...Haroun and the Sea of Stories SALMAN RUSHDIE Novel, 1990. Summary. In this story we encounter storytelling as a means of saving your identity, your relationship with your family, and perhaps even your life—which means that, in a sense, you are saving a world. The British-Indian author Salman Rushdie (b. 1947) had to go underground after the publication of his novel The Satanic Verses in 1988. The book was considered blasphemous to Islam by the fundamentalist government of Iran, which issued a death warrant against him. He says that he reached a point where he was so distressed he wasn’t able to think of any stories to tell. But he worked himself out of his depression, and Haroun and the Sea of Stories, a book for children and other people who have a natural love for stories, is the result. This modern fairy tale has many surprising elements, but here we will focus just on the core issue: why stories have value. Haroun’s father Rashid is a professional storyteller and a very popular one. He usually tells cheerful stories, even though they live in a very sad city. Haroun is beginning to ask questions about his father’s storytelling: Where do the stories come from? From the great Story Sea, says Rashid, and you have to be a subscriber to the water, which comes from a tap installed by one of the Water-Genies. But Haroun doesn’t believe him. And now a sad thing happens in their lives: Haroun’s mother Soraya with the beautiful voice leaves her husband and child for another tenant...
Words: 1698 - Pages: 7
...Haroun and the Sea of Stories SALMAN RUSHDIE Novel, 1990. Summary. In this story we encounter storytelling as a means of saving your identity, your relationship with your family, and perhaps even your life—which means that, in a sense, you are saving a world. The British-Indian author Salman Rushdie (b. 1947) had to go underground after the publication of his novel The Satanic Verses in 1988. The book was considered blasphemous to Islam by the fundamentalist government of Iran, which issued a death warrant against him. He says that he reached a point where he was so distressed he wasn’t able to think of any stories to tell. But he worked himself out of his depression, and Haroun and the Sea of Stories, a book for children and other people who have a natural love for stories, is the result. This modern fairy tale has many surprising elements, but here we will focus just on the core issue: why stories have value. Haroun’s father Rashid is a professional storyteller and a very popular one. He usually tells cheerful stories, even though they live in a very sad city. Haroun is beginning to ask questions about his father’s storytelling: Where do the stories come from? From the great Story Sea, says Rashid, and you have to be a subscriber to the water, which comes from a tap installed by one of the Water-Genies. But Haroun doesn’t believe him. And now a sad thing happens in their lives: Haroun’s mother Soraya with the beautiful voice leaves her husband and child for another tenant...
Words: 1400 - Pages: 6
...Love indubitably unites as much as it divides. This story is very much an example of the inconsistency between the personifications of the sea and the land, and the heartache this causes. The short-story is called “Sea Story” and is written by A.S. Byatt in 2012. Its’ main event is partially set in Filey, which is east of the Yorkshire coast and partially in Oxford. Although this is where the main events unfold, we follow a bottle from England and through the world’s vast oceans. The short story’s maincharacter is Harold, a sensitive poet with the ocean in his blood. The story follows him, trying to win his love back, as she studies eels in the Caribbean. Harold was born close to the sea and raised by parents whose love for the waves and the marine life were eternal. His father was an oceanograph, as was his grandfather, and Harold’s mother was an English teacher who wrote “fierce little poems about the waves and weather”. (p. 1, ll. 8-9) It was through his mother that Harold decided to become a student in English literature and this is the distinct difference between him and Laura. Harold chose life on land. Although he carries the sea at heart, he chooses to stay on land and become a graduate in English literature, whereas Laura chooses life in the sea among the waves and the nurdles. She is in ways the opposite of Harold; A “marine Goddess” (p. 4, l. 127) who rises from the deeps of the ocean and steals Harold’s heart. With her long and white-gold hair she ascends...
Words: 1158 - Pages: 5
...Sea Story Write an analytical essay (800-1200 words) in which you analyse and interpret A.S. Byatt’s short story “Sea Story”. Part of your essay must focus on the writer’s use of literary quotations and on the role of nature in the story. Love cannot overcome every obstacle. This story serves as an example of how the ocean can be ruthless and unforgiving, and how people cannot best the ocean. The story is written by A.S. Byatt in 2012 and is set in Filey, a town east of Yorkshire. The plot of the story is the main character Harold, meeting a woman, Laura. In the beginning, he moves very slowly and carefully when interacting with her. They start spending more and more time together, but before they really get to know one another, Laura has to move to the Caribbean to study eels. The main character of the story is Harold, who was born into an ocean-loving family by a father who was an oceanographer and a mother who was an English teacher who wrote ”fierce little poems about waves and weather” p. 1 l. 8. He spent a lot of his youth around the ocean, either walking along or fishing. Despite his enormous love for the ocean, Harold chose a life as an English literature graduate at Oxford University. In the story, Harold meets a woman called Laura who is a lot like him in many ways and yet very different. Laura also loves the ocean but unlike Harold, Laura chose a career in the ocean studying it, while Harold stayed inland, finding a career in literature. When they first meet...
Words: 817 - Pages: 4
...Analytical essay: Sea Story “True love is boundless like the ocean and, swelling within one, spreads itself out and, crossing all boundaries and frontiers, envelops the whole world.”1 – The “Sea Story” is a touching story about a man’s unconditional love and passion for a woman and the beautiful and incredible sea, a love that never withered. The story is a fiction short story written by A.S. Byatt in 2012. The “Sea Story” takes place on the east Yorkshire coast in a small fishing town called Filey. We are introduced to a man called Harold who literally was born beside the sea. One day Cupid’s Arrow struck him, just like when he had seen the sea for the first time. Only this time he had meet the beautiful marine biologist Laura. A beautiful pale woman with long white-gold hair and a lovely face – it was love at first sight. Time went on and Harold had tried to get closer to Laura but had failed greatly. In the meantime Laura had been offered her dream job and was therefore moving to the Caribbean. Despite Laura’s departure and the returned and undeliverable mail he had sent her, Harold’s feelings were still persistent and he decided to write a love letter in a drift bottle just like the one he had found on the beach when he was a child. The events in the short story are presented in chronological order and ends with a closed ending. The text is written in third person narrative with a simple and informal language. The main theme in this story is love, the unconditional love...
Words: 661 - Pages: 3
...Sea story Being in love is one of the most difficult things, especially if you haven’t been it before. Love is such a powerful thing, and if you find your one true love, it can be hard to focus on other things. And sometimes our illusion of love might not last for long. Often we have an ideal of how our “perfect” soul mate should be or look, which is hard for us to find. But in this short story called “Sea story” written by A.S. Byatt, the main character, Harold, has finally found his one true love, and she is the perfect picture of his dream girl. But unfortunately she has to only be an illusion to him. All the way through the text is there a very poetic feeling. The text is marked by poetic language, which creates a uniform atmosphere throughout the whole text. Harold is raised with famous poets, which makes Harold think like a poet himself. When he is in Oxford studying and he misses home he then starts thinking about that time when his mother read poetry for him, “The wind would blast them or wrap itself round them, and his mother would quote Masefield. “I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky.”” (Page 1, lines 18-20). His use of literary quotations is making the reader relate to Harold. We understand his feelings and his thoughts; he is expressing them throughout these quotations. When he was at the pub with Laura and her friends he felt like their love was improving slowly, “He felt, unlike Marvell’s lover, that he had world enough and time to...
Words: 977 - Pages: 4
...1. Comment on Khattam-Shud’s remark that inside a story lies a world that can’t be controlled. Why is that important? The remark that was made by Khattam-Shud to me is that he is trying to convey truth. He wants to show us that the world is dark and cruel place. You cannot control something outside your own realm of dreams and possibilities. He was trying to shed light onto a touchy subject. As a cruel and ruthless leader, he is attempting to take away freedom of speech basically. Stories are meant to be something exciting, creative, and imaginative. Without that, the people under his rule become silent. 2. Is this a story for children? Why or why not? I don’t think that it is honestly. Even though there is a young child playing a major role in the story with his father, most children I don’t think would grasp the concept of the story, nor would they be able to follow along with all the characters and references made in the story. 3. What do you think the author had in mind with Khattam-Shud and his Silence Laws? Do we have to know Rushdie’s personal history for the story to make sense, or does the story have a broader application? I picked up right away that this story was some form of culture that I’m not accustomed to. Maybe a folk tale of some sort from India? Either way, I’ve seen firsthand in the military being in a variety of different countries that you need to respect the laws and rights of their culture. A lot of places are very...
Words: 522 - Pages: 3
...Sea Story - Analytical essay The short story, ”Sea Story”, is written in 2012 by Dame Antonia Susan Duffy, better knows as A.S. Byatt. A.S. Byatt is an English writer, who mostly writes novels and poems. She has won several prizes for her work, and was on the top 50 list of the greatest British writers since 1945. She is now 79 years old and lives in Sheffield, England. In the short story, “Sea Story”, the main character is called Harold. Harold is a poet who studies eels in the Caribbean. The story is roughly about him trying to win the love of his life, Laura. Harold has always lived close to the seas and was also born near it. His parents loved the seas and everything about it, so that is why Harold loves the sea so much. His grandfather also loved the sea, so that is where Harold’s father got his love for the sea from. Harold’s mother “wrote fierce little poems about waves and weather” (P. 1, L. 7-8). Laura, who is another character in the story, chose life on the sea. Harold chose life on land studying English, because of his mother’s interest in English literature. Both of them carries the sea in their heart, but in two different ways. That is the difference between them Laura and Harold. Harold has a big love for Laura. He sends letters and e-mails to her trying to get in touch with her, but with no luck. After trying these ways, he tries to get in touch with her by throwing a bottle in the ocean, containing one of his letters. This almost succeed as...
Words: 864 - Pages: 4
...Valazia Sophorlrath IB English Mr. Tetenbaum October 28, 2015 Ocean of Feelings Haroun and the Sea of Stories by Salman Rushdie is a book about a boy whose mother had left the family for his neighbor, Mr. Sengupta, who did not like stories at all. Due to that tragedy, his father, Rashid, is not able to tell stories. Haroun goes on an adventure to bring back the joy of stories to his father. What do you think Rushdie's saying about the value of stories and how they make people feel? By looking at the roles stories play in Haroun’s society, we can see how important stories are to his father and how his situation with his family affects his ability to tell stories; this is important because it shows that in order for someone to persevere, they...
Words: 363 - Pages: 2
...on Khattam-Shud’s remark that inside a story lies a world that can’t be controlled. Why is that important? His belief as the leader of the land is that the world is made for one to control, he believes in controlling the way people speak. Without a use for language, the people become silent and then they are controlled. The people lose their freedom of speech. 2. Is this a story for children? Why or why not? I don't think children will fully understand the meaning behind the story. The child has to have a certain level of maturity and knows the freedom of speech to fully understand the story. 3. What do you think the author had in mind with Khattam-Shud and his Silence Laws? Do we have to know Rushdie’s personal history for the story to make sense, or does the story have a broader application? To tell us that certain cultures have different laws and rules that they abide by. In some countries there isn't freedom of speech and loose talk can get you into trouble with the law. I don't think we need to know Rushdie's personal history for the story to make sense, this story has also told me to know the laws of other countries, be sensitive to other race and religion and although you can't take back what you have said, you can try to make amends. In certain point of view, Rushdie might have been, in a way, talking about what was happening in his life at the time. Rushdie might have been trying to tell the world that stories have love and hate in them, but what's important...
Words: 394 - Pages: 2
...Assignment A - Analytical essay The short story “Sea Story” is written by A.S Byatt in 2013. A tale of one man’s lost love, a comment on today’s carelessness concerning our nature and the adventure of one single bottle’s contribute towards environmental disaster. In the very first sentence of the story, the reader is introduced to the main character, a man born by the sea. The writer makes it obvious from the very start that nature – or more specific, water, is an important theme throughout the story. The first part of the story gives a brief summery of this man’s life and character, a characterization defined by the ocean to such degree that the man almost becomes the body of water himself “his mother’s birth pangs began when she was walking by the shoreline […] He was born in […] a fishing town […] His father was an oceanographer […] His mother […] wrote poems about water and weather…”. Momentarily, the reader might get an impression of the man being in love with the ocean, but many things would argue against that. Rather than loving the ocean as something tangible, he is more concerned with the abstract aspect of it. An aspect that especially comes across through literature and poetry, why he followed “his mother to study English literature, and to teach.” The main character creates a distance between himself and the ocean by making it intangible, making the water something dangerous and “inhuman”. When he falls in love he is immediately shocked, making the reader certain...
Words: 904 - Pages: 4
...Sea Story There are two sides to love, love can bring people together and break some apart. This story is a good example of how this can happen. ‘Sea Story* is written by A.S. Bayatt and it is from 2012. The story takes place mainly east of Yorkshire in Oxford. However the story takes place on oceans that cover the world. We follow Harold in his poetic ways. The main character Harold was conceived close to the sea and was taken care by his parents. We get to know that the parents love the ocean and marine life. Harold’s mother was an English teacher and author of ‘Fierce little poems about the waves and weather’. His father was an oceanograph, just like his father before him. Harold’s love for the ocean is not the same as his parents, although he cares for it, he decides on living on the land to study. Laura is an opposite of Harold. Harold describes her as a seal, and a sea goddess that arises from the deep ocean, who comes and takes Harold’s heart away. While the two are opposites of each other, they are incomplete without each other. She is the ocean while he is the land, while she is in the ocean, studying eels; Harold sits by the shore studying English literature. This is also how they meat for the first time. It was by Harold’s boat where they saw each other for the first, but not the last. They were almost made to fall in love and be together. Time goes by and Harold sends letter to her, where she has moved to in the Caribbean. Laura does not get the letters...
Words: 802 - Pages: 4
...March 29th, 2014 Leadership in Haroun and the sea of stories It can be said that great leaders have the qualities that make for exceptional leadership. This is main focus in the story Haroun And The Sea Of Stories, by Salman Rushdie. Many people who have a spark of the qualities needed, can develop and show great power of leadership in certain situations. Such as the protagonist Haroun Khalifa. But what makes a good leader? The story demonstrates that intelligence is a key ingredient for leadership. This is indicated through communication, decisiveness, and the power of conflict resolution. The first form of intelligence that a good leader has, is the ability to communicate with others. In this story Salman Rushdie, shows that expressing your thoughts and feelings freely is crucial and will bring you success in life. Rushdie portrays this through General Kitab and his army. The author shows the Guppees ability to communicate through the quote, "The black-nosed Chupwala Army, whose menacing silence hung over it like a fog, looked too frightening to lose. Meanwhile the Guppees were still busily arguing over every little detail. Every order sent down from the command hill had to be debated fully, with all its pro's and con's..." (Rushdie, 184). This quote shows that expressing your ideas and thoughts leads to victory. Rashid Khalifa was confused that, with all of the Guppees chatter, how it was possible to fight a battle. To Rashids surprise, the Chupwalas...
Words: 778 - Pages: 4
...with all sorts of thoughts. Thoughts of a life not yet fulfilled, thoughts of goals not yet accomplished, thoughts of love lost, and thoughts of an early, unjust death. In his short story, “The Open Boat”, Stephen Crane places all four of his characters in the face of grave danger, where they consider the chance of their own untimely death. Death is a theme in this story because Crane uses dark atmospheric undertones, dark language usage and imagery, and the situations that the characters face forces them to consider their own demise. Before they challenge their demise, the characters, crunched uncomfortably in a dinghy thrown around on the violent and threatening sea, are known as an injured Captain, a cook, an oiler, and a correspondent. It is unknown to the reader how the Captain was injured, and because of his injury he cannot help his crew but by orders from his mouth. “There was something strange in his voice. Although steady, it was deep with mourning and of a quality beyond oration or tears” (344). This displays the Captain’s inability to help. He feels helpless with his injury and feels sorry, possibly guilty and maybe feels like there is no hope left for his crew. Crane uses many dark undertones, imagery and word usage in this short story to depict a theme of death. The “wrath of the sea” is described as having black (often associated with death) waves, with water that is cold, sad and tragic. (345/358) Rowing the boat is thought to be “diabolical punishment” and...
Words: 665 - Pages: 3
...under water and over 80% of life on earth is in the oceans. Life on earth evolves from the sea, and the animals who evolves and stayed for over four hundreds years are the sharks. They manages to survive, they are architect of our world. They are the lions and tigers of the sea. Sharks are in danger. They are hunted by humans for their fins with lines. The population does not realize the massacre that sharks are victims of. Predators are controlling the ecosystems.The oceans are the life support system of the planet, change this life support would be a real threat. The world is afraid of sharks and do not see the importance to help sharks or to save them. The first help requires by sharks conservators are to consider sharks as a real animal and stop thinking that sharks are a threat. The population does not realize the facts. Sharks kill five people each year, elephants and tigers over one hundred per year. The first solution to the sharks conservation problem would be to change the mentality of the population. There is a mythology around sharks creating fear, but there is the same problem for wales with the legend of Mobidick. It is portrait as a monster of the seas. Asia population eat sharks because they think that sharks have powers to make them stronger because sharks do not often get sick. But there is Sand 1 no scientific fact to prove it and it's more a mythical story. But everything in the environment...
Words: 732 - Pages: 3
