In Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses, ideas about man creating his own reality are explored in ways that intricately involve a series of relationships and themes that ultimately end, they create a thick meaning behind the idea of ​​reality and how it differs in each character's life. As defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary, reality is “the true situation that exists.” There are problems with this definition, however. One definition of reality cannot be precisely applied to every individual in the world. “True situations” vary from person to person, depending on each person's background, origin, religion, culture, language, and class status, so who's to say which reality is the true reality? Salman Rushdie, Edward Said, and Chinua Achebe are among multiple writers who have studied contrasting realities, especially between countries, leading to a more complex analysis of topics such as privilege, power, and nation. From a plethora of perspectives comes numerous realities, and from numerous existing realities comes conflict, competition, and doubt. By examining all these themes under a single idea of ​​how each man forms his own reality, the works of these scholars bring out thought-provoking ideas that lead readers to consciously doubt their own realities and how they were formed. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay From the beginning of The Satanic Verses (1988), characters constantly question their identity and reality. On page 10, the question “Who am I?” is presented for the first time. As the book continues, each character struggles to answer this question and shape their reality in a way that brings happiness and success to their lives. Each character's attempt to shape their reality is based on many factors. First of all, humanity's reliance on stability leads people to form their reality in part based on what makes them feel most secure, confident, and in control. The religious aspect of human reality is often extremely crafted in a way that benefits that individual. Often, people discover feelings of trust and control in their realities through religious entities. In The Satanic Verses, a text focused on religion, there is ironically a sense of the absence of any kind of god. Many characters decide the path of their lives and realities for themselves, using a self-created higher power to justify their actions and decisions. For example, in Part III of the novel, Archangel Gibreel serves not God, but Rosa Diamond. He obeys his requests and bends to his needs, which are not the expected actions of an archangel. In most stories, you would expect an angel to have higher power and status than an old, crazy, ghost-seeing woman, like Rosa Diamond would. However, in this section Rosa completely controls Gibreel, using him as a tool to feel comfortable taking control of her life and reality. Gibreel is Rosa's divine source of affirmation and stability. Now confused about the difference between reality and dreams, true love and forced love, life and death, Gibreel can't find a way out of Rosa Diamond's control. “What the hell am I doing here?” Gibreel wondered, “But he remained, held by invisible chains.” (Rushdie 148). The power in this section lies not in divine figures, such as Archangel Gibreel, but in ordinary people, such as Rosa, because it is the people themselves, not their religious gods, who create their realities. Every man has the power to form ideas and perceptions in creating his individual and unique reality. Rushdie introduces this relationship betweenRosa Diamond and Gibreel as an example of how humans use religious entities as a source of stability and reassurance. The existence of gods and higher powers becomes the foundation of reality for many individuals. People create gods because gods are easy to control and know. God is different for each individual because people have the ability to shape their God into what they need to feel the stability that humans crave to be safe and comfortable in their own skin and reality. “A man who invents himself needs someone to believe in him.” (Rushdie 49). In order for humans and characters like Rosa Diamond to believe that what they want to do is the right thing to do, they must have a higher power to reassure them that they are right. Their actions are good, their opinions are reasonable, and the reality they have shaped for themselves is logical. If an individual succeeds, then he can pat himself on the back for his great idea, but if he fails, he has that divine entity to blame for "telling" him to do it. Mortals can never feel stable within their beliefs unless there is some sort of supernatural being there to satisfy man's desire for “nothing left unregulated” (Rushdie 376) and unstable. In emphasizing such ideas about religious entities, Rushdie causes doubt in the reader's mind about the validity of religion and about religion as simply a source of comfort in a human being's construction of his own reality. Rushdie discredits religion as simply an instrument of man's will to power. Religion, however, is not the only factor that influences the formation of an individual's concept of reality. Another factor that influences one's perception of reality is what one believes constitutes power in an individual. In The Satanic Verses, the reality that Saladin adheres to is one that grants the English people all knowledge, power, and privilege over neighboring countries. lower countries. Because this is his perception of Englishness, and therefore the truth by which he has chosen to live, throughout the novel he strives to become literally English in every aspect of his life. He tries to alter the reality of being Indian by changing his accent, moving to England, and becoming romantically involved with an English woman. Saladin strives to alter his identity by becoming a new individual who fulfills his reality regarding what is socially accepted as powerful. This is driven by a kind of pressure to become the best person you can become and the idea that this cannot be achieved in your own country and culture. Happiness comes with success in Saladin's mind, and to have this success, he must recreate himself in a new place, where people are supposed to be born with talent and power. Saladin, therefore, is constantly depicted as wearing masks to become someone else, as he struggles to shed his Indian culture to become a classy Englishman. In his mind, if this goal is achieved, then the reality will be that he, now among the rest of the English, will suddenly have power and privilege. For Saladin, “becoming an Englishman” requires many steps. At the beginning of the novel, as Saladin grew up, he began to dream of his hopeful future in England. He was not happy to follow in his father's footsteps and did not feel he could reach his potential in pursuing his Indian culture. Next, we see Saladin's name and accent change, which began the process of acceptance for him. in English culture. In one scene, Saladin literally wears a mask in his new English job, as he works as a voice actor, a job in whichhides his Indian appearance, but shows off his new English accent. In the first part, Zeeny tries to convince Saladin that his work as a voice actor is degrading, as she tells him that "even now, they only let you on the air after covering your face with gum and giving you a red wig". .” (Rushdie 64). Furthermore, on pages 50 and 51, Saladin ignores the difficulties of his life with Pamela by pretending that their marriage is full of happiness and love. His love is something he needs. It makes him feel as if, now that he has an English lover, other English people will accept him as their cultural companion. "He needed her so much, as if to reassure himself of his own existence." (Rushdie 50). All these examples describe Saladin's struggle to transform his reality into one of English success and power. It's an idea that clearly creates difficulties in a character's life, including struggles with culture, power, privilege, identity, and race. Despite these difficulties, characters like Saladin strongly struggle with these issues in their daily lives to create a life that satisfies their idea that power only exists in certain countries and cultures; in this situation, that powerful country is England. Simply altering one's identity, however, cannot successfully alter the reality that that person is not truly the person they are forcing themselves to become. Saladin, for example, may truly believe that he has transformed himself into a noble and respectable Englishman, but the reality in the minds of others remains that Saladin is an Indian, no matter where he lives or what his voice sounds like. Conflicting realities suddenly become a source of competition and struggle. Contradictory realities between different individuals often lead to conflict. Because human beings have a tendency to form personal realities – based on factors such as religion and the need for power – numerous realities will inevitably exist, and most of them will not exercise authority over the few realities that have become strong entrenched stereotypes. in societies around the world. Not everyone can win. This idea is strongly expressed in Saladin. After making so much effort to become English, Saladin did not realize that even after all these efforts, he would still be scrutinized and degraded by the English. For example, when meeting English officers, Saladin tried to claim that he was English – because he truly believed he had transformed himself into a real Englishman – by giving the officers a London telephone number that would supposedly lead them to the "lovely, white, Wife English” (Rushdie 145). However, because Saladin looked Indian, the English officers treated him with disrespect and disgust, because the reality they had subscribed to is one that labels Indians, like Saladin, as loathsome and bestial people Saladins exist all over the world: people deprived of their potential success simply because of the false realities surrounding their culture's identity. It is a deeply rooted and complex belief system, created by the human mind's natural instinct to judge and to stereotype, but it is something that desperately needs to be untangled and eradicated. As Saladin's idea of ​​reality conflicted with and was overtaken by that of the English officers, he was mistreated and degraded. Situations similar to Saladin's exist all over the world. Edward Said, author of Orientalism (1978), shares parallel ideas with Rushdie about the degrading stereotypes and false realities to which most people around the world succumb. Said invents the terms “Orient” and “Oriental” to describe what he calls “Orientalism”. Said argues that the identity of the East is based on a series of refined European misunderstandings. Asia and theMiddle East are represented through the European imagination, and nothing else, regardless of whether Europeans' knowledge is credible and/or even accurate. These often inaccurate and partial perceptions bind Easterners into an inescapable and inferior position, in which they are subject to foreign domination, religious oppression, powerless roles, and unjust and ignorantly conceived stereotypes. Whether the Easterners succumb to this superior force is irrelevant, since the self-acclaimed "superiority" and "knowledge" of the English gives them the power to draw the lines and make the decisions in all Eastern countries. On page 56 of Orientalism, Asia is represented by ideas formed only by outsiders, and more specifically by orientalists. Rushdie explored this idea with Saladin and British officers. Saladin was metaphorically referred to as a monstrous goat-like animal by British officials because of his birthplace and heritage and nothing else. Likewise, Asia “speaks through and by virtue of the European imagination” (Said 56). Whatever European Orientalists consider Asia to be, such Asia will be. Supposedly, as a superior nation, Europe has the power to create and impose these descriptions and stereotypes on Asians, no matter how absurd and crass the descriptions may be. Through ideas conveyed in literature and through word of mouth, Asia is portrayed as unknowable and powerless, while Europeans are the opposite. It is difficult to escape this deeply ingrained description and therefore it is almost necessary for Asians to accept it and succumb to it. All these "realities", however, are simply invented by the orientalist imagination, so how can a large part of the world justify adherence to such degrading so-called realities? Said's ideas on Orientalism connect directly to the theme of the formation of one's own reality. explored by Rushdie. Orientalist views are all created by nothing more than the imagination. “Orient was a scholarly word, meaning what modern Europe had recently made of the East still peculiar” (Said 92). This quote describes the essence of Orientalism well. European orientalists are a group of people who publish facts that are not necessarily even researchable – facts about culture, religion, language – all things that one must experience to truly understand. Therefore, most of the knowledge on which the study of Orientals is based contains information consisting of Orientalist perception and the reality that Orientalists perceive. Orientalists were trained on orientals. In this quote, it is emphasized that the word "Orient" is even a scholarly word. Was the actual name that describes this group of Asian and Middle Eastern people even invented based on the information that orientalists have provided? This quote clearly indicates the likelihood that all of this is false, as it is almost all simply a false reality created on the basis of opinion and perception, including the name 'Orienting' itself. The orientalist imagination is limited by what they actually know. This knowledge does not include knowledge of what Eastern culture is really like because Orientalists have never actually experienced Eastern cultures. Therefore, the misleading realities and stereotypes we subscribe to are all formed from undisputed, false information. There are many realities around the world, as each individual creates their own reality based on their opinions, perceptions and experiences. However, only some realities are seen as powerful and credible, whether they deserve it or not. The reality created by Orientalism is an example of a recognized and dominant perspective. The realitiesdominant are those that circulate most in the world. To demonstrate this point, Said refers to the authority that humanity places on books. Humans doubt themselves so much that they don't trust humanity as a source of information. Human beings need books or texts that assure them that certain truths are, in fact, true. The texts establish laws and say how things should be done, and once the texts are published, the words cannot be changed. Words are tangible and irrevocable. A person's opinion, on the other hand, can change and his words are not tangible. Human beings, therefore, have “a tendency to fall back on a text when the uncertainties of traveling to unfamiliar places seem to threaten one's equanimity” (Said 93). This fact works in favor of Western nations because, since English is the dominant language in many areas of the world, it is English books and films that are most frequently disseminated and widely recognized throughout the world. If humans have a tendency to trust information in books simply because the words are comforting because they are tangible, and if most books are English, then most of the words that individuals around the world will trust will be words of the Western English Nations. African writer Chinua Achebe has similar ideas about the stereotypes created by imperialist Britain. In The African Writer and the English Language (1975), he investigates ideas explored by both Said and Rushdie: ideas about Western perspectives as influences on others' opinions of citizens of potentially less powerful nations. “These nations were created primarily by the intervention of the English, which, I hasten to add, does not mean that the peoples compromising these nations were invented by the English” (Achebe). Achebe makes a very good point that the English did, in fact, build the countries of the East, but that they did not literally invent the people of these countries. Using Said's terms, the present-day Orient – ​​or, in this case, Nigerians – have built themselves through the natural process through which culture arises. Since the English did not “invent” Nigerians, and since the English do not share an identical or even similar culture with Nigerians, the English have no right to claim to understand that culture. This is where Achebe and Said's points meet. The English may have fostered the birth of Nigerian culture and their many colonized nations. However, the English did not experience this birth of culture firsthand. Therefore, categorizing and analyzing these nations by attempting to define their culture is wrong. And subscribing to the false reality that we, as Westerners, are better or superior to all of them, as Easterners, is wrong. It is important to understand Achebe's statement about the role of the British in the development of the countries of the East. And it is important to accept their role only as it is. When Westerners define these Eastern cultures in books and films as “in need of guidance,” “inferior,” or “dependent on our strong and incredible nation,” that's when the line is crossed. No culture can be defined with a simple explanation. No country or individual should be examined because they are from their own country. And no country should attempt to analyze, classify, or dissect the culture of any country other than its own. It doesn't matter that Westerners influenced the development of Eastern countries. Whether or not they have a role in the development of these countries, Westerners will never be able to relate to or understand all the wonders, progress and even difficulties and failures of other countries. It's impossible., 1978.