Haroun's Fantasy Journey

A detailed Summary of Haroun's Fantasy Journey


Stories are the central means by which we demonstrate our desire for a meaningful life. It is through stories that we convey our wishes, fears, and values. It is through stories, and through the sense of our lives as a story, with a beginning, middle, and end, which we create a sense of purpose and direction. Through the stories we tell and the stories that engage our interest that we reveal, and discover where we are coming and where we are going. It is also through telling our stories and listening to the stories of others that we connect with them on the deepest level. Rushdie conveys beauty in his descriptions of the "other world" and his ability to keep the fantasy and reality world separate.

In a make-believe world, the story of Haroun is created. Haroun fights between the power of free imagination and the powers that oppose it. Haroun's father, whom is Rashid, the Shah of Blah, is a professional storyteller. He seems to be a popular figure at public events. He expresses the issues of freedom of speech and imagination, and the political reality. After his wife leaves him Rashid loses confidence in his powers of story telling, haunted by his son's question: "What's the use of stories that aren't even true?" (22) Haroun wi


A statement that can be made concerning the techniques of fiction concerns the mixing up of different stories and different cultural traditions. The Water Genie has no worries or complications riding on a mechanical bird that can talk without moving its beak. Haroun ponders why all the stories that are in the stream do not disturb another. The only reply he got to his question was "any story worth its salt can handle a little shaking up." (79) To me this indicates that some of the stories are meant to stay to themselves and others are to intertwine with one another to create something new. The intertwining stories resemble different cultures stories that are passed on from generation to generation and from country to country. Some of these stories you can even render in your dreams. The resources of various cultures are brought together to give rise to a new imaginative and multi-cultural perception. This attitude is of course based on the assumption that traditions should not be dismissed as irrelevant, since they constitute what is called the cultural heritage.

Rushdie's intricate stories that are within this unique story are carefully woven in with each other. For example, Haroun took a drink from the Ocean, on one of his many journeys, however, the princess-rescue story turns out wrong. The hero who climbs the tower where the p

Some common words found in the essay are:
Water Genie, , Shah Blah, Walrus Haroun, Stream Ocean, Sea Stories, Rashid Nothing's, World Controlling, Ocean Haroun, Guppees Chupwalas, water genie, lives story,

Approximate Word count = 904
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)

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