Rushdie is trying to express how many people will have thoughts and ideas their whole life but are censored. Then, they have a single moment where they realize they should have spoken out the whole time. Haroun continues by saying “And now that I’ve seen …show more content…
In this passage, Rushdie is expressing his opinion that when people are censored their whole life, and then one day decide to change, they see how much they’ve missed out on, and how great it is. Also, he is saying that now it might be too late to express these opinions and thoughts they’ve already had because they might not be relevant anymore.
1B. Salman Rushdie has a controversial background involving his book The Satanic Verses. Given his experiences, one can see why he felt strongly about the freedom of speech. When his book was published, he was censored when a fatwa was placed on him for what he wrote about Islam in his book. He portrays his attitude towards censorship when talking about the poison of …show more content…
A motifs that is compelling in this book is the balance between complete silence and free speech. Although Rushdie opposes censorship, we see that in the lands of Gup and Chup that there is a need to coexist in peace. For example, when Butt the Hoopoe is explaining things to Haroun about Kahani and P2C2E, he says “Thanks to the genius of the Eggheads at P2C2E house, the rotation of Kahani has been brought under control. As a result the Land of Gup is bathed in Endless Sunshine, while over in Chup it’s always the middle of the night. In between the two lies the Twilight Strip,”(Page 80). This represents how although the Guppees’ prefer absolute freedom of speech, their own leaders left the Chupwalas in complete darkness against their will. This shows that although we like to have freedom of speech ourselves, we all have some pull towards censoring others. The Twilight Zone in the middle represents the balance between silence and speech. It is not owned by Guppees’, nor Chupwalas. It is a land where speech and silence are proportional. Another example is during the Gup and Chup battle. “The Guppee armada proceeded on its merry way, with all its members busily dissecting General Kitab’s most secret battle plans.”(Page 120). This shows how foolish it is to have absolute speech because you then reveal vital secrets. While Rushdie clearly shows that complete silence it deadly because you have no way of communication which is why the Chupwalas lost the battle, although they