Salman Rushdie: The Perforated Sheet
Perforated sheets, and anything with holes, really, seem to hold great significance in this story. You first learn of a holed object, when Aadam Aziz’s nose is mentioned. Aziz bumps his nose while praying on his knees, and blood drips from his nose as rubies. After this incident, he vows to abandon religion and never kiss “earth for any god or man.” This decision leaves a “hole in him, a vacancy in a vital inner chamber, leaving him vulnerable…” (1132). This same hole later clogs up with hate– while he knows he is Indian by ethnicity, he identifies with the Western culture more because of the education he received in Germany. I think religion plays a huge role in identity because many of one’s values, morals, and beliefs come from the religion one practices. By choosing not to follow any religion, Aziz creates a “hole” in his identity– which troubles him even years after this decision.
In general, there is much emphasis on Aziz’s nose; it is quite large. Looking like a “mad plantain”, or an elephant’s trunk, one could even cross a river on his wide nose (1135). Because Aziz’s nose is his central feature, the hole in him must be what he struggles most with– his identity is distinctly “holed”.
The nose, as suggested by Tai, is also “the place where the outside world meets the world inside you” (1138). This may mean that the nose is the threshold that filters reality. Maybe the nose controls instinct. Tai shares a story with Aziz of how an officer had a “vegetable” just like Aziz’s, whose nose itched every time it wanted to warn him. Because the officer never listens to his itch, he later kills himself. Does the nose represent intuition– with intuition being a big part of identity?
Later, when Aziz visits a sick patient, he discovers a sheet has been placed over her. The sheet has a hole in it, revealing only the sick area. This perforated sheet makes Aziz appalled, because it only makes sense that a doctor must examine the whole patient in order to find out what is wrong. Ghani sees Aziz’s confusion and tells him that he is not permitted to see his daughter’s body. However, with more frequent visits, Aziz gains permission to view and examine more sacred parts of her body, such as her chest and bottom.
This perforated sheet symbolizes the cultural separation of men and women. The sheet serves as the traditional barrier between both genders, and supports the tradition of strict sexual roles. This perforated sheet also blocks both parties from seeing the whole truth, while it equally successfully hides a part of themselves.
Does the hole in this sheet also symbolize the hole that exists in Aziz? Is he trying to fill up this void with love/lust? Or is this thought too far of a stretch? These are questions I have, since the analyzer in me is inclined to want to connect all “holes” to identity.
3 responses so far
I don’t think it’s much of a stretch to link the hole in the sheet with the hole in his soul. Before going to meet her for the first time, he mentions how he should have listened to his fear telling him to escape, to the itch on his nose. It all makes it seem like meeting and connecting with Naseem was a bad choice in his life. This negative view of the relationship made me think that he was using her to fill the void in himself as well. However, I viewed him as a willing victim; rather than forcefully using her to fill the void, it was done for him by the father. The ending scene where he and the women protectors smile in a somewhat creepy/eery way made me think that they set up the relationship. The fact that she got sick so often made me suspicious. The fact that she was behind a sheet and Aadam could only see parts of her at once, made me think of “Sealed Off”, the moment Zongzhen describes seeing only parts of the girls face at a time from behind an advertisement. To me, it felt the sheet was placed there both to protect the girl and to create this mystique that would help to attract Aadam to him. Perhaps I’m the one reading too much into things.
I definitely think the hole in the sheet is a symbol for the hole the narrator describes in Aadam. The timing of the two occurrences would make sense if that were the case. Once he decided he will not pray anymore he feels a hole, and then the ferry operator comes and brings him to the woman. After seeing her piece by piece he slowly forms a more and more complete image of her and she ends up filling the hole.
The fact that when they finally meet face to face, the first thing she notices is his nose relates her back to Tai because that’s also something that Tai emphasized a lot. You could connect the fact that he always has loved Tai and he now loves her. He was tracing back the reason for his life to how his grandfather met the woman that probably ended up being his grandmother. Since he starts with when Aadam was praying, and the “hole” or void started, it brings the story full circle with how he filled the void.
Great post, Peace.