Theme In Rushdie's Shame

1060 Words5 Pages
State one of the themes in Salman Rushdie’s Shame and discuss the character of Sufiya Zinobia’s relation to this theme. One of the more prominent themes in Shame is, not surprisingly, the feeling of shame. Rushdie opens chapter 7 with an explanation of how he found inspiration for the character Sufiya Zinobia. His analogy recounts how a father murdered his own daughter in London because she had slept with a white boy, and the shame and dishonor he felt her actions brought upon the family. Rushdie was horrified, not only by the murder, but also because he could understand the father since Rushdie himself had grown up in a culture where honor is everything. (http://www.postcolonialweb.org/pakistan/literature/rushdie/srgrotesq.html) Sufiya Zinobia is a character that is shamed from birth. Her father, General Raza Hyder, wanted a boy and berates the hospital staff for their mistake in giving him a girl. As a result, the baby Sufiya blushes; a physical sign of shame. She is henceforth made small and insignificant on the basis of her gender. In a world dominated by men and their incapacity to feel shame, she becomes the physical manifestation of shame. Throughout the novel, Sufiya is the one who blushes when those around her act shamelessly, something that she has done since she was born. Sufiya also represents the collective feeling of shame that women feel in a patriarchal and Islamic culture. By infusing the behavior of women with honor, the men are able to socially control them while behaving egotistical and greedy themselves. The men’s investment of honor in their women forces the women to submit to them, and the act of submission further enhances their sense of shame. Add to this the fact that Sufiya, because of an illness that stops her from mentally maturing past the age of six, cannot stop herself from blushing. She cannot comprehend the ramifications of
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