RELIGION AND MORALITY IN JOHN
UPDIKE’S ‘A&P’ AND SALMAN
RUSHDIE’S
‘THE PROPHET’S HAIR’.
OLORUNTOLA MUFULIAT OLABISI
07/15CD144
AN ESSAY TO BE SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF
THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE AWARD OF THE DEGREE OF
BACHELOR ARTS OF (HONS) DEGREE ENGLISH.
TO
THE DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE,
FACULTY OF ARTS,
UNIVERSITY OF ILORIN,
ILORIN.
MAY, 2011.
DEDICATION
This project is dedicated to the Almighty Allah, the most gracious, the
omnipotent, the omniscient, the beneficient and the most merciful for His
guidance and protection over me.
Allamdullilahi Robil Allamina.
Oloruntola Mufuliat, O.
ii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT S
I register my sincere and heartfelt gratitude to the Almighty Allah for
sparing my life, strengthening me and bringing me this far in my journey in life.
Allahu Akbar.
To my encouraging and dedicated Supervisor – Dr. O.I.’Dunmade, I say
bless you and your family. Your encouraging words have helped me greatly; they
have given me the strength to go on. Thank you greatly, sir.
I acknowledge the support and financial backings of my loving parents –
Alhaji Mumin & Mrs. Oloruntola; May Allah strengthen you and may you never
witness evil in your remaining years on earth (Amen).
I appreciate my brothers and sisters, and their husbands for their support.
They have been my pillar of strength and my place of succor. May Allah reward
all your efforts in making my life the best it can ever be – Mr. Mutiu & Mrs.
Oloruntola, Mr. Maoroof & Mrs. Seyi Oloruntola, Mr. Murhi Oloruntola, Mr. &
Mrs. Morufat Shobola, Mr & Mrs. Muinat Adetunji; May Allah grant all the good
wishes of your hearts (Amen). My siblings are also not left out; I appreciate their
own supports too. May Allah reward you bountifully – Mrs. Rukayat, Miss
iii
Riamot Oloruntola, Miss Rianat Oloruntola, Mr. Rahmon Oloruntola, Miss Risikat
Oloruntola and my young nieces and nephews.
I appreciate my ever supportive cousin – Dr. Hassan Oloruntola. He has
also been a great pillar of strength. May Allah in his infinite mercy reward your
great deeds and bless you greatly (Amen).
Ukaegbu Maureen, Yusuf Kabeerah, Alao Olayemi, Eboye Happiness,
Onuegbu Christianah, Alaki Shaapera, Suru Bunmi, Ajayi Abimbola, Jimba
Kafayat, Ijaiya Hameedat and others who have contributed their own quota in one
way or the other to the successful completion of this part of my career, I say thank
you, may the merciful God reward you accordingly –
‘A friend in need, they say, is a friend indeed’. For this reason I say thank
you Ademola Yakub Ojomu for all your support. You have been a very supportive
friend.
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CERTIFICATION
This essay has been read and approved as meeting part of the requirements
for the Award of the Bachelor of Arts Degree (Hons.) in the Department of
English, Faculty of Arts, University of Ilorin, Ilorin, Kwara State.
__________________
DR. O.I.’DUNMADE
SUPERVISOR
___________________
DATE
__________________
DR. S.T. BABATUNDE
H.O.D. ENGLISH
___________________
DATE
__________________
____________________
DATE
EXTERNAL EXAMINER
v
ABSTRACT
Religion and morality, considered as two inseparable entities, are central
preoccupations in literature. The two are viable tools in exploring the concerns of
many writers including John Updike and Salman Rushdie. The research examines
religion and morality in two short stories – John Updike’s ‘A&P’ and Salman
Rushdie’s ‘The Prophet’s Hair’. The study adopts formalism, a theory that
examines ‘form’ as related to the autonomy and aesthetics of an art work. The
analysis of the two short stories revealed that the stories are preoccupied with
morality and religion. Updike’s concern is with Christianity while Rushdie focuses
on Islam. Updike explores the idea that what is morally justifiable to one person
may be morally unjustifiable to another while Rushdie treats the question of
morality in the theme of retributive justice. John Updike and Salman Rushdie are
radical writers who deploy religion to examine hypocrisy and retribution
respectively.
vi
TABLE OF CONTENTS
TITLE PAGE
i
DEDICATION
ii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
iii
CERTIFICATION
v
ABSTRACT
vi
CHAPTER ONE
1.0
Introduction
1
1.1
Statement of Research Problem
2
1.2
Purpose of the Study
3
1.3
Scope and Limitation
4
1.4
Justification
4
1.5
Methodology
5
1.6
Authors’ Background
5
1.7
Literature Review
18
CHAPTER TWO
vii
2.0
John Updike’s ‘A&P’
27
2.1
The Plot of ‘A&P’
28
2.2
Thematic Preoccupation in ‘A&P’
29
2.3
The Setting of ‘A&P’
33
2.4
Characterization in ‘A&P”
34
2.5
Language and Style of ‘A&P’
39
CHAPTER THREE
3.0
Salman Rushdie’s ‘The Prophet’s Hair’ – Plot
42
3.1
Thematic Preoccupation in ‘The Prophet’s Hair’
43
3.2
The Setting of ‘The Prophet’s Hair’
48
3.3
Characterization in ‘The Prophet’s Hair’
49
3.4
Language and Style of ‘The Prophet’s Hair’
53
CHAPTER FOUR
4.0
4.1
A Comparative Study of John Updike’s ‘A&P’ and
Salman Rushdie’s ‘The Prophet’s Hair’.
58
Findings
65
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4.2
Summary
65
4.3
Conclusion
66
CHAPTER FIVE
5.0
Recommendations
67
5.1
Bibliography
68
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CHAPTER ONE
1.0
INTRODUCTION
Religion has always been concerned with morality. Indeed, the Ten
Commandments are moral commandments. Much of the life and teachings of Jesus
Christ are concerned with the standards of conduct by which men ought to live. At the
very core of religion is the message that man must live according to the moral standards
of God in order to achieve ultimate salvation.
Early philosophers, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, among them, were concerned
with religion and morality. The earliest dramas of medieval Europe and England were
miracle and morality plays.
Khalid Latif (2008) believes that Islam is a comprehensive way of life, and
morality is one of the cornerstones of Islam. Morality is one of the fundamental sources
of a nation’s strength, just as immorality is one of the main causes of a nation’s decline.
Islam has established some universal fundamental rights for humanity as a whole, which
are to be observed in all circumstances. To uphold these rights, Islam has provided not
only legal safeguards, but also a very effective moral system. Thus, in Islam, whatever
leads to the welfare of the individual or the society and does not oppose any maxims of
the religion is morally good, and whatever is harmful is morally bad.
John Updike and Salman Rushdie, whose short stories have been selected for this
study, are concerned with morality. The society in John Updike’s ‘A&P’ is presented as a
religious one that believes in morality and associates certain values with some moral
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standards. However, the writer uses the major character in the story, Sammy, a teenage
boy, to protest against the belief held by the entire A&P society represented by Lengel,
the manager of the supermarket and his ‘sheep’.
In the same vein, Salman Rushdie’s ‘The Prophet’s’ Hair examines the question
of religion and morality and the writer uses the characters in the story to establish the
theme of retributive justice for good or evil.
Religion and morality will be examined in the two short stories and the formalist
theory will be adopted in the study.
1.1
Statement of Research Problem
Researches have established the role of religion for upholding religious faith and
religious uprightness. The research problem encountered is the people’s perception of
religion, and the belief that it is only through religion that morality can be upheld. There
is also the problem of using religion to inculcate moral values, and the notion and belief
that one’s mode of dressing may be a sign of moral delinquency. The notion that youths
are the moral delinquent ones and the problem of religious uprightness are issues to be
addressed.
These identified problems encountered in the course of the research are critically
going to be addressed. The questions arrived at after identifying the problems are:1. What is the relationship (or the point of contact) between religion and morality?
2. How has religion been able to increase and inculcate moral values?
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3. How can we use religion to address the issue of moral delinquency?
4. What is the difference between religion and religious faith?
These questions among others are going to be addressed in the study of the two
short stories.
1.2
Purpose of The Study
The purpose of the study is to examine religion and morality in the two short
stories: John Updike’s ‘A&P’ and Salman Rushdie’s ‘The Prophet’s Hair’. The study
also aims at examining the narrative elements in the stories.
A short story is one of many narrative structures. Thus, the study will also focus
on the definition as well as the properties of a short story.
1.3
Scope and Limitation
Religion and morality are aspect of human life that are inseparable and should be treated
as a single indivisible entity. Issues of religion and morality have been addressed by John
Updike and Salman Rushdie in their short stories; ‘A&P’ and ‘The Prophet’s Hair’
respectively. The study will therefore, limit itself to identifying the elements in the short
stories that relate to issues of religion and morality. These issues will be addressed and
examined critically in order to establish a relationship with the variables in the research
topic; religion and morality.
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1.4
Justification
‘Religion and morality in John Updike’s ‘A&P’ and Salman Rushdie’s ‘The
Prophet’s Hair’ is a topic which deserves attention. Few researches according to findings
have dealt with the short story. The short story has suffered neglect in criticism.
Researches deal more with the novel, the dramatic and poetic genres and shy away from
the short story. This neglect may have been informed by the fact that the short story
appears flimsy and can be read at one sitting. But the short story is not flimsy. It is a
complex form and incorporates the features of both the novel and poetry. Poetry as we
know is the most complex genre of literature.
Therefore, this research will examine how the authors have addressed the issue of
religion and morality in their works and add to the literature review on the short story and
the two authors: Updike and Rushdie.
Nevertheless, religious groups and the society at large will benefit from this
research, because at the end of the study, the examination of issues in the stories will help
to re-shape their thinking and views on religion and morality.
1.5
Methodology
The research work will adopt the formalist theory. This theory will focus on the
theme of hypocrisy in the short stories selected for study. The thematic concern will
incorporate sub-themes that will revolve around the major thematic focus to create unity
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and establish the relationship between the various sub-themes that will be selected
alongside the major thematic focus.
The formalist theory emanated in France in the 19th century, and the concern is
with structure, form, and aestheticism and involves other sub-elements such as the nature
of imagery, linguistic features and motif.
1.6
Authors’ Background
JOHN HOYER UPDIKE (1932-2009)
John Hoyer Updike was born on March, 1932 in Reading, Pennsylvania. He is
best known as the author of Rabbit, Run. He died on January 27th, 2009.
FAMILY AND MARRIAGES
Updike was the only child of Wesley Russell Updike and Linda Grace Hoyer in
Reading, Pennsylvania and he grew up in a nearby small town-Shillington. The family
later moved to the unincorporated village of Plowville. His mother’s attempts to be a
published writer influenced the young Updike’s own aspirations.
John Updike married Mary Entwisted Pennington in 1953. They separated in
1974 and were divorced in 1976. They had four children: David, Michael, Miranda and
Elizabeth. He later married Martha Bernhard in 1977 and they remained married until his
death in 2009.
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EARLY LIFE AND CAREER
John Updike graduated from Shillington High School as a co-valedictorian and
class president in 1950. He later attended Harvard after receiving a full scholarship. At
Harvard, he immediately established himself as a major talent of indefatigable energy,
submitting a steady stream of articles and drawings for the Harvard Lampoon, which he
served as president before graduating Summa Cum Laude in 1954 with a degree in
English.
After graduation, he decided to become a graphic artist and attended the Ruskin
School of Drawing and Fine Art at the University of Oxford. His early ambition was to
be a cartoonist. After moving to the United States, Updike and his family moved to New
York, where he became a regular contributor to ‘The New Yorker’. He stayed only two
years writing “Talk of the Town’ columns and submitting poetry and short stories to the
magazine. During this time Updike also underwent spiritual crisis suffering from a loss of
religious faith and began reading Soren Kierkeqaard and the theologian, Karl Barth. Both
deeply influenced his own religious beliefs, which in turn figured prominently in his
fiction. He remained a believing Christian for the rest of his life.
Updike’s subject is ‘the American small town, protestant middle - class”. He is
well recognized for his careful craftsmanship, his unique prose style, and his prolificness.
He populated his fiction with characters who frequently experience personal turmoil and
must respond to crises relating to religion, family obligations and marital infidelity. His
fiction emphasizes on Christian theology, sexuality, and sensual details. His highly
xv
distinctive prose style features a rich, unusual, sometimes arcane vocabulary as conveyed
through the eye of ‘a wry intelligent authorial voice’ that extravagantly describes the
physical world while remaining squarely in the realist tradition. He variously described
his own style as ‘an attempt to give the mundane its beautiful due’.
SALMAN RUSHDIE (1947 - )
Salman Rushdie is a famous writer. He was born in 1947 in a Muslim family in
Bombay. His father was a Cambridge –educated businessman. At the age of fourteen,
Rushdie was sent to Rugby School in England. In 1964, his parents moved to Karachi,
Pakistan,
EDUCATION AND CAREER
Salman Rushdie graduated from King’s College, Cambridge, in History with
Honours. After graduation, he worked for sometime in the
television Industry in Pakistan. He made a debut as a novelist with Grimus in 1975. In his
writings, he uses tales from various genres – fantasy, mythology, religion and oral
tradition. Though most of his books have been subject of controversies, in the year 1988,
Salman Rushdie came in the eye of storm with the publication of The Satanic Verses for
its alleged blasphemous remarks on Islam and the Prophet. The entire Muslim world was
enraged at the publication of the novel, The Satanic Verses. This led to the declaration of
xvi
death sentence on him by Ayatollah Khomeini, the then religious sovereign of Iran. This
was when Rushdie went into hiding in London. After remaining in hiding for many years,
Rushdie came out recently.
Rushdie’s work, Midnight’s Children was awarded the Bookers’ Prize in 1993
and this brought him international fame. In 1996, he received the European Union
Literary Award in Denmark. His other works are Shame (1983), The Wizard of Oz
(1992), The Moor’s Last Sigh (1995), amongst others.
MARRIAGES
Salman Rushdie is known for his multiple marriages. In 1976, he married Clarissa
Luard, they had a son from the marriage. Rushdie and
Luard divorced in 1987. He latemarried Marianne Wiggins in 1988, a year after his
divorce with Luard. Wiggins is an American novelist. Rushdie and
Marianne Wiggins divorced in 1993. His third marriage was to Elizabeth West in the year
1997, through which she had a son. But the marriage also hit the rock in the year 2004.
Rushdie’s last marriage, which is the fourth one, is to a prominent Indian model
and actress, Padmalakshmi in 2004. The marriage lasted until the year 2007.
JOHN UPDIKE, SALMAN RUSHDIE AND THE SHORT STORY
Rushdie and Updike are both radical and controversial writers. They are also
writers of short stories. The short story according to Wikipedia, is a work of prose fiction
that is long enough for an average reader to finish it in one sitting rather than several, as
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the longer novel or novella normally takes. This usually means it would be somewhere
under 10,000 words.
Edgar Allan Poe once described a short story or ‘tales’ as they were then called as
a ‘short prose narrative requiring from a half-hour to one or two hours in its perusal….
During the hour, the hour of Perusal, the soul of the reader is at the writer’s control.
There are no external or extrinsic influences resulting from weariness or interruption.
This was taken from a review Poe had made in 1842 of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s ‘Twice –
Told Tales’. This is why it is common to say that a short story should be read at one
sitting. Poe’s comment implies the brevity of many short stories and points to the
economy of management which the tightness of the form always imposes in some degree.
We can say that, by and large, the short story writer introduces a very limited number of
persons, cannot afford the space for the leisurely analysis and sustained development of
character and cannot undertake to develop as dense and detailed social milieu as does the
novelist.
The author of the short story often begins the story close to, or even on the verge
of the climax, minimizes both prior exposition and the details of the setting, keeps the
complication down, and clears up the denouement quickly sometimes in a few sentences.
The central incident is often selected to be as revelatory as possible of the totality of the
protagonist’s life and character, and the details are devised to carry maximum
significance. This sparseness in the narrative often gives the artistry in a well-constructed
xviii
novel. The short story, like the novel, however, has all the elements of fiction. These are:
theme, setting, plot, characterization, language, and point-of-view.
SETTING
This is the time and place or location in which a short story takes place. It is the
background against which the events in the story are built. For some stories, the setting is
very important, while for others it is not.
Akande and Ibrahim (2000, 53) posits that,
Without setting, the story is like a building
without a foundation. No matter how
beautiful a building is, if it lacks a
foundation, its aesthetic and structural
functionality are weakened.
The setting of a short story however is usually strategically chosen and may be
limited to just a few places, and the time setting may be made to run between the time
space of morning, afternoon and night.
THE PLOT
This is the sequential arrangement of a series of events in the story. A story may
be likened to a piece of a new cloth cut into pieces by a tailor to be sewn into a dress. The
pieces are sewn together to make a dress. The complete dress is the plot. The plot may be
xix
sub-divided into three phases-the beginning, the middle, the end and must have a unity.
The short story usually have one plot so it can maintain this unity. There are five essential
parts of the plot: Introduction, rising action, falling action, climax and denouement which
is the resolution of the conflict generated in the climax.
CHARACTERIZATION
What the writer does is to bring into focus how human imagination is physically
entangled in the human character. The author therefore, is working from the point-ofview of an object marked or raised or made by man on a scene and this is worth ten times
any such formed by unconscious nature. There are two meanings for the word
‘character’: the person in a work of fiction and the characteristics of a person. The main
character in a work of fiction is either the antagonist or the protagonist.
Short stories use few characters. One character is clearly central to the story with
all the major events revolving around this character. This character is the protagonist. The
opposer of the main character is the antagonist. Characters are convincing if they are
consistent, motivated, and life-like (resemble real people). There are two major types of
characters, they are round and flat characters.
LANGUAGE
According to Ibrahim and Akande (2000, 57) language is ‘the putting of words
together in order to achieve a piece of creative work”. The setting of a work - rural or
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urban will determine the kind of diction the author will use to describe the attributes that
characterize the place.
THE STYLE
This is where the ‘wholeness of art comes into focus’. Ranging from setting to
denouement, the artist would demonstrate artistic skill. This is the author’s ability to
adapt his language to the material or the idea he is dealing with. Style, therefore, is the
skillful interpretation or coating of one’s thought, idea and feelings in a method that is
peculiar or unique to a particular author. No two authors have exactly the same stylistic
approach to writing. The beauty of any style thus lies in its intelligibility and its
functionality. A novelist primarily uses language imaginatively for aesthetics. Therefore,
without the use of language and other narrative elements, the novelist’s work would not
be different from historical, sociological and anthropological documentations.
THE THEME
This is the message in a work of fiction. It is the central idea of any literary piece.
No literature can exist without a theme or some themes readily presented through the
content of the writing. The mood and tone
can also be easily predicted from the underlining theme. The subject could be the quest
motif; it could be birth or death, guilt or innocence, greed, scapegoatism, rituals,
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sacrifices, and so on. The theme is the minor category of ideas that could be gotten from
the subject which is the central idea.
POINT-OF-VIEW
This is the medium used by the novelist to indicate the mode used by a character
in a particular fictional work. Through this, the author allows the reader to see how a
character expresses his thoughts, feelings, and at times gestures. The point-of-view may
be classified as follows: Innocent eye, the stream of consciousness, the first person pointof-view, and the omniscient point-of-view.
The short story differs from the novel and the novelette, though the three are
fictions. The critical consciousness of the short story as a piece of fiction distinct in
purpose and in method from the novel dates only from the nineteenth century. It was
Edgar Allan Poe who first designated and realized the short story as a distinct form of
literary art.
A true short story is something other and something more than a mere story which
is short. A true short story differs from the novel chiefly in its essential unity of
impression. In a far more exact and precise use of the word, a short story has unity as a
novel cannot have it. Often, it may be noted by the way the short story fulfils the three
false unities of the French classic drama: it shows one action, in one place, on one day. A
short story deals with a single character, a single event, and a single situation. The short
story is the single effect, complete and self-contained, while the novel is of necessity
broken into a series of episodes. Thus, the short story has what a novel cannot have -the
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effect of totality, as Poe called it, ‘the unity of impression’. The short story is not only not
a chapter out of a novel or an incident or an episode extracted from a longer tale, but at its
best it impresses the reader with the belief that it would be spoiled if it were made larger,
or if it were incorporated into a more elaborate work. It may be said that no one has ever
succeeded as a writer of short stories who had not ingenuity, originality, and
compression, and that most who have succeeded in this line had also the touch of fantasy.
The main aim or technique of a short story therefore, is to produce a single
narrative effect with the greatest economy of means that is consistent with the utmost
emphasis.
The short story as said earlier has a single narrative effect. A narrative effect
necessarily involves the three elements of action, character, and setting. In aiming to
produce a narrative effect, the short story, therefore, differ from the sketch, which may
concern itself with only one of these elements without involving the other two. The
sketch most often deals with character or setting divested of the element of action, but in
the short story, something has to happen. Short stories, therefore, may be divided into
three classes, according to the effect which they wish to produce: is it primarily an effect
of action, or of character, or of setting.
Summarily, the short story is a work of prose fiction, and most of the terms for
analyzing the component elements, the types, and the various narrative techniques of the
novel are applicable to the short story as well. The short story differs from the anecdote –
the single and unelaborated narration of a single incident – in that it organizes the action,
xxiii
thought, and interactions of its characters into the artful pattern of a plot. As in the novel,
the plot form may be comic, tragic, romantic, or satiric. The story is presented to us from
one of many available points-of-view, and it may be written in the mode of fantasy,
realism or naturalism. The authors of the short story often use symbols and recurring
images to help convey the ideas. This can take the form of personification. These are
called narrative figures.
1.7
LITERATURE REVIEW
Obasola, cited in Dopamu (2003, 201) posits that the need for morality in the
society has assumed a wider dimension especially in its relationship with the religious,
political and economic related issues. This portends that the quest for morality is an
indispensable fact of human existence. It will suffice to note that morality is not an
abstract phenomenon but a real practical means of developing the sense of justice in the
people as a prerequisite for social solidarity, welfare and happiness in the society. Thus,
morality is so crucial, not only to the individual, but also to the society at large.
The imperative of morality, therefore, is to establish the justifiability of an action,
whether an action is well motivated or comprehensible. Hence, the hallmark of morality
in any human society is to regulate those spheres of human life and conduct which no
other aspect of human endeavor can curtail. It also regulates the personal and
xxiv
interpersonal relationships of people within an established social milieu thereby paving
the way for social harmony, which engenders socio-political development.
Consequently, the development of persons – socially, politically, economically,
and so on; will be incomplete without the ‘guiding light of morality’.
Therefore, any human organization where morality is extricated from the body
polity will inexplicably lead to perdition.
Obasola states further that ethics and morality are used interchangeably. In other
words, they are used as synonyms. Ethics, as such, has been defined as,
The branch of philosophy that is concerned with
what is morally good and bad, right and wrong.
In the same vein, ethics considers social forms
and institutions from the point-of-view of
their completeness and coherence as expressions
of human nature. It asks whether the social
life is the best or the only life for a human soul.
(Hastings, 415)
Adewale (1997, 72) defines religion as,
The means of communion and communication
between the human and super human beings,
between the sensible and the super-sensible,
between the finite and the infinite, between
xxv
the visible and the invisible, in one word,
between man and God.
Religion is an intrinsic aspect of every human life and it forms the essential bed-rock
upon which people’s moral and social obligations are based.
Richardson (1948, 125) claims that morality is a product of religion. It is God
who puts in people the sense of what is right and what is wrong, thereby bringing about
the sense of obligation. This is clearly stressed by Alan Richardson when he states that,
The sense of obligation to do that which is
believed to be right is, infact, the pressure
of God upon every human life.
Brunner (1947) and Barth (1938) corroborate and support the concept of morality
by Alan Richardson. This means that morality is indeed the idea of God, who has imbued
people with the consciousness of distinguishing right actions from wrong ones.
Therefore, we assert that morality and religion are two sides of a coin and one cannot be
divorced from the other.
In Wikipedia, however, the idea that morality can be divorced from religion is
dealt with by several prominent scholars as well as more popular culture – based writers.
But the idea remains in the realm of a debate. Several figures from religious traditions
have stated that while the non-religious can and do act morally, the idea of morality and
abstract standards of good and evil cannot exist without some kind of religious
components. For example, Irish–born British academic and writer C.S Lewis’s argument
xxvi
in Mere Christianity that if a supernatural, objective standard of right and wrong does not
exist outside of the natural world, then right and wrong becomes mired in the is-ought
difficulty. Thus, he wrote that preferences for one moral standard over another become as
inherently indefensible and arbitrary as preferring a certain flavour of food over another
or choosing to drive on certain side of a road.
In Google, Irfan Hussain (2010), an Islamic scholar in his article ‘Morality and
Atheism’, has cited an array of facts and figures to assert his point that despite rising
agnostic or atheistic trends in secular Europe, those societies demonstrate better standards
of morality as opposed to corrupt and decadent religious societies. This proves, according
to Hussain, that there exists no direct link between religion and morality, and that atheism
as opposed to religion, is equally moral, if not more.
Most thinkers regardless of their Western or oriental affiliations, assent to the fact
that the human being is morally neutral, with both the capacity to do good and the instinct
to commit evil. This inherent moral neutrality emphasizes the importance of external
influences; surroundings and milieu which will in large part determine whether the
individual exercises his will to enact good or evil. The surah that supports this
explanation is the Qur’an in Surah Shams : ‘And indeed he has aspired it (the human self)
with evil and with God consciousness (or goodness)’. The verse after this states : ‘Indeed,
he is successful who has purified it (from evil)’.
The necessity of this act of purification to restrain the evil impulse and the
importance of the social milieu to facilitate the process through external stimuli is central
xxvii
to the Islamic understanding. As the human being is capable of destruction and harm for
selfish ends, he needs to be reined in through the presence of social institutions that guard
the moral values and the inner moral imperative that comes from belief. Mr. Hussain
asserts the preposterousness of the fear of punishment and the incentive or reward as the
basis of morality, believing morality has a scientific and logical basis. The need and
desire for retributive justice, thus goes deep within the concept of morality and religion.
In other words, being good is sensible as it helps maximize happiness and minimize
suffering, and the system ought to ensure this, so that people make the rational choice to
behave morally.
SALMAN RUSHDIE: THE CONTROVERSIAL WRITER
Rushdie has come under criticism as a writer, especially of The Satanic Verses,
that generated crisis. Even before the publication of The Satanic Verses, his books stoked
controversy. Rushdie himself saw his role as a writer ‘as including the function of
antagonist of the state’.
Vehement protest against Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses began with the title itself
(especially as translated into Arabic), which Muslims found incredibly sacrilegious, and
took to mean the book’s author claimed the verses of the Qur’an, in fact the whole book,
was ‘the work of the Devil’. The title refers to an alleged incident in the ministry of the
Prophet Muhammad when a few verses were supposedly spoken by Muhammad as part
xxviii
of the Qur’an and then subsequently withdrawn on the grounds that the devil had sent
them, deceiving Muhammad into thinking they came from God.
Rushdie recalls the days when activism among minority groups in Britain was
largely secular Asian left politics and he reacts to the different reactions of the Muslim
societies by stating that what happened in response to The Satanic Verses demonstrated
the beginning of a new era, (Wikipedia).
Rushdie believes that it would be vain to say that he stimulated the rise of Islamic
radicalism, but he was the prefix that they (the Islamic community) found. He believes
what happened with The Satanic Verses helped into a religious discourse.
Salman Rushdie’s ‘The Prophet’s Hair’ is a short story that explores religion. The
story is a moral fable in the tradition of The Thousand and One Nights and a magic realist
extravaganza, packed with incident, poetic details, and humor, all brilliantly interwoven
at breakneck speed.
JOHN UPDIKE: AUTHOR OF RABBIT, RUN
Updike’s Rabbit, Run is one of his novels that generated controversy. Updike has
recorded success and got to the peak of his career working at ‘The New Yorker’, his
dream job, writing ‘Talk of the Town’ items, short stories and poems but was dogged by
controversies in his writing.
A crisis came in 1959, when his publisher, Alfred A. Knoff urged him to
expurgate the explicit sex scenes in Rabbit, Run his first major novel. A story of adultery,
xxix
it was daring at a time when American courts were still deciding if Lady Chatterley’s
Lover D.H Lawrence’s long – suppressed novel, should be considered obscene. Within a
few years obscenity standards relaxed and Updike restored the original language,
carefully pasting typed insertions in the margins of an early printed edition preserved in
the Houghton archive. Some of Updike’s last letters, written when his two sons and two
daughters were grown, weigh the painful cost those closest to him paid for his high
ambition and his remorseless work habits; success brought compromises. Eventually,
sexual adventure, often rendered with graphic directness would become a staple of
Updike’s fiction, as his mission to record the protestant ethics met the upheavals of the
sexual resolution.
The formalist theory adopted for critical analysis is described by Wellek (1971) as
a movement in Russian literary circle which dates back to 1916-1935. The criticism is
concerned with the nature of literature and literary craft, rather than with its sociology.
The school focuses on the art of literature, which is described a process of
‘automatisation’. According to the formalists, literature ‘creates a reality of its own and it
must avoid, at all cost a confusion of realms with life, reality and history’. The idea of
formalism was born in France in 1833, Edgar Allan Poe picked up the idea and Charles
Baudlaire was its proponent.
The other schools of formalism are: The New Criticism, Russian Formalism and
Structuralism. The New Criticism is a 20th century movement in the American literary
xxx
criticism. The movement emphasizes that a literary work is autonomous from culture,
sociology and biography.
The New Criticism tried to displace content in literary analysis and, therein, to
treat a work’s form in a manner analogous to empirical research. The Russian formalism
began in 1915 and the formalists sought to move away from the nineteenth century
romantic attitudes in criticism and to avoid all romantic notions about poetic inspiration,
genius or aesthetic organism. Instead, these formalists adopted a deliberately mechanistic
view of poetry and other literary art as the product of craft, (David and Schleifer, 1989,
21).
Eagleton (1989) opines that structuralism grew out of Russian formalism. The
school of structuralism felt that ‘structure’ does more justice to the totality of the work of
art and is less weighed down by suggestions of externality that ‘form’ carries.
The pure formalist criticism is adopted for the critical analysis of the work. The
elements the formalists use in critically examining literary work will be used to develop
the theme of morality in the course of this research. These elements include – theme, plot,
characterization, language, setting, structure and other rhetorical devices.
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CHAPTER TWO
2.0
RELIGION AND MORALITY IN JOHN UPDIKE’S ‘A&P’
John Updike’s ‘A&P’ provides numerous perspectives for critical interpretation.
His descriptive metaphors and underlying sexual tones are just the tip of the iceberg. A
gender analysis could be drawn from the initial outline of the story and Sammy’s
chauvinism towards the female. The sexual and sensual exploration of characters have
become a typical line in Updike’s fiction. He also explores this in his ‘A&P’. Further
reading opens up a formalist perspective to the work. The economic and social
differences are also evident through Sammy’s story telling techniques and even further
opens up a look at Updike’s own views and opinions.
John Updike’s ‘A&P’ is a short story written in 1961 in which the hero and first
person narrator seemingly takes a stand on his version of what is right, but only with
some dire consequence. M. Gilbert Porter (1972) referred to the titular ‘A&P’ in
Updike’s story as ‘the common denominator of middle-class suburbia, an appropriate
symbol for (the) mass ethic of a consumer – conditioned society; According to Porter,
when the main character chooses to rebel against ‘A&P’, he also rebels against his
consumer – conditioned society and in so doing he ‘has chosen to live honestly and
meaningfully’. Porter by this conclusion suggests ‘A&P’ is also preoccupied with
morality but he does not discuss the theme.
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William Peden (1964), on the other hand, referred to the story as ‘deftly narrated
nonsense … which contains nothing more significant than a checking clerk’s interest in
three girls in bathing suits’. This does not seem to be true of Updike’s ‘A&P’ because the
author uses the A&P society to represent a class, while he carefully selects the three girls,
alongside Sammy to represent another class. These two classes thus share different
notions of what morality is. The story is not just about three girls in bathing suits, but
about notions of morality, class conflict and difference.
2.1
THE PLOT OF ‘A&P’
In John Updike’s short story, ‘A&P’, the main character, Sammy discovers a
beauty unlike anything he has ever seen in his small town before. The teenage clerk in an
A&P grocery is working the cash register on a hot boring day when three young girls
about his age enter barefoot and clad only in swim suits to purchase herring snacks.
Although they are dressed for the beach, they appear in a supermarket. While the
girls are shopping, Sammy appraises them sexually in the manner of teenage boys. He
gives details of the girls’ appearance and imagines why they are dressed as such. Sammy
is shaken when the leader of the trio, a stunning girl he has dubbed ‘Queenie’, speaks in a
voice unlike that he had created in his mind. Her
voice kind of startles him, the way voices do when one sees the person first, because it
comes out so flat and dumb and yet kind of too tony too. Lengel, the manager, feels that
the girls are not decently dressed to come into the grocery store. He admonishes them,
saying ‘Girls, this isn’t the beach’, that they should have their shoulders covered next
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time or have them refused service. Sammy believes Lengel’s approach embarrasses the
girls and that it also offends them by injuring their pride and dignity and tells him that.
Lengel and Sammy disagree on the matter and the latter thus ‘ceremoniously’ removes
his store apron and bow-tie and resigns on the spot. Sammy leaves expecting some
display of affection, appreciation or heroism from the three girls involved, but finds that
they have already left, apparently oblivious of his presence.
2.2
THEMATIC PRE-OCCUPATIONS IN ‘A&P’
The principal pre-occupations in Updike’s works are religion, sexuality, and the
family in America. His fiction is distinguished by its attention to the concerns, passions,
and sufferings of average Americans. ‘A&P’ however, concisely sets up the oppositions
between several motifs: conservatism versus liberalism, the working class versus the
upper class and the individual versus the collective. But central to A&P’s is the question
of morality.
‘A&P’ is a story about an average boy in the midst of various adolescent changes
such as hormone, job anxiety, and disdain for authority, as well as hypocrisy which is a
strong force that works together with other lesser forces that causes Sammy to quit his
job.
Interpretations of ‘A&P’ depend to some degree upon the reader’s understanding
of the reason for Sammy’s hasty decision to quit his job. Some argue that he is truly
rebelling against the disparagement of the young girls by the puritanical manager, while
xxxiv
others feel that he quits due to misguided self-interest in hopes that the girls will notice
him. Critics have often viewed Sammy’s gesture as quixotically romantic, since he gains
nothing through his decision except the loss of his job, (Enotes.com). Whichever
interpretation the critic opts for, one can appreciate the fact that Sammy questions A&P’s
perception of morality.
The question of morality is a major theme which the author of ‘A&P’, John
Updike, tries to enunciate. The A&P society believes a man (human being) is decent and
morally upright if he dresses in a manner. This theme is evident in the character of
Lengel and the ‘sheep’. The ‘sheep’ and Lengel share the same view on what morality is
in their actions and reactions when the girls in bathing suits enter the A&P supermarket.
Lengel and the ‘sheep’ typify the people who link morality with dressing in a particular
way. This attitude is evident in their negative perception of the girls. Lengel for instance,
goes on to address the girls in an insulting and embarrassing manner saying A&P has a
policy people must conform to in the supermarket. He says,
Girls, I don’t want to argue with you,
after this come in here with your
shoulders covered. It’s our policy.
(p. 209)
What Lengel and his ‘sheep’ fail to realize is that what is policy for one person
may not be so for another. Sammy’s rebellious attitude points to this. Sammy identifies
with the girls who Lengel believes belong to the juvenile delinquent group and lack
xxxv
morals and religious uprightness. Sammy reacts to what Lengel says about the A&P
policy saying,
That’s policy for you. Policy is what the kingpins
want, what others want is juvenile delinquency. (p.209)
Lengel believes the A&P society has a policy on dress code and associates dress
code with moral standards. Sammy however, does not agree with this notion, and to show
this, he quits his job. Sammy supports the girls and shares their worldview. He says, ‘I
look around for my girls but they are gone, of course’. This statement shows that he
shares the girls’ sentiment, dress code and their view and is of the opinion that their
manner of dressing does not mean they are not decent. Sammy and the girls belong to a
class in that one society, and represent a world John Updike is advocating for.
A&P society links morality and decency with the way and manner a person is
dressed and judges human character and personality by their mode of dressing. It judges
man from the outside and not from the inside. But Sammy does not share this view and
appears Updike’s spokesperson. Updike is suggesting that we are not morally loose by a
singular act of dressing. The hypocritical nature of the A&P society is evident in
Mcmahon. He can be grouped under Lengel’s society because of his age and other
factors. He is seen patting his mouth and looking at the girls, sizing up their joints. This
society judges the girls as indecent because of their mode of dressing, but Mcmahon, an
elderly man in the A&P society lusts, but is not judged. The old woman ‘about fifty’
whom Sammy attends to is not better. She gives Sammy a little snort in passing, an act
xxxvi
that would have had her burnt if she had been born ‘at the right time in Salem’. The
society fails to judge these immoral acts.
John Updike in his story presents two different classes and age groups and views
on moral standards. On the one hand, are Lengel, Mcmahon, the ‘sheep’, and the ‘witch
about fifty’ who represent the hypocritical A&P society while on the other hand is
Sammy, and the three girls in bathing suits who represent another generation, who
disagree with the concept of morality and decency by Lengel’s group. Lengel’s
generation represents the adult/older generation that believes Sammy’s generation
(younger generation) are moral delinquents because of the way and manner they dress,
but Sammy’s generation shares the opinion that dressing as the only parameter for
judging decency and moral uprightness is not wholly right, because the way a person
dresses does not determine his moral decency and uprightness. John Updike is thus an
advocate for the younger generation.
2.3
THE SETTING OF ‘A&P’
‘A&P’ is a supermarket. It is located in a small coastal town which is five miles
from the beach. The proximity of ‘A&P’ to the beach is significant. It allows the
possibility of people appearing in bathing suits the way the girls do. The story is set on a
Thursday afternoon when there happens to be less patronage which creates boredom in
the entire atmosphere, especially for Sammy.
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‘A&P’ is set against a religious background. This is evident because of the
presence of Lengel, who is the Sunday-school teacher and thus, is the ‘shepherd’ of the
‘sheep’ who are the customers in A&P. The presence of only one congregational church
also sets the story firmly in a religious society. The various controversies generated in the
arguments that ensued in the A&P supermarket revolve around the issue of religiousness
and the concept of morality by the two groups in the story. Their arguments on what
morality is or should be thus make the story have a religious setting.
Also, brandnames appear throughout A&P, setting the story firmly in the post war
period of American prosperity, when a flood of consumer goods hit the markets and
advertising became a persuasive force. These brandnames among others are Hiho
crackers, Diet Delight, Peaches, Kingfish Fancy Herring Snacks.
2.4
CHARACTERIZATION IN ‘A&P’
John Updike portrays few characters but develops only some of them. This is
typical of short stories where the author only develops the major character that he weaves
the story around, and ceases to develop the characters that have little or no significant
roles to play in the story. In ‘A&P’, Updike develops Sammy and some characters.
The characters in the story are Sammy, Lengel, Queenie, Plaid and Big Tall
Goony Goony, Stokesie, Mcmahon and the ‘sheep’ - the A&P customers.
SAMMY
He is the main character from whose point-of-view the story is told.
xxxviii
The reader does not learn his name until the end of the story. He is
the narrator of the story. He is a checkout clerk at A&P supermarket. He is nineteen,
observant, cynical and romantic. He notes for instance, that there is a contrast between
his world and that of Queenie just from her purchase. He vacillates back and forth
between extremes of opinion during the story. He quits his job in an effort to be a hero to
the girls and as a way of rebelling against the strict society. In a sudden moment of
insight – an epiphany – he realizes ‘how hard the world is going to be to me here after’, if
he refuses to follow the policy of A&P.
LENGEL
He is the Manager of the local A&P. He spends most of his days behind the door
marked ‘Manager’. He represents the ‘shepherd’ of the ‘sheep’ because he is a Sunday
school teacher in the only congregational church in the A&P society. He is a sentimental
and ‘pretty dreary’ man, who believes moral uprightness, is measured by the way a
person is dressed and not necessarily from the way a person behaves. He is introduced
near the end of the story. He represents the system – economic, social, religion,
management, policy, decent, and the way things are. However, he is not a onedimensional character. He has known Sammy’s parents for a long time, and he tells
Sammy that he should at least for his parents’
xxxix
sake, not quit his job in such a dramatic, knee-jerk way. He seems truly concerned even
while he feels the needs to enforce management policy.
QUEENIE
Queenie is the name Sammy gives to the pretty girl who leads her two friends
through the grocery store in their bathing suits. Sammy has never seen her before but
immediately becomes infatuated with her. According to Sammy, she is regal and
tantalizing in appearance. She is somewhat objectified by nineteen year-old Sammy, who
notes the shape of her body and the seductiveness of the straps which have slipped off her
shoulders. In her manner of dressing, she defies convention, Queenie appears to belong to
the upper-middle class world of backyard swimming pools and fancy ‘hors d’oeuvres’.
PLAID AND BIG TALL GOONY GOONY
The above are the nicknames Sammy gives Queenie’s friends, who are somewhat
more uneasy about their inappropriate attire. Plaid is a plump, pretty girl in a two-piece
bathing suit; Big Tall Goony Goony is cynically observed by Sammy to have a sort of
striking features other girls pretend to admire because they know she is no real
competition to them (although he concedes that she is not bad looking on the whole).
STOKESIE
He is another character in ‘A&P’. He is twenty-two, married and has two
children. He works with Sammy at the A&P checkout. He has little to say or do in this
story, but like Sammy, he observes the girls in the store with interest. He is a glimpse of
xl
what Sammy’s future might be like; ‘Stokesie’s family is the only difference’ between
them, Sammy comments.
MCMAHON
He is an elderly man. He is one of the minor characters in the story. He plays only
a little but significant part in the story. He displays the hypocritical nature of the adult’s
world when he sizes up the girls’ joints and pats his mouth. He abuses the girls sexually.
He belongs to the society of Lengel – the strict, judgmental and hypocritical society.
THE SHEEP
The other characters in the story are presented as the ‘sheep’. The ‘sheep’ are the
customers of A&P. They are presented as dummies in the way they push their carts down
the same aisle, though there is no one – way sign. They also all bunch on Stokesie on
seeing a scene. They are also a ridiculous lot because they are the set of people that will
not notice the explosion of a dynamite if set off in the A&P while they are shopping, but
on the entrance of the three girls in bathing suits into the A&P supermarket, start jerking,
hopping, hiccupping, and snapping their eyes.
Updike shows class contrast using Sammy and Queenie’s world. Sammy is a
member of the low class, the working class. His world is characterized by lack and want
– this is suggested when he is about to quit his job. Lengel, the manager tells him then
that he would be hurting his parents by quitting his job. From Lengel’s statement,
Sammy’s parents may probably depend on his earnings to support the family.
xli
The Kingfish Fancy Herring Snacks in pure sour cream purchased by Queenie
take on a symbolic value in Sammy’s eyes when he hears Queenie explain that she is
buying them for her mother. The snack cost 49₡. Instantly, Sammy has a vision of the
kind of party at which such herring snacks would be served, and it is a world away from
the parties his own parents throw. Sammy mentally contrasts the white jackets, herring
snacks, and sophisticated cocktails of Queenie’s social set with the lemonade, Schiltz
beer (a working – class brew), and novelty glasses of his own parents’ group. This
contrast shows that Queenie’s social status and Sammy’s are worlds apart.
2.5
LANGUAGE AND STYLE OF ‘A&P’
Language in ‘A&P’ is creatively selected by the author. Metaphors, sexual tones,
hyperboles that also generate humour, play on words (pun) and other literary devices are
used to weave the story to achieve its desired effect on the human society.
The author uses hyperbole and weaves it to generate humour, when Sammy says
‘the witch about fifty has been watching cash registers for fifty years’. This is hyperbolic
and it also generates humour because it means the woman has been watching cash
registers from the very day she was born and this is not possible. Thus, the hyperbole
here generates humour.
The author also employs metaphor. This is evident where Sammy tries to calm
‘the witch about fifty’ down saying,
xlii
By the time I got her feathers smoothed and
her goodies into a bag-she gives me a little
snort in passing, if she’d been born at the right
time they would have burned her over in Salem.
(p.205)
Sammy compares the woman to a bird with his choice of words ‘by the time I got
her feathers smoothed ….’ This comparison is direct and metaphorical.
The author also uses metaphor to expose the hypocritical nature of the society.
The ‘sheep’ in the story is a literary use of language. The image of the ‘sheep’ keeps
recurring in the story. The motif refers to the customers that line-up in one particular aisle
as if there is any rule that stops them from moving in different aisles. This is the use of
language to describe the foolishness of all the customers who react stupidly to the three
girls’ entrance but who, if a dynamite explodes in an A&P would keep shopping.
John Updike symbolizes the generation of Lengel as ‘sheep’. This symbolism
represents a set of people who are not creative and behave as if they do not have a mind
of their own – for as we know, ‘sheep’ follow each other about like dummies. The motif
of ‘sheep’ also relates to Lengel who is a Sunday – school teacher. Lengel is thus
suggested as the shepherd and the customers who apparently attend his church are the
‘sheep’. The motif, thus acquires a religious meaning and has a derogatory connotation.
In pun, a word pattern may suggest two different words or meanings. The author
plays on a phrase in – ‘at the right time’. This expression could mean different things. It
could refer also to a wrong time for the woman’s manner of behaviour.
xliii
Inherent in the narrative figure is a historical allusion. The author alludes to
American history when he states that the woman’s snort would have gotten her to be
burnt over in Salem. Salem was a settlement in USA where at a point anybody discovered
to be a witch was burnt at the stakes.
John Updike’s adoption of rich literary devices are done artistically and
systematically in order to add a flowery and concrete beauty to the words employed in
achieving the overall artistic effect of the story.
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CHAPTER THREE
3.0
RELIGION AND MORALITY IN SALMAN RUSHDIE’S ‘THE PROPHET’S
HAIR’.
PLOT
Salman Rushdie’s ‘The Prophet’s Hair’ was published in East, West, 1994. It is a
short story. The story takes place in Srinagar during a fierce winter when Hashim, a
money lender comes upon a glass jar containing a silver hair from the Prophet
Muhammad (PBUH). It was stolen only the day before from the Hazratbal Mosque and is
faced with an important decision. Hashim knows that the right thing to do is to return the
hair to the mosque. However, being a collector of artifacts, he decides to keep the glass
jar and convinces himself that by doing so, he is a ‘finer server’ to the Prophet. The
decision causes many strange changes; Hashim becomes violent and insulting towards his
family, telling his wife that ‘their marriage had been the worst of his afflictions’ and
admitting his adultery with hired women, his constant visit to paid women in brothels,
and also his having a mistress. Hashim also insults his son and threatens to disown his
daughter if she continues to go about bare faced.
These new developments makes Atta, the money lender’s son feel he must do
something before everything gets out of hand completely. He recognizes that his father
has a spell on him cast by the hair. Atta attempts to steal the hair from his father in the
hope to rid him of his rage but he loses the jar through a hole in his pocket. Hashim finds
it again and takes it, and outraged, turns on Huma his daughter and demands to know
xlv
what happened. To put an end to the development, Atta then attempts to seek out a
burglar to steal the hair for the second time, but fails and is seriously beaten. Then Huma
now attempts to hire a professional burglar, Sheikh Sin, to steal the hair from their home.
On the night of the robbery, everything turns badly. Atta dies mysteriously;
Hashim kills Huma by accident, discovers this and commits suicide. Sheikh Sin is trailed
and found. The jar is found from the pocket of Sin and is returned to its resting place.
Sheikh Sin receives punishment for his deeds. Although the jar causes so much havoc to
Hashim and his family, it brings a miracle to Sheikh Sin’s family. The night Sheikh Sin
steals the hair home, his four crippled sons are healed; his wife, once blind is blessed and
her vision is restored.
3.1
THEMATIC PRE-OCCUPATION IN ‘THE PROPHET’S HAIR’.
The theme of Salman Rushdie’s ‘The Prophet’s Hair’ is religious hypocrisy. The
theme is however linked with the question of morality.
Religious hypocrisy is a major theme in the story. Hashim, the money lender
appears a religious man but does not act like a Muslim. He keeps saying that ‘while he is
not a godly man, he sets great store by living honourably in the world’. Yet, he lives a
hypocritical life. Hashim’s hypocritical nature is revealed when he comes in possession
of the jar of hair. The magic hair seeks to transform him but he does not bend and so he is
xlvi
broken. The hair compels Hashim to state who he truly is, his actual feelings regarding
his family members, his constant visit to paid women and his having a mistress.
Sheikh Sin ‘The thief of thieves’ also claims to be a Muslim but he fails as one.
He is a failed Muslim like Hashim. He is a burglar and has committed a great sin by
crippling his four sons at birth, according to him, to provide them with a means of having
a life – time income. He is a man with no fear of God. He accepts Huma’s lavish reward
to steal.
Hashim is worldly. His worldliness and not living according to moral codes and
upholding religious doctrine leads to the calamity that befalls him. It is his act of not
seeing the religious value attached to the relic but seeing its worldly value of being an
object of ‘rarity and blinding beauty’ which makes him resolve not to return it to its
devout worshippers and that is what causes the catastrophe for him and his family.
Sheikh Sin’s lack of religious faith makes him cripple his sons and accepts to rob
Hashim of the relic. His profession (robbery) is one greatly frowned at by God and is
considered evil. He robs people of their possessions and leave them in grief. He accepts
to steal the jar of hair, and by so doing visits judgment upon himself.
The author presents class differences in the story. Two families from two different
classes are depicted in ‘The Prophet Hair’. Hashim, a wealthy man, with his family lives
in a spacious lakeside residence, while Sheikh Sin, a poor man, with his own family lives
in the ‘insalubrious gullies of Kashmir’. Hashim is from the upper –class while Sin is
xlvii
from the lower – class (lumping proletariat). The author compares Hashim’s world and
Sheikh Sin’s and reveals that both are cheats, greedy, worldly, unreligious and sinners.
The author is saying in essence that it is not only the act of being poor and
deprived that makes a man immoral and behave ungodly and dishonourably, and that
even the rich in the upper society may exhibit less or more vices than the poor man. The
author lifts the lower society above the upper society when he makes the family of Sin be
blessed and Hashim’s family perish.
From the foregoing, we can say that ‘The Prophet’s Hair’ is basically written to
revolve around morality. The hair symbolizes the law of retributive justice – that the
wicked/unrighteous shall be punished and the good/righteous shall be rewarded. We take
for instance, Hashim’s home. Hashim claims he is a Muslim, but he is wrong on many
fronts and he pays for his misdeeds with the calamity that befalls him and his entire
household. Sheikh Sin is also punished for his wicked deeds because he is evil. His sons
are however presented as righteous and devout men, desiring to make the pilgrimage to
Mecca, the Holy land, some day and so is his wife, who is also presented as a religious
woman. For this she and her sons are blessed by the magic of the vial of hair.
Rushdie’s story is preoccupied with morality. The story has to do with ‘principles
concerning right and wrong, good and bad behaviour, (Oxford Advanced Learner’s
Dictionary).
In Nuttal (1993), morality is concerned with,
right and wrong, good and bad, virtue and
xlviii
vice, with judging what we do and the
consequences of what we do.
In other words, morality as depicted by Salman Rushdie in ‘The Prophet’s Hair’ is
based on character judgment, human behaviour – evil or good and the consequences of
these behaviours.
‘The Prophet’s Hair’ significantly explores the question of morality. The issue is
overtly depicted throughout the story. It is more a moralistic fairy tale using religious
elements. A silver vial containing a famous relic brings catastrophe upon the greedy,
(Google).
In Rushdie’s story, his characters are in constant moral dilemma when faced with
the relic of “The Prophet’s Hair’. Rushdie also recasts the relic from holy relic to secular
icon by removing it from its religious framework. This is done by Rushdie to stress the
significance of morality in the story: reward for good and punishment for evil. The hair is
removed from the mosque, where it is a religious relic and is placed into the hands of a
money lender, where it is viewed as a prized possession for its rarity and monetary value.
Then it is stolen by the thief, Sin, who views it as a means to gain some retirement
benefits, again a monetary value and avoid an ignominous death.
Rushdie systematically and artfully rotates the hair between the family of Hashim
and Sheikh Sin, both unreligious Muslims, cheats and sinners. The two families
especially Hashim’s family and Sheikh Sin have both done evil deeds and according to
moral codes and standards, they stand short and both receive punishment for their deeds.
xlix
This is the lesson from morality. The flower vendor performs a holy act of helping
someone in distress, a good act, and he is rewarded for his deed. Sheikh Sin’s sons and
wife set great store by living righteously and are rewarded, but Sheikh Sin, Hashim and
his family are not righteous, they live dishonourably, and for this they are punished.
3.2
THE SETTING OF ‘THE PROPHET’S HAIR
The story takes place in the disputed state of Kashmir. The setting in Kashmir
combines its genuine social engagement with a refusal to positively identify a moral high
ground.
The author systematically sets the story to revolve around the world of Hashim - a
spacious lakeside residence and the world of Sheikh Sin – ‘the insalubrious gullies of
Kashmir.
The story – ‘The Prophet’s Hair’, has a religious background. The story is set
within an Islamic society. The presence of the Hazratbal mosque attests to this and so
does the reference to pilgrimage to Mecca. Sheikh Sin’s four crippled sons show their
wish to one day make the pilgrimage to the Holy land, Mecca. The story also presents
devout Muslims who are looking for the relic. Also, the story has a firm religious root in
Islam with the mention of the Prophet Mohammad (SAW) himself.
Hashim, the money lender, and Sheikh Sin, ‘The thief of thieves; two families
whose backgrounds contrast are Muslims, though they do not uphold the Islamic moral
l
teachings and moral codes religiously. All these among others, give the story a religious
atmosphere.
3.3
CHARACTERIZATION IN ‘THE PROPHET’S HAIR’.
The author makes use of few characters to fulfil the demands of the short story.
He develops only the significant characters in the story and makes the minor characters
appear briefly and disappear once they have no more roles to play. The florist for instance
is a minor character and the author makes him appear briefly in the story. When the
florist has no more important role to play in the story, the author sees no need in keeping
him any further.
The other characters in the story are Hashim, Sheikh Sin, Atta, Huma and other
minor characters.
HASHIM
Hashim is a moneylender and an art collector. He is not a religious but a worldly
man. He is also an hypocrite who claims that by keeping ‘The Prophet’s Hair’ for its
great value, he performs ‘a finer service’ than he would by returning it. Hashim is a
wealthy, greedy, promiscuous and ungodly man. His greedy nature lands him into all the
calamities that befall him and his family. He is also a cheat, he loans people money and
charges an interest rate of over seventy percent, so that they find it hard to pay and
remain indebted to him forever. He is a self-satisfied hypocrite with two spoiled,
Westernized children.
li
The author describes ‘the glassy contentment of the household of that life of
porcelain delicacy and alabaster sensibilities’, breakfast conversation is ‘filled with those
expressions of courtesy and solicitude on which the family prided itself’ as things that
mark Hashim’s family out as the likely object of satire.
ATTA
He is Hashim’s son who sees the need to get rid of the relic because it has started
causing chaos in his family. Atta makes his first attempt to rid his family of the relic and
sneaks into his father’s room, being the only son and having an access to the room, but
the relic gets lost through a hole in his pocket. Having failed, he then seeks out a thief to
come and rob his father of the relic of ‘The Prophet’s Hair’ but he is beaten and robbed.
He is rescued back home by a flower vendor who finds him groaning on the deserted
embarkment of the water. At the end of the story, he receives his punishment and dies
after being unconscious for a long time.
HUMA
She is Hashim’s daughter. She is disowned by Hashim for deciding to go against
his order and go about bare faced dishonouring him. She is the one that finally seeks the
thief, Sheikh Sin, to come and steal the jar of hair in order to put an end to the calamity
befalling her family. The mission to rob Hashim of the relic fails on the night of the
robbery and it spells doom for Hashim. She is mistakenly stabbed by her father and thus
takes her punishment.
lii
SHEIKH SIN AND HIS FAMILY
Sheikh Sin and his family are another point of satirical contrast. Sheikh Sin cheats
people robbing them of their possessions. He is a ‘professional’ burglar or robber. He
also values riches above all else. He commits the greatest sin of crippling his four sons at
birth, believing he has done an excellent job of preparing his children for a life long
employment. He thinks that by crippling them, he provides them with a means of
livelihood. He shows ‘a parents’ absolutist love’ by crippling his children so that they
would be more effective beggars. Sin is also a sick man and thinks by robbing Hashim of
the relic and claiming Huma’s lavish rewards, he is going to have a one last taste and feel
of wealth. But, he ‘performs a ‘finer service’ when the relic he brings under his roof,
miraculously heal his sons, enable them regain the use of their legs and restore his blind
wife’s vision.
Sheikh Sin is discovered with the hair by the Deputy Commissioner of Police,
Huma’s uncle, who is alerted after the tragic occurrence at Hashim’s house. Sin is shot;
the hair is retrieved from his pocket and returned to its resting place – the Hazratbal
mosque.
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DEPUTY COMMISSIONER OF POLICE
He is a minor character in the story. He is Huma’s uncle with
whom she lodges a letter to be opened in the effect that she fails to return to her home
when she goes out on the mission to seek out the thief. He is alerted on the night of the
robbery at Hashim’s house, opens Huma’s letter and reads it and then goes in search of
Sheikh Sin. He finds him and shoots him, retrieves the hair and returns it to its devotees.
His character and role is open to different interpretations. One could say his allegiance is
to the law, or rather to justice, which is another significant motivator. He seems to be the
personification of government in the society.
THE FLORIST
He is a minor character in the story. He is the one that rescues Atta, whom he
finds lying prone with deathly pale skin, but still sees the sheen of wealth on him. He
rescues Atta home on his boat and is given a large tip by the family. His role is a minor
one and the author makes him disappear as soon as his role is performed.
MULLAHS.
They are minor characters in the story. They are the Muslims that worship at the
Hazratbal mosque where the relic of ‘The Prophet’s Hair’ is stolen. They are the ones
looking for the relic so as for it to be returned to its resting place. They are the devotees
of the relic – ‘The Prophet’s Hair’.
liv
They are presented as ‘the valley’s holiest men’: when the hair is found, they are called to
come and authenticate it; and it is returned to its rightful place – the Hazratbal mosque.
3.4
LANGUAGE AND STYLE OF ‘THE PROPHET’S HAIR’
‘The Prophet’s Hair’ is rich in other narrative elements, such as language,
contrast, humour, suspense, irony, and other poetic elements.
The author selects his words carefully to fit class distinction, as well as to
accommodate the different issues addressed in the story. He uses words like – ‘wretched’,
‘disreputable’, ‘corrugated iron’, ‘insalubrious gullies’, ‘burglar’, etc to describe the part
of town where the poor community inhabits. The author now through language choice
contrasts the setting by selecting finer words to describe the environment where the rich
live. Words like ‘unmistakable sheen of wealth’, ‘beautiful’, ‘wealthy moneylender’,
‘lakeside residence, ‘porcelain delicacy’, ‘personal Shikara (boat), bear the difference
out.
The author also shows contrast in characterization. He depicts two social classes
in the story. The class distinction between Shiekh Sin and Hashim is done very artfully.
Hashim belongs to the rich (upper class) society, surrounded by helps and maids and
lives a sophisticated life. He is also a money lender. He is contrasted with Sheikh Sin,
who is a ‘professional’ burglar or robber. Sin’s life is characterized by lack and want and
he is even a sick man who is in dire need of money to live just one last good life before
he dies. Sheikh Sin’s children are beggars as opposed to Hashim’s children who display
lv
the aura of ‘unmistakable sheen of wealth’. Also, Sheikh Sin’s wife is a blind ‘raggy’
woman as opposed to Hashim’s classy and sophisticate wife. Sheikh Sin, lives in the
gullies while Hashim lives in a spacious lakeside residence.
The author also uses a literary technique and a telescoping device to fulfil the
principle of the short story to ensure brevity. The florist appears in the story when the
need arises and is dispensed with when the need ends and he ‘plays no further part in our
story’. The author also uses this same technique to explain Huma’s intention of visiting
the gullies without necessarily giving another elaborate explanation, but merely
connecting her visit to Atta’s first visit. The author summarizes her mission thus:
… and her question was the same as
her brother’s and asked in the same low,
gravetones ‘where may
I hire a thief?
(p. 2739)
Rushdie uses suspense in the story. It is the style of language which the author
uses to sustain the attention of the reader, and excite his or her interest. The author uses
this to introduce a part of the city where a character that will later play an important role
in the story lives,
… the most wretched and disreputable
part of the city received a second unexpected
visitor.
(p.2739).
lvi
Rushdie employs humour, a technique used to generate laughter or reduce
tension, in the story. The author uses this when Huma refers to the burglar’s household
‘as some sort of employment agency’. This generates humour. It sounds funny that a
burglar can openly declare an act of robbing others a profession.
Irony is employed in the story. It is evident in Huma’s statement, in which she
declares her identity and makes reference to a letter she lodges with the Deputy
Commissioner of Police,
… and a letter has been lodged with the Deputy
Commissioner of Police, my uncle, to be opened
in the event of my not being safe at home by
morning. In that letter, he will find details of my
journey here, and he will move heaven and
earth to punish my assailants.
(p. 2740)
This statement by Huma is ironic for it is pretty peculiar for someone who is
trying to hire a crook to invoke the protection of an uncle who is the Deputy
Commissioner of Police.
Also it is ironic that a man who is not godly will set great store by living honourably in
the world. This irony is inherent in Hashim’s character,
Hashim is fond of pointing out that while he
was not a godly man, he sets great
store by living honourably in the world. (p. 2741)
lvii
There is no honour in a man who lacks the fear of God and charges people he
loans an exorbitant interest.
‘The Prophet’s Hair’ is symbolic. It symbolizes morality: an agent of justice or
retribution. The hair is magical. Its magical power is evident in many ways. Firstly, it
transforms Hashim’s home and personality. With the hair under Hashim’s roof, Atta who
had been unconscious on the night of the burglary sits upright in his room as if pulled by
a force stronger than him, and shouts ‘thief’ thrice just when the thief breaks in and dies.
Secondly, the night the hair sleeps in Sheikh Sin’s home, his four crippled sons regain the
use of their legs and his blind wife, her sight.
The author makes absolutely sure that the hair comes into the possession of
Hashim the moneylender, and Sheikh Sin – ‘The thief of thieves’. The author rotates the
hair and makes sure it touches both on the rich and the poor background. At the end of
the story, it is crystal clear what the author’s intentions are: The author uses the hair to
expose hypocrisy in the two families and symbolize justice. Justice is delivered to the two
respective families and worlds – rich and poor in the story.
Summarily, no human behaviour goes unnoticed by God, and every act of living
in this world are recorded and rewarded accordingly by God who keeps complete record
of every good and evil act perpetuated by every human being.
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CHAPTER FOUR
4.0
A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF JOHN UPDIKE’S ‘A&P’ AND SALMAN
RUSHDIE’S ‘THE PROPHET’S HAIR’.
John Updike and Salman Rushdie are both radical writers. Updike’s works are
written to protest either against a held belief or certain issues that relate to religion.
Updike’s works are based on Christian ethics and it reflect Protestantism. Salman
Rushdie, on the other hand, is a writer who uses his works to radicalize Islam. He uses his
works to radicalize Islamic ethics and morals. The two authors – Updike and Rushdie, are
radical writers who explore religious issues.
Updike and Rushdie have written works that stoke controversy. Updike is
popularly called the author of Rabbit, Run and this is because the story has generated
controversy. The controversy generated by the story is the explicit sex scenes in the story.
Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses is a controversial novel which caused uproar in the Islamic
society for its blasphemous remarks about some verses in the Holy Qur’an and about the
Prophet. The author, Rushdie, claims the Qur’an, actually some verses of the Qur’an
were revelations from the devil, so condemning those verses. The story outraged the
entire Muslim society and a death sentence was declared on him and caused him to go
into exile for several years.
Updike and Rushdie aim at radicalizing religion. Some of their works have
sometimes been traced to be directed towards the satirization of the religious society. In
lix
Updike’s ‘A&P’, the author protests against the held notion of morality. A&P society is
largely presented as a hypocritical one and the author protests against its values using the
character of Sammy. Sammy serves as Updike’s spokesperson. Rushdie’s ‘The Prophet’s
Hair’ satirizes an Islamic society in order to identify the basis for morality and moral
standards. The author presents two families from whose point – of – view he presents the
theme of retributive justice, reward for good and punishment for evil.
‘A&P’ and ‘The Prophet’s Hair’ depict class differences. In ‘A&P’, Updike
presents two classes and predicates their differences on age groups and idea of morality.
Updike systematically uses Lengel and the ‘sheep’ to represent a class in A&P society
which shares the same view on the concept of morality, while he uses Sammy, the
protagonist, and the three girls Sammy identifies with, to represent another class. Sammy
and the girls have the same views of what morality is. Updike is an advocate for the
younger generation – the generation of Sammy and the three girls. Updike presents
another class difference and separates the upper society from the lower society. Sammy
psychologically differentiates his class from Queenie’s through her purchase of Fancy
Herring Snacks. He pictures the kind of party where such drink would be served as
opposed to the parties held by his parents where only working class brews are served.
Salman Rushdie also presents class differences in ‘The Prophet’s Hair’. The
author uses Hashim to represent the upper class, while Sheikh Sin represents the lower
class. Hashim in the story ‘The Prophet’s Hair’ is a moneylender who wallows in wealth,
he lives in a spacious lakeside residence. He is also an art collector with two westernized
lx
spoilt children. Hashim’s world and class is in contrast to Sheikh Sin’s who is a
professional burglar. He lives in the insalubrious gullies of Kashmir characterized by rot
and decay, lack and penury. This contrast in class is systematically done by Rushdie to
show a clear difference between the two groups involved.
From the foregoing, it is evident that the two authors are not only concerned with
religion and morality, but are also interested in the class system in the society. This is
portrayed in their focus on the major class systems in the society – the upper and the
lower class.
Both authors at the end of the story identify with the lower class. This is evident
in ‘A&P’ because Updike presents Sammy who represents the lower class and the
younger generation as the hero and so appears to advocate for Sammy’s class. In
Rushdie’s ‘The Prophet’s Hair’, some characters among the lower class are portrayed
positively and are rewarded. The florist is rewarded and so are Sheikh Sin’s sons and
wife. This signifies that Salman Rushdie also identifies with the lower class in the
society.
The two stories – ‘A&P’ and ‘The Prophet’s Hair’, are different in other respects.
Updike’s story explores the question of morality through the theme of hypocrisy in
‘A&P’, while Rushdie’s ‘The Prophet’s Hair’ examines the issue of morality through the
theme of retributive justice. The theme of hypocrisy in ‘A&P’ is based on the belief on
dress code as the basis for morality. ‘The Prophet’s Hair’ explores the theme of
retributive justice in the character of the two major figures in the story – Hashim and his
lxi
family and Sheikh Sin and his family. Hashim is a worldly, selfish, wealthy man, he did
not act righteously in the story and he and his family are punished accordingly. Sheikh
Sin is a burglar who is also rightly punished while his righteous sons and wife are
rewarded according to their good deeds.
Though the two stories use religious symbolism, they explore different symbols
for different ends. Updike’s ‘A&P’ symbolizes the customers in the A&P society as
‘sheep’. They are characterized as dummies and people with no mind of their own. They
rely on the general belief on dress code and morality that is held to be correct in their
society. In ‘The Prophet’s Hair’, the relic is a religious icon. The Prophet’s hair is a
symbol of justice to sinners and the upright. The hair punishes or rewards characters as
appropriate.
Updike’s ‘A&P’ is a realist fiction. The story explores realistic issues that affect
human thinking in the society. Realism means the visual art in literature that aids the
depiction of subjects as they appear in everyday life. Realism is also a style in art or
literature that shows things and people as they are in real life. Updike presents us with
how the human mind works and treats issues affecting the human society. The author
depicts the controversy surrounding dress code and morality and advocates against a
superficial perception of morality.
Rushdie’s ‘The Prophet’s Hair’ blends magic with realism. It is in a magic realism
mode. Magic realism is an aesthetic style or genre in literature in which magical elements
are blended into a realist atmosphere in order to access a deeper understanding of reality.
lxii
These magical elements are explained like normal occurrences that are presented in a
straight forward manner which allows the ‘real’ and the ‘fantastic’ to be accepted in the
same stream of thought. It has been widely considered a literary and visual art genre,
(Wikipedia).
Rushdie blends magic with reality in order to radicalize the Muslim society. He
uses ‘The Prophet’s Hair’ as a magic icon and blends the supernatural with reality to treat
issues that he addresses. The author uses this religious icon to address the issue of
materialism and retributive justice.
Rushdie’s ‘The Prophet’s Hair’ is overtly didactic. The story not only addresses
the question of morality, but also aims at educating the human society on retributionreward for good and punishment for evil. The story is a moral lesson to the entire society,
it teaches the need to exhibit a good moral behaviour.
Updike’s ‘A&P’ is not overtly didactic. The author writes the story to satirize the
Christian society but we can tease from it some moral lessons. It teaches the need to be
careful in condemning human beings. The story also teaches the need not to always judge
others by their outward appearance.
‘A&P’ thrives greatly on allusion. Updike alludes to history and the Bible. He
alludes to Salem, a settlement in USA where anyone discovered to be a witch was burnt
at the stakes. The essence of this historical allusion is to create a link between the
religious present and a religious past. The Biblical allusion in the story is the reference to
the ‘Shepherd’ – Lengel of the ‘sheep’ – A&P customers. Lengel, the A&P manager is
lxiii
presented as a Sunday school teacher and there is only one church in that society. This
suggests that he is a shepherd at the only congregational church in A&P society. The
customers in A&P apparently are members of his church. So they are Lengel’s sheep
since they are presented as ‘sheep’. In the Bible, the pastor or religious leader is seen as
the ‘shepherd’ and the church members, the ‘sheep’.
Rushdie’s ‘The Prophet’s Hair’ relies greatly on contrast in the story. The author
contrasts the upper class society, represented by Hashim and his family with the lower
class society, represented by Sheikh Sin and his family. The author contrasts the two
classes and employs words like ‘ugly’, ‘insalubrious’, ‘wretched,’ and so on to describe
the lower class society, while he uses words like ‘beautiful’, ‘wealthy,’ and so on, to
describe the upper class.
Rushdie and Updike also use ‘telescoping device’ to achieve brevity in the story.
Rushdie deploys the technique in characterization. The florist is characterized in a
manner that fulfils the principle of brevity in the short story. He appears only briefly in
the story and the author makes him disappear when his role has been performed.
In ‘A&P’, Updike uses ‘compounding’ as a telescoping device in presenting
setting. For brevity and economy, the author lists the goods on an aisle in the
supermarket, turns the list into a descriptive device and saves the reader the elaborate
details of the girls’ movements from one variety of good to another. Sammy says,
… and they all three went up the oat –
and – dog – food – breakfast – cereal – macaroni –
lxiv
rice – raisins – seasonings – spreads – spaghetti –
soft – drinks – crackers – and – cookies aisle.
(p. 206)
In the shortest means possible, Updike gives a list of the variety of consumer
goods A&P provides.
4.1
FINDINGS
The analysis of the two short stories have established the fact that morality can
mean different things to different people because what is morally justifiable to one person
may be morally unjustifiable to another.
4.2
SUMMARY
The belief in the existence of God and partaking in worship is not the same as
having the inner instinct to do good or evil. Though the two major religions (Islam and
Christianity) preach the need for human beings to do good, but it is not every individual
that upholds the doctrine of what his religion preaches upholds moral standards.
John Updike and Salman Rushdie, in their two short stories – ‘A&P’ and ‘The
Prophet’s Hair,’ display their concept of ‘religion and morality’. In Updike’s ‘A&P’, the
author shows that morality can mean different things to different people. Rushdie in ‘The
Prophet’s Hair’ teaches the need to always be righteous and uphold moral standards,
draws attention to retributive justice, an underscoring theme of morality and stresses that
there is a reward for good and punishment for evil.
lxv
4.3
CONCLUSION
John Updike and Salman Rushdie are writers whose works explore religion and morality
and whose works have also stoked controversy. They write within different religious
experiences. Updike writes within a Christian background; Rushdie does as an Islamic
writer. They have agreed that being religious may not necessarily be being moral. They
both support the common man and write in this vein.
lxvi
CHAPTER FIVE
5.0
RECOMMENDATION
The concept of morality and religion has been linked to the development of a
society. Therefore, for a society to develop, the moral aptitude of its members is essential.
There is no gainsaying the fact that Nigeria is on the verge of moral collapse and
this level of moral decadence has reached an alarming and disturbing proportion which is
unhealthy for national development. There is the urgent need therefore for a reengineering, a re-orientation and a refocusing on our moral uprightness. Morality should
be inculcated into every fabric of our life and imbibed for peaceful co-existence.
lxvii
5.1
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