Resumo de The Veil As Metaphor For Repression In Salman Rushdie's Shame

The use of articles of female dressing especially the purdah reinforce the theme of repression in Salman Rushdie?s Shame. Purdah is originally a Persian word used to mean veil or curtain. It refers to veiling and separation and sometimes to the values about the proper behaviour of women inside and outside the household. The term has positive as well as negative connotations. In a positive sense it means a curtain or a veil to maintain privacy and purity from prying eyes. In a negative sense it is a form of social restraint through which the individuality of the woman is erased by making her anonymous behind a veil and free interaction with the opposite sex is prevented. It secludes the women from men and from the sphere of public duties. The idea behind the veil is that female sexuality has to be hidden. The veil is related to the male-chauvinistic views of a patriarchal society. The purdah in Rushdie?s novel is literal as well as metaphorical. The first form of ?purdah? in the novel is seen in the home of Old Mr.Shakil and the way he treats his daughters. He imprisoned his daughters in the zenana of the labyrinthine mansion ?Nishapur? and denied them education as well as interaction with the outside world. Though naïve and ignorant this seclusion does them no good. Instead it leads to the most shameful situation in a patriarchal society ?unmarried pregnancy. Their withdrawal into Nishapur is complete and their only connection with the outside world is a dumbwaiter and later Omar. In the novel, the articles of veiling appear most in the household of the fundamentalist Raza Hyder. The narrator says that the burqa has never been ?a difficult garment to find in that sad house?. So is the veil of communicative difficulties. The mental breakdown of Bilquis is significant in that through metaphors she tells her husband what she could not do earlier because of the takallouf, a form of purdah. In the novel, takallouf is an untranslatable word, referring to ?a form of tongue-tying formality, a social restraint so extreme as to make it impossible for the victim to express what he or she really means?(R, 104). The narrator adds the comment: ?When, takallouf gets between a husband and a wife, look out? ?(R, 104). This polite form of distancing Raza practised upon Bilquis after her extramarital affair with Mengal. Because of her disillusionment with life she breaks down. Bilquis? mental disintegration becomes public; Raza keeps her under a kind of official house arrest. She becomes invisible, becomes ?less than a character, a mirage, almost, mumble in the corners of the palace, a rumour in a veil? (209). Ironically the beast in the heroine Sufiya Zenobia hides under a veil of innocence and mental retardation.The metaphorical use of purdah is seen in the joint family system under Bariamma in Raza?s ancestral home in Karachi. There in a large bedroom, the 40 females of the household waited every night supervised by the snoring matriarch Bariamma. At night the women feign sleep while each of them is anxiously waiting for her husband. In that house it was believed that ?the mere fact of being married did not absolve a woman of the shame and dishonour that result from the knowledge that she sleeps regularly with a man?(R, 74). The old family set-up was a form of purdah denying the existence of a man-woman relationship. This form of purdah restrains the sexuality of women. Rani Harappa uses an article of female clothing- the shawl- as she silently endures all her husband?s atrocities during his lifetime but after his death she carefully immortalises them on eighteen embroidered shawls. Her shawls reveal the oppression caused by the patriarchy and the military in Pakistan. Rani names the testimony as ?The Shamelessness of Iskander the Great? and signs her maiden name under it as if to dissociate herself from the tyrant Iskander Harappa. The power of a veil to conceal and therefore maintain honour is proved wrong by Rani Humayun, who uses itas a reaction against repression. As for Naveed, pregnancy acts as purdah. Her pregnancies, which show arithmetical progression, seclude her from the enjoyment of life. At first she performs the role of the ideal woman in a patriarchal society by giving birth to many sons. But as the number of children increase to twenty-seven she has turned into just a ?baby-machine?. Her incessant production of children is a form of purdah because pregnancy, childcare and the aftercare of the infant take place within the house. It makes her dependent on her husband. Therefore Naveed asserts her individuality and her independence by committing suicide, during her eighth successive pregnancy. Thus the reaction against the repressive purdah system leads to violence. Thus in the novel Shame the dress code of purdah is intimately related to the repression of women in a patriarchal society. Purdah can be literal or metaphorical and can affect all aspects of human existence- man-woman, woman-woman, interfamily relationships, social bonds and conventions and economic and educational freedoms. But on a deeper level it may mean the invisible restraints imposed by a patriarchal society upon the freedom of women to prevent their free interaction with men or from interference in public duties. Therefore in the novel Shame Rushdie depicts the negative aspects of the purdah system, which erases the identity of women behind veils of ordinariness.

Resumos Relacionados