Here is the synopsis of our sample research paper on Rushdie: frontiers and boundaries in Imaginary Homelands, Shame and Midnight’s Children. Have the paper e-mailed to you 24/7/365.
Essay / Research Paper Abstract
A paper which looks at the concepts of frontiers and boundaries in three texts by Salman Rushdie, with specific reference to postcolonial and postmodernist elements in his work. Bibliography lists nine sources.
Page Count:
9 pages (~225 words per page)
File: JL5_JLrushdie.rtf
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Unformatted sample text from the term paper:
A concept which Rushdie returns to again and again in his work is that of frontiers and boundaries: not just the geographical or political boundaries between nations, but also the
cultural and ideological boundaries which dictate all aspects of our daily life and which, sometimes, we have to transcend in order to "see things plainly". In addition, both his characters
and his audience often find themselves in a position of pushing back frontiers, since despite his understanding of the influence of the past, Rushdie is very much concerned with the
modern perspective, and with peering into the post-colonial future. As Violante (2002) points out, for Rushdie the "frontier" is a physical reality, a metaphor and
an ethical boundary, and in his personal experience signifies not only the writers rejection of metaphorical boundaries in literature, but also the very pragmatic concerns of "persecuted writers" forced to
"flee their homelands" (Violante, 2002, PG). The fatwah against Rushdie demonstrated not only a physical exile, but also a cultural one, since it was a large proportion of the Islamic
world which was against him rather than the dictates of a single nation-state: a fatwah which had, of course, been prompted by Rushdies overstepping boundaries, in The Satanic Verses.
In Imaginary Homelands (1992), Rushdie takes his inspiration from the concept of "imagined communities", which asserts that nations are imaginary entities existing only because of the
ideas, the communal narratives, of those who inhabit them. Sometimes the "homeland" corresponds to the geographical and ideological boundaries of the group, and sometimes it does not; he points out,
for instance, that the use of English is the factor which draws postcolonial authors together, and provides a "space" within which they operate. Ironically, since independence, the vast majority of
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