Revenge, as a violent redressing following the perception of injustice or wrongdoing by others, is a complex sentiment that links contrasting concepts such as love, hate, history, pain and justice in Salman Rushdie’s Shalimar the Clown. The assassination of prominent politician and World War hero Max Ophuls in front of his illegitimate daughter India by a Kashmiri known as Shalimar the Clown provokes an unstoppable chain of events that reveals a wealth of undiscovered changes of identity and unaddressed crimes. After discovering his wife had left him for Max, Shalimar’s suffering and burning desire to deliver revenge on a cold platter of his own gradually involves entire families, religious and political groups and the justice system itself, thus surpassing boundaries of morality, culture, time and space. Likewise, upon discovering the truth about her parents and their assassin, India – who regains her true name Kashmira in the process – is deeply affected and also seeks revenge. Her confused state of mind leads her to ponder on how problematic it is to delimit righteous revenge and relate it with justice, be it official or ‘poetic’. Shalimar’s subsequent capture marks the beginning of a duel between the two protagonists who use different means to punish the other. Kashmira combines psychological torture and a determining testimony in court that dismisses Shalimar’s solid ‘reasonable betrayed Muslim man’ legal defence. He, on the other hand, defies the law by breaking out of prison and persistently hunting down his prey. Rushdie’s novel is therefore a telling story of the deep and troubled roots of the constant cycle binding revenge and justice, wrong and right, and of the various forces, be them avenging, legal or cosmic, through which an amendment of wrongs may be attained in a postmodern and multicultural world such as the one we live in today.
Blood will have blood: Vengeance and Injustice in Salman Rushdie’s Shalimar the Clown
ROXANNE BARBARA
2012-01-01
Abstract
Revenge, as a violent redressing following the perception of injustice or wrongdoing by others, is a complex sentiment that links contrasting concepts such as love, hate, history, pain and justice in Salman Rushdie’s Shalimar the Clown. The assassination of prominent politician and World War hero Max Ophuls in front of his illegitimate daughter India by a Kashmiri known as Shalimar the Clown provokes an unstoppable chain of events that reveals a wealth of undiscovered changes of identity and unaddressed crimes. After discovering his wife had left him for Max, Shalimar’s suffering and burning desire to deliver revenge on a cold platter of his own gradually involves entire families, religious and political groups and the justice system itself, thus surpassing boundaries of morality, culture, time and space. Likewise, upon discovering the truth about her parents and their assassin, India – who regains her true name Kashmira in the process – is deeply affected and also seeks revenge. Her confused state of mind leads her to ponder on how problematic it is to delimit righteous revenge and relate it with justice, be it official or ‘poetic’. Shalimar’s subsequent capture marks the beginning of a duel between the two protagonists who use different means to punish the other. Kashmira combines psychological torture and a determining testimony in court that dismisses Shalimar’s solid ‘reasonable betrayed Muslim man’ legal defence. He, on the other hand, defies the law by breaking out of prison and persistently hunting down his prey. Rushdie’s novel is therefore a telling story of the deep and troubled roots of the constant cycle binding revenge and justice, wrong and right, and of the various forces, be them avenging, legal or cosmic, through which an amendment of wrongs may be attained in a postmodern and multicultural world such as the one we live in today.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
