The shadow and the self are meant to represent two sides of a coin: the self symbolizes the personhood and autonomy of the individual. This quote is spoken by Mudra, the Shadow Warrior, in an attempt to explain the unrest and evil in the Land of Chup. And of course there can be quarrels between the Shadow and the Substance or Self or Person they can pull in opposite directions.but just as often there is a true partnership, and mutual respect.” Haroun and the Sea of Stories, 132 “.in the Land of Chup, a Shadow very often has a stronger personality than the Person, or Self, or Substance to whom or to which it is joined! So often the Shadow leads, and it is the Person or Self or Substance that follows. The ultimate answer is that story gives meaning. Haroun’s journey through the novel is an answer to the question of the importance of story. Rushdie presents a land in which story is being destroyed, a symbol for the way that narrative is often destroyed in the quest for power. While the book is written for young adults, the theme of story is nuanced and complicated. This quote frames the central crisis of the novel: what role does story play in culture and society and what happens when it no longer has power. But he never suspected how much.“What’s the use of stories that aren’t even true?” Haroun and the Sea of Stories, 22 (Maybe the sadness of the city finally crept in through their windows.) The day Soraya stopped singing, in the middle of a line, as if someone had thrown a switch, Haroun guessed there was trouble brewing. To his wife, Soraya, Rashid was for many years as loving a husband as anyone could wish for, and during these years Haroun grew up in a home in which, instead of misery and frowns, he had his father’s ready laughter and his mother’s sweet voice raised in song. To his admirers he was Rashid the Ocean of Notions, as stuffed with cheery stories as the sea was full of glumfish but to his jealous rivals he was the Shah of Blah.

“And in the depths of the city, beyond an old zone of ruined buildings that looked like broken hearts, there lived a happy young fellow by the name of Haroun, the only child of the storyteller Rashid Khalifa, whose cheerfulness was famous throughout that unhappy metropolis, and whose never-ending stream of tall, short and winding tales had earned him not one but two nicknames.

Sea of stories salman rushdie