Rushdie’s Allusion Salman Rushdie’s life was surrounded by a great deal of controversy after he wrote The Satanic Verses. One result of The Satanic Verses was Ayatollah Khomeini’s fatwa which caused many conflicts in Salman Rushdie’s life. Since Salman Rushdie was a writer who believed in the ideas of freedom of speech which was taken away when the fatwa was issued. The censorship caused him to express his freedom in themes in his stories. In Haroun and the Sea of Stories there was always an situation that could be brought back to the idea of freedom of speech. As Andrew Teverson concludes,” There may be no clear "homily" at the end, but in many respects Haroun remains a tract in favour of freedom of speech and the free exchange of ideas” (Teverson).Since Salman Rushdie’s writing of …show more content…
The characters in Chup City and their leader Khattam-Shud’s actions seem to parallel Ayatollah Khomeini and the way he censors Salman Rushdie. Khattam Shud is closely related to Ayatollah Khomeini. Both represent an attempt at silencing freedom of speech. Khattum Shud is shown throughout the novel as the antagonist and the person who wants to silence the Gups. Sara Constantakis says,”He is also referred to as the Cultmaster of Bezaban. (Bezaban, according to Rushdie, means "Without-a-Tongue.") Khattum-Shud hates stories and words and wants silence. He is the enemy of free speech and the ruler of Chup. He has started a religion in which practitioners must sew their lips together to prevent them from speaking” (Constantakis Ed). Khomeini also was shown to take extreme measures to silence Salman Rushdie. As shown by Matuz and Gillies,“Iranian religious strongman Imam Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's fatwa decreeing death for Salman Rushdie, the 41-year-old India-born author,