MERGING FACT AND FANTASY IN RUSHDIE’S SHAME

Abstract

Magic Realism is a form of writing that incorporates magical and mystical elements as real inorder to depict a wider form of reality. In present it is used by postcolonial writers to depict the historical past of the nation as well as to unburden the text from the clutches of scientific beliefs and rationality of the West. Salman Rushdie in his novel Shame has aroused an atmosphere of fantasy in a casual way making them appear as day to day affairs and not something extraordinary or supernatural. He has basically made use of hallucinatory methods. The pregnancy symtoms of three Shakil sisters is quite hilarious, though one sister gets pregnant but all the three bear the same symptoms-the swollen womb and vomiting at the same time is very hilarious. Rushdie’s magic realism finds its extreme with Sufia Zinobia who can spark yellow lights from her eyes, can copulate with street urchins and can toss the heads of several turkeys at a same time. Exploration of fantasy by the postcolonial writers is an attempt to rescue the text from the scientific and rationalistic beliefs of the West and to bring out the mystical and the magical of which the East was generally esteemed off.