ended the Haroun book feeling warm and alive in a world with endless possibilities. The book is usually ended with a feeling of satisfaction, whereas Alice’s tale ends, it takes you back to where you started, insight has been gained thanks to the dream world, however you return to that same room. However both tales end, leaving the final destiny’s of the characters up to the interpretation of the reader.
So with these selections being creative readings, they are creative indeed as they encourage you to think critically and outside of the norm. Your enjoyment for the text will only go as far as your imagination will allow you to take it.
Rushdie wrote his book to please his son as well as poke fun at a political and life threatening situation that he was involved in. The language that he uses is most effective and impressive in that he creates words to fit the mold that words already in existence could not hold up against, they were broken with ease by his expansive imagination. This book gives its reader a desire to create as oppose to abide by and be limited to what is already in existence.
The Looking glass kind of warms you up and prepares you for the unorthodox events that are about to take place. Carroll is conscience that his audience is going to behave like most audiences and put themselves in the situation of the charters. Since he wrote this tale for Alice maybe he was aware that in order to suck her in, he had to create a world that was identical to the one she was familiar with. He gains her interest by association. She saw herself in Alice and thus is intrigued.
Carroll’s imagination is also very strong and influential, yet it tends to turn more people away in that control is an issue. In Rushdie’s book, Haroun is in this dream world by choice, he has the opportunity to leave but he protests and fights to stay. However, Alice is part of a dream that she only wants to wake from. The control is not in her hands and that scares a lot of people. Many associate the Alice story with that of a nightmare complete with funhouse mirrors and giant rabbits. People can indulge in the most fanciful and unfamiliar things as long as they possess control throughout. When control is lost or ceases to exist, that is when fear sets in and your imagination turns on you, creating the worse case scenario where every talking flower used to be.
Rushdie and Carroll both have an imagination that stands the test of time. They are aware of the advantages of personification, breathing life into lifeless things, and how it can immediately strike a person’s interest. In an effort to please a particular child they end up pleasing many. In being affective in extending a reader’s critical thinking, Haroun’s tale prevailed over Alice’s for the simple fact that there was more control and less limitations. It seems like the more a story strays from the reality or limited world that is familiar, the more interesting and mind-boggling it is.

May 17, 2005, 04:25 PM

Name:


Email Address:

Comments: