A123456 The Idiot: An Exploration of the Role of The Idiot as Represented in Three South Asian Literary Texts
Created | Updated Jan 28, 2002
http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A123456
The figure of the idiot seems to take a special place in literature. Shakespear, Faulkner and Steinbeck used it. Dostoevsky named a whole novel after it. Each of those novelists used the concept and character in different manners to satisfy their own reasons and progress of their literature. Shakespear used the idiot as comic relief caricature that usually has a piece of social commentary bunched into a drunken rant. Faulkner and Steinbeck used their Idiots as devices of social commentary as well. Dostoevsky couldn't sneeze with being socio-political In south Asian literature there seems to be a recurring image of the idiot as well. Three specific novels use the character for their own means. Rohinton Mistry's, Such a Long Journey, uses the character of the idiot as a caricature of his main character thereby creating a device for critique. Anita Desai's, Clear Light of Day, uses the idiot as an example of consequence. Salman Rushdie's, Shame, uses the idiot as a pawn in a novel that he wrote to exemplify and criticize the complexities of shame. All three novels use the figure of the idiot as a literary device intended to purvey social commentary of their own. By using the idiot as a literary device, the authors maintain their voice directly from within their own narrative.
Mistry's novel uses the idiot to caricature his main character Gustad Noble. By creating using such a device, Mistry uses the idiot as an embodiment of the theme of romanticism in the novel. A caricature is usually described as an exaggerated, inferior imitation that is distorted for the purposes of satire. In this case, Mistry uses the mentally deficient character of Tehmul Lungraa to satirize Gustad. He does so first on the obvious, physical level so as to draw the reader's attention. Mistry then makes subtle comparisons that lead to conclusions and resolutions regarding the theme of romanticism.
To first emphasis the parallel between the two characters, Mistry draws a physical resemblance. Both characters have sustained an injury to their hips that make them limp. However, Gustad's limp is not very prominent, most of the time. While he received adequate treatment from a folk healer, Tehmul was the victim of sub-par treatment at the hospital. Accordingly, Tehmul's limp is not only pronounced, but, effectually, a caricaturial representation of Gustad's gait. Clearly a physical resemblance is made. By drawing such a parallel between the two characters, Mistry invites the reader to investigate the similarities between them.
Careful consideration reveals that Gustad and Tehmul are closer then one would imagine even after first sighting the physical similarities. Gustad is a character that is lost in a world that he creates through a romanticized vision. This is one of the main themes that is prevalent throughout the novel in many forms. Gustad reminisces about a glorious past that his family once had. Antique shops, bookstores, large feasts, freshly cooked chickens and musical friend families are all a part of what Gustad sees as his glory days. The consequences of his romantic pining culminate in Gustad trying to mold his own family into what he sees as properly fitting his romantic vision. His visions for his family are completely selfish. When his eldest son Sohrab – the same one that he saves earlier – decides that he wishes to continue his Arts B.A. instead of going to the planned technological institute, Gustad is crushed. Sohrab exclaims fervently, "Why can't you just accept it? IIT does not interest me. It was never my idea, you made all the plans"(48). Gustad had great plans for his son. He wanted to fit him nicely into the pretty package that he decided for his family. This is actualized through the metaphor created by his other son, Darius, by trapping beautiful butterflies in a framed casing, symbolized by sheets of blackout paper he places on his homes windows. Gustad lets it be known to his family that it is either his way or the roadway. He demands that they conform to his vision of the family or be out on your ass and disowned as he eventually does to the nonconformist, Sohrab. As he falls deeper and deeper into the conceit that is tearing apart his family, Gustad begins to become an angrier person. When he becomes angry and frustrated he begins to exhibit a more pronounced limp that reminds the reader of his caricature, Tehmul.
Tehmul, can also be read as a romantic, but in a different sense. It is this sense that the reader realizes where Gustad must end his association with Tehmul due to its destructive nature. Tehmul also wants a picturesque family. He tries to achieve this by stealing a life-size doll from the Noble family. Unfortunately for the doll, Tehmul equates picturesque, marital bliss as being related to carnal actions. Gustad finds the doll, naked as the day it was made, on Tehmul's bed, beside a naked Tehmul and barks at him to put his pyjamas back on. Regardless of the obscene images the scene evokes, the narrator takes great care to describe the doll's clothes and jewelry as "neatly draped over a chair by the bed"(302). These are the actions of a gentlemanly caller, even if a somewhat grotesque vision. Tehmul clearly meant no harm, he only wanted a beautiful doll to complete his wishes. At this point Gustad allows Tehmul to keep the doll because he fully understands and one could say that he might even sympathize. This is made evident by the manner with which Gustad reacts to the joy of Tehmul when he hears that his family won't be torn apart, "Very tentatively, Gustad put an arm around [Tehmul] and vaguely patted his shoulder"(304). These are the actions of a man who sympathizes and understands Tehmul. Gustad fears his butterfly is crumbling just like Darius' eventually did. Clearly, the doll can be read as representative of Gustad's family, in the caricatured life represented by Tehmul.
However, there are consequences when Tehmul uses the doll in a selfish manner. He does have good intentions and he does treat her like a lady, complete with care for her clothes. Unfortunately, he ends up soiling her in a manner not pleasant to mention in mixed company. In the same sense, the image that is being caricatured, Gustad, soils his family due to his selfish, romantic ideals. As Gustad becomes more selfish he begins to emulate his own caricature more and more. His limp begins to become more pronounced and he becomes obsessed with Mary Poppins rhymes. The word, "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocius"(231), resembles the mangled manner of speech that Tehmul uses throughout the text. After committing the selfish act of asking for life according to his rules and wishes, to return, the narrator ties him one more time to Tehmul. Babbled speech in an adult is usually associated with childhood regression. Seeing as Tehmul is a childish character trapped in a man's body, another connection between Gustad and his idiot caricature is drawn. In a role reversal, the original model is slowly beginning to look like the caricature that is supposed to emulate him.
Gustad slowly begins to lose the family around him. His eldest son left the house and his two best friends are dead. His wife is none too pleased either. Unfortunately for Tehmul, the moment of clarity and epiphany that leads to Gustad realizing what he has done comes in the shape of a brick that cracks poor Tehmul's skull. Mistry makes a point to differentiate between the two cases of Gustad and Tehmul's accidents with reference to the objects and reasons for them. Gustad was saving his son. Tehmul was saving a kite. The results of both actions are not only injured ligaments but also minds. It is from that point in Tehmul's life that he becomes an "idiot." He then develops a fascination with objects that fly in the sky, just like the kite he was trying to save and butterflies he tries to catch. This obsession eventually destroys his life in the form of that flying brick. Parallel to this, the narrator presents Gustad, who saves his sons life and in effort to continue to guard his butterfly family, by possessing them just as Tehmul tries to catch his own. The narrative itself, warns Gustad by killing his own distorted image. It is as if the narrator is directly telling its protagonist "it is not wise to try and posses the butterfly, you might catch instead a rock." This point becomes evident to Gustad as Tehmul dies. He has tried to control his family by placing them into his selfish scheme and the beauty of the butterfly is rotting just like Darius'. If he had continued as he was progressing, he would have been hit by a metaphorical brick which symbolizes the destruction of his family. Gustad then does what befits a brother and carries the body of Tehmul to his bed to mourn over the loss. Ironically, Gustad uses the same pyjamas that he told Tehmul to use to cover his shame, in replacement of the prayer cap that he misplaced. By doing so, he inadvertently covers his own shame for doing the same thing that Tehmul was guilty of -- he soiled his family and almost destroys it.
Mistry uses his idiot as a caricature that eventually is martyred to continue the cause. Although Gustad looks back on his fathers and grandfather's families with awe and admiration, he did not cry at their passing. He does, however, cry when realizing the possible collapse of his family due to his own devices. This points out to him how much more important his own family is to him, not a glorified past based on romantic idealism. A brick was almost hurled at his head. His obsessions almost led to his own misfortune and he almost grabbed a brick instead of caressing a butterfly. He learns his lesson that neither is a son an object like a kite, nor is a family and object to be put under glass like a butterfly.
Overall, the lesson is learned through the martyr Tehmul and he dies happily knowing that his death had a purpose. He dies with a smile on his face saying, "Gustad. Thank you, Gustad" (334). Tehmul's rambling, almost incoherent speech that was used to signify selfishness in Gustad is gone with the unselfish act of dying for another. Earlier on in the text, Gustad is described as, "one of the few who could decipher [Tehmul's] speech" (32). Perhaps it is so because Mistry's caricatural idiot was speaking only to Gustad. At the end of the narrative,
Gustad removes the blackout paper on his windows and a moth is set free. The obsession that once held Tehmul and, symbolically, Gustad, is set free. The selfish frame is removed. The idiot's example is learned from.
After all that, there still remains an element of Mistry's novel that remains problematic in Indian Literature. If Tehmul Lungraa can be read as a caricature of Gustad Noble, then the Noble family can be seen as a microcosm for current day India. In this system, the older generational, Gustad families pined over by Gustad in admiration must be understood as a representation of the past glory filled days of ancient India. By using this reading, the theme of romanticizing the past comes to the forefront. Continuing the metaphorical allusion, Gustad, representing the people, almost loses his place in current day India because he looks too fondly on the past. He almost does not see what he is missing in the present. Through the aid of a martyred idiot he realizes what form of future might develop due to this lack of proper sight. This issue is brought up by Desai's novel, Clear Light of Day. Once again, in keeping with the theme of this essay, there is an important character that takes on the role of an idiot. As with the last example, Desai uses her idiot to represent a metaphorical parallel toward a certain character. However, she goes one step further and uses the idiot as the ultimate consequence.
The novel relays a story that almost completely revolves around a character named Bim. Just as Gustad Noble, Bim is portrayed as a character that is very set in ways that, if maintained, could lead to negative consequences. Bim lives in a world of disillusion. In the begriming of the text she is portrayed as the last bastion of the old world. She still lives in the house her parents raised her in, in Old Delhi – a place that "does not change" (5). She is almost proud when she claims "here almost nothing happens at all. Whatever happened, happened long ago – in the time of the Tughlaqs, the Khiljis, the Sultanate, the Moghuls"(5). To complete this system, Bim, with a sneer of contempt, creates a juxtaposition of New Delhi where everything happens and nobody is dull and gray. Through most of the novel, Bim plays up her contentment in her situation. However, after delving with the narrator into her past, we see that it cannot be so. Although she seems at first to glorify the ancient surroundings that she has become a part of, the ancient world of Moghul and Sultanic empires, her past shows a much different Bim. The younger Bim is portrayed as a rambunctious young adult who embraces the literature of the new world colonists and secretly mocks her brothers boring old world, Urdu, poetry. The reader gets a sense that the sky could be the limit for the ambitious Bim who wishes to go to school, learn and get a higher education, all characteristics that today's society deem as progressive. Unfortunately, Bim's family crumbles around her at a young age. Both her parents die, her brother runs away to join another family and her sister gets married and moves to Ceylon. She is left in charge of her mentally disabled brother Baba and her ill nanny/aunt Mira. Both of these characters become totally dependant on her and she remains stuck in the home of her childhood. By the end of the narrative, Bim is presented as a character that is rather a bitter, old creature that is stuck in her mire and resentful for being left behind to take care of her brother, mother and aunt. The arrogant Bim slowly begins to realize her faults by the end of the narrative and Desai leaves the reader with a sense that things will change. She loses her anger toward her siblings, especially her brother Raja,
One of the devices that Desai uses to achieve this realization is through Desai's idiot. Baba is a curious character. Unlike his predecessor, Tehmul Lungraa, Baba is not a direct caricature of this novel's example of Gustad, Bim. Rather, he is drawn as an extreme example that is held to Bim, which she realizes by the end of the narrative. Baba is a slow character that probably has a form of autism. Unlike Tehmul, he never speaks in the narrative, although Desai never makes mention that he is unable. His silence is key. The character constantly plays old records, over and over again. When first asked if she minds the noise, " ‘Not any more', [Bim replies], the lightness of her tone carefully contrived. ‘I don't hear it anymore' ". The fact that the narrator added to her response that it is contrived, is the foundation for the argument that Bim is not happy with the state she is seeped in. This culminates in Bim coming to the realization that she is not where she wishes to be. Desai foreshadows the fact by pointing out to the reader that Bim does not wish for such a conservative live as she tries to make everyone believe. As a young girl, she first displayed a distaste for the archaic through her brother's poetry. She prefers modern classics to ancient ones. As she grows older, although she professes to prefer life as it was, she takes care of her house very poorly. The symbols of her childhood home, the rose gardens and plants, are not looked after properly, and the house is falling apart. "Bim is stubborn"(162), the motherly character of Jaya laments. She is stubborn just like Gustad, in Mistry's novel. Both characters pride and stubbornness almost leads to their fall. Gustad was saved by his caricature idiot. Bim is saved by realizing that Baba represents the consequence of her actions.
Baba leads a simple, dull life that can almost be seen as maniacal. The records he plays represent the past and the fact that they are being played over and over again makes the past become duller and duller. Desai presents a character that listens to those records and is stuck, willingly, in his little world, due to his autism. However, the fact that her answer is contrived points out that Bim does not really want to be stuck with her brother, living in a past that is full of old records. She once longed for new records and newer literature, not the old Urdu poetry of her brother. Slowly, but surely, Bim, just as Gustad before her, becomes more and more like her brother. The records play over and over just like Bim tells the contrived accounts of her happiness. Obviously, she is not a happy camper. It all comes crashing down, for Bim, with an event that is paramount. "Then Baba, shaded and sequestered in his own room, played "Don't Fence Me In" once too often. It was what Bim needed to break her in two" (163). Oddly enough, a Cole Porter song, aptly named, is what drives Bim off the edge. Her true emotions start to flow after the confrontation she has with Baba. The reader gets a sense at this point that Bim is beginning to realize what she has become and her anger is immense. Bim ties herself too much to a notion of the past and a glorification of how things used to be. By getting caught in this illusion, Bim slowly becomes just like her brother, a skipping record caught in the past. Had she continued her ways she would have been fenced in, as the Cole Porter standard suggests. She would have ended up just like her autistic brother: caught in the past and incapable of change. This is fine for an autistic person, but for Bim this is disastrous. Suddenly, she can't stand the records her brother plays. They gnaw at her brow. The representation that Desai chooses to symbolize the past being played over and over, ad nauseam, eventually gets to Bim and she realizes that she is starting to turn into her brother, "shaded and sequestered" away in Old Delhi: the record that gets played again and again and nothing ever changes. Most of all, just like her brothers silence, she begins to lose her voice in a family that lives without her. Holding on to this past and trying to fit Gustad Noble's glass frame over it will lead to the same results, namely stagnation and self-inflicted harm. Therefore, the idiot in Desai's novel, as represented in Baba, is used to point out and exemplify stagnation, due to an unprecedented and unhealthy romanticizing of the past. Once again the idiot comes to the rescue to point out the protagonist's faults. Thankfully, the sweet character of Baba, does not have to be martyred to make a point. Ironically, "Don't fence me in," is a song about a cowpoke that begs first the law not to put him in jail then a lover not to ask him to commit, because it's the skies and open road that he loves. However, Baba is not the law nor a lover that wishes to trap cowboy Bim. The only person that holds Bim back is herself.
Although both Tehmul and Baba are used to mirror the protagonists of their respectful stories, the idiot can be used in many other fashions to achieve the same outcome. In Salman Rushdie's novel, Shame, the idiot is not used as a distorted mirror. Instead the character of Sufiya Zinobia embodies an important counterpoint. In the chapter that Rushdie tellingly names, "Behind the Screen," Rushdie reveals his intentions in the novel. The fable telling, first person narrator claims, "This is a novel about Sufiya Zinobia . . . Or perhaps it would be more accurate, if also opaque, to say that Sufiya Zinobia is about this novel"(55). In the world that Rushdie describes, both within the narrative story and the sidebars of nonfiction that he interjects throughout the text, the theme of shame, or lack thereof, plays an important role. Rushdie's idiot, Sufiya Zinobia, is used as the personification of the shame that is so lacking in the context of the novel. Therefore, in this case, the idiot is used as a device whose purpose is to embody what is lacking in the rest of the characters in the novel.
In Rushdie's novel, there is no end to the characters that lack shame. At one point the narrator sardonically refers to the home of these characters as the "town of shame" (50), due to its inhabitants lack of shame. The epitome of these shameless characters is Omar Khayyam. This character is different from the others in the novel because he was intentionally raised with the ideal that his three mothers instilled in him. The main "virtue" that his mothers taught him was to live without shame. He is reared with the ideal that there is a "forbidden emotion of shame" (33). The narrator asks "What's left when sharam [i.e.. shame] is subtracted? That's obvious: shamelessness." In other words, Omar becomes the embodiment of shamelessness. Therefore, unlike the rest of the characters in the narrative (excluding his counterpart Sufiya Zinobia) his lack of shame is due to his mothers teachings. This distinction is what allows him to transcend the rest of the characters, just as Sufiya does. Therefore, the narrative encompasses two figures that transcend the rest of the characters. We have the embodiment of shame, Sufiya Zinobia, and the extreme of shamelessness, Omar Khayyam.
The relationship between the two characters is one of exploration, namely on the behalf of Omar Khayyam. Omar first becomes interested and involved in Sufiya's life through a malady that plagues Sufiya. Omar grows up to be a doctor and a famous immunologist. At one point, Sufiya is brought to him due to her disease. It seems that Sufiya suffers from an odd disease. The narrator puts it best: "Sufiya Zinobia, the idiot, is blushing." She has been plagued with this odd disease since birth when she emerged from the womb burning like "petrol fires"(124). The reason for her blushing is paraphrased by the narrator, "To speak plainly: Sufiya Zinobia Hyder blushed uncontrollably whenever her presence in the world was noticed by others. But she also, I believe, blushed for the world"(124). In the almost shameless world that Sufiya lives, she becomes the receptacle for the shameful emotions "that should have been felt, but were not" (125). By being used as the device that embodies shame, Sufiya becomes what the narrator refers to as a receptacle that receives all the spilled emotion that should have been used for "regret for a harsh word, guilt for a crime, embarrassment, propriety, shame"(125). The result of her being used as a receptacle is seen through her immolation. After all, the narrator points out that "Blushing is slow burning" (126). Just as a good sacrifice should do -- she burns. The burning is symbolized through the universal symbol of shame – the blush. So, "Sufiya the moron blushed" (125). (Note: You have to love Rushdie. His wordings just fall into line). However, the narrator backtracks and claims that it is also "a psychosomatic event. A sudden shut down of the arterio-venous anastomoses of the face folds the capillaries with the blood that produces the characteristically heightened colour"(126). Sufiya Zinobia's disease is listed as a psychosomatic. This greatly interests the physician Omar Khayyam. So it follows that the embodiments of Shame and Shamelessness meet, "As they must because what I have to tell is – cannot be described as anything but – a love story"(126). The relationship between shame and shamelessness will be explored. But first, shame is examined by the one who is shameless. Omar Khayyam is brought the child of shame to try and heal her. He becomes entranced by the realization that Sufiya is "willing the damage upon herself"(147). "Somewhere along the line, it happens. Omar Khayyam falls stupidly, and irretrievably, in love [ with Sufiya]" (148). As the narrator points out, "It's not rational" (148), but it is completely understandable, after all, the concept that opposites attract is not a new one. Eventually, the seemingly improbable marriage of shame with shamelessness is undertaken -- but not consummated. As the narrative progresses, Omar tries to consummate his marriage with his young wife. This is essentially impossible. One cannot force shame to be controlled by shamelessness. The narrator points out that, just like Franz Kafka's character Joseph from, The Trial, dies, "Like a dog . . . as if he meant the shame of it to outlive him," Sufiya Zinobia turns into a dog-like creature to fight the advances of shamelessness. She is eventually drugged, to contain her shame-rage (if I am permitted to coin such a term) and is studied by him who lacks her disease completely, and epitomizes shamelessness – Omar Khayyam. Eventually, his attempts to tame her affliction fails and she escapes, to wreak havoc and strike's fear on the inhabitants of the shameless of the land. She eventually returns by the end of the novel, as if to consummate the marriage. "He stood beside the bed and waited for her like a bridegroom on his wedding night . . . Well wife, so here you are at last" (304), and then she kills him. The final scene of the novel describes the destruction of shamelessness by shame but subsequently "the judges are not exempt from judgement"(304), and she dies with him, literally consumed by what she embodies – shame. Clearly, this marriage was doomed from the start.
This love story is the basis of the power struggle that runs rampant throughout the text.
As his model for criticism, Rushdie uses the example of an East London, Pakistani father that murders his own daughter for bringing what he deemed as dishonor on her family "by making love to a white boy" (117). The narrator expresses his distaste for the actions of the father but also reserves an understanding, and empathy for the killer. By describing himself as a Pakistani father himself and the head of a Moslem household, the narrator claims that he understands where the father is coming from. The support for the father continues even after it is found out that the girl didn't even "go all the way." Effectually, the shame of what might have happened overpowers the truth of what did occur. Clearly, shame is written as a complex issue. The narrator claims that, "My Sufiya Zinobia grew out of the corpse of that murdered girl"(119). He does not claim to have the answers to these questions. He only chooses to write about them. The issues of shame are large, and complex within Rushdie's society. The narrator makes claim that he wanted to write about the girl that was murdered. He even "went as far as to give her a name: Anahita Muhammad"(118). He decided that to do so, he would have to put her into the atmosphere that is most associated with shame, his native country. But by doing so she "caught-brain fever and turned into a sort of idiot" (119). Rushdie did write the story that his narrator pines for. He wrote a novel about the complexities of shame and uses the idiot as a pawn in that battle. Anna lives on in Rushdie's novel. Her situation embodies the complexities of shame. The form of the idiot symbolizes the strength, purity and innocence of the shame that plays a role in the death of Anna. Unfortunately for her, purity turned to puritanism and good intentions turned into a decomposed butterfly.
The question remains, how do all three authors attain characters to properly embody their intentions? Perhaps Rushdie's narrator put it best when he writes that he made Sufiya Zinobia an idiot "to make her pure"(123). All three of the idiot characters used in this paper, Tehmul Lungraa, Baba and Sufiya Zinobia, are pure because as Rushdie's narrator points out "idiots are by definition, innocent" (123). Only by using an innocent character can authors purvey their intentions properly without regard. Had Steinbeck's idiot, Lenny, not been completely pure innocent then the reader would question if he has any motives of his own, like his pal George. The lack of motive and intention in the characterization of the idiot allows for him/her to become a device as the voice of the author. This device is used in the three novels discussed in this paper as direct representations of the authors concerns regarding their own respective societies. Mistry and Desai use the idiot as the voice of concern for India's obsession with the past and Rushdie uses the idiot to discuss his concerns with the concept of shame. Clearly, the idiot is not a character that is to be overlooked and dismissed (with disgusting rationale) as simply comic relief.
The figure of the idiot seems to take a special place in literature. Shakespear, Faulkner and Steinbeck used it. Dostoevsky named a whole novel after it. Each of those novelists used the concept and character in different manners to satisfy their own reasons and progress of their literature. Shakespear used the idiot as comic relief caricature that usually has a piece of social commentary bunched into a drunken rant. Faulkner and Steinbeck used their Idiots as devices of social commentary as well. Dostoevsky couldn't sneeze with being socio-political In south Asian literature there seems to be a recurring image of the idiot as well. Three specific novels use the character for their own means. Rohinton Mistry's, Such a Long Journey, uses the character of the idiot as a caricature of his main character thereby creating a device for critique. Anita Desai's, Clear Light of Day, uses the idiot as an example of consequence. Salman Rushdie's, Shame, uses the idiot as a pawn in a novel that he wrote to exemplify and criticize the complexities of shame. All three novels use the figure of the idiot as a literary device intended to purvey social commentary of their own. By using the idiot as a literary device, the authors maintain their voice directly from within their own narrative.
Mistry's novel uses the idiot to caricature his main character Gustad Noble. By creating using such a device, Mistry uses the idiot as an embodiment of the theme of romanticism in the novel. A caricature is usually described as an exaggerated, inferior imitation that is distorted for the purposes of satire. In this case, Mistry uses the mentally deficient character of Tehmul Lungraa to satirize Gustad. He does so first on the obvious, physical level so as to draw the reader's attention. Mistry then makes subtle comparisons that lead to conclusions and resolutions regarding the theme of romanticism.
To first emphasis the parallel between the two characters, Mistry draws a physical resemblance. Both characters have sustained an injury to their hips that make them limp. However, Gustad's limp is not very prominent, most of the time. While he received adequate treatment from a folk healer, Tehmul was the victim of sub-par treatment at the hospital. Accordingly, Tehmul's limp is not only pronounced, but, effectually, a caricaturial representation of Gustad's gait. Clearly a physical resemblance is made. By drawing such a parallel between the two characters, Mistry invites the reader to investigate the similarities between them.
Careful consideration reveals that Gustad and Tehmul are closer then one would imagine even after first sighting the physical similarities. Gustad is a character that is lost in a world that he creates through a romanticized vision. This is one of the main themes that is prevalent throughout the novel in many forms. Gustad reminisces about a glorious past that his family once had. Antique shops, bookstores, large feasts, freshly cooked chickens and musical friend families are all a part of what Gustad sees as his glory days. The consequences of his romantic pining culminate in Gustad trying to mold his own family into what he sees as properly fitting his romantic vision. His visions for his family are completely selfish. When his eldest son Sohrab – the same one that he saves earlier – decides that he wishes to continue his Arts B.A. instead of going to the planned technological institute, Gustad is crushed. Sohrab exclaims fervently, "Why can't you just accept it? IIT does not interest me. It was never my idea, you made all the plans"(48). Gustad had great plans for his son. He wanted to fit him nicely into the pretty package that he decided for his family. This is actualized through the metaphor created by his other son, Darius, by trapping beautiful butterflies in a framed casing, symbolized by sheets of blackout paper he places on his homes windows. Gustad lets it be known to his family that it is either his way or the roadway. He demands that they conform to his vision of the family or be out on your ass and disowned as he eventually does to the nonconformist, Sohrab. As he falls deeper and deeper into the conceit that is tearing apart his family, Gustad begins to become an angrier person. When he becomes angry and frustrated he begins to exhibit a more pronounced limp that reminds the reader of his caricature, Tehmul.
Tehmul, can also be read as a romantic, but in a different sense. It is this sense that the reader realizes where Gustad must end his association with Tehmul due to its destructive nature. Tehmul also wants a picturesque family. He tries to achieve this by stealing a life-size doll from the Noble family. Unfortunately for the doll, Tehmul equates picturesque, marital bliss as being related to carnal actions. Gustad finds the doll, naked as the day it was made, on Tehmul's bed, beside a naked Tehmul and barks at him to put his pyjamas back on. Regardless of the obscene images the scene evokes, the narrator takes great care to describe the doll's clothes and jewelry as "neatly draped over a chair by the bed"(302). These are the actions of a gentlemanly caller, even if a somewhat grotesque vision. Tehmul clearly meant no harm, he only wanted a beautiful doll to complete his wishes. At this point Gustad allows Tehmul to keep the doll because he fully understands and one could say that he might even sympathize. This is made evident by the manner with which Gustad reacts to the joy of Tehmul when he hears that his family won't be torn apart, "Very tentatively, Gustad put an arm around [Tehmul] and vaguely patted his shoulder"(304). These are the actions of a man who sympathizes and understands Tehmul. Gustad fears his butterfly is crumbling just like Darius' eventually did. Clearly, the doll can be read as representative of Gustad's family, in the caricatured life represented by Tehmul.
However, there are consequences when Tehmul uses the doll in a selfish manner. He does have good intentions and he does treat her like a lady, complete with care for her clothes. Unfortunately, he ends up soiling her in a manner not pleasant to mention in mixed company. In the same sense, the image that is being caricatured, Gustad, soils his family due to his selfish, romantic ideals. As Gustad becomes more selfish he begins to emulate his own caricature more and more. His limp begins to become more pronounced and he becomes obsessed with Mary Poppins rhymes. The word, "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocius"(231), resembles the mangled manner of speech that Tehmul uses throughout the text. After committing the selfish act of asking for life according to his rules and wishes, to return, the narrator ties him one more time to Tehmul. Babbled speech in an adult is usually associated with childhood regression. Seeing as Tehmul is a childish character trapped in a man's body, another connection between Gustad and his idiot caricature is drawn. In a role reversal, the original model is slowly beginning to look like the caricature that is supposed to emulate him.
Gustad slowly begins to lose the family around him. His eldest son left the house and his two best friends are dead. His wife is none too pleased either. Unfortunately for Tehmul, the moment of clarity and epiphany that leads to Gustad realizing what he has done comes in the shape of a brick that cracks poor Tehmul's skull. Mistry makes a point to differentiate between the two cases of Gustad and Tehmul's accidents with reference to the objects and reasons for them. Gustad was saving his son. Tehmul was saving a kite. The results of both actions are not only injured ligaments but also minds. It is from that point in Tehmul's life that he becomes an "idiot." He then develops a fascination with objects that fly in the sky, just like the kite he was trying to save and butterflies he tries to catch. This obsession eventually destroys his life in the form of that flying brick. Parallel to this, the narrator presents Gustad, who saves his sons life and in effort to continue to guard his butterfly family, by possessing them just as Tehmul tries to catch his own. The narrative itself, warns Gustad by killing his own distorted image. It is as if the narrator is directly telling its protagonist "it is not wise to try and posses the butterfly, you might catch instead a rock." This point becomes evident to Gustad as Tehmul dies. He has tried to control his family by placing them into his selfish scheme and the beauty of the butterfly is rotting just like Darius'. If he had continued as he was progressing, he would have been hit by a metaphorical brick which symbolizes the destruction of his family. Gustad then does what befits a brother and carries the body of Tehmul to his bed to mourn over the loss. Ironically, Gustad uses the same pyjamas that he told Tehmul to use to cover his shame, in replacement of the prayer cap that he misplaced. By doing so, he inadvertently covers his own shame for doing the same thing that Tehmul was guilty of -- he soiled his family and almost destroys it.
Mistry uses his idiot as a caricature that eventually is martyred to continue the cause. Although Gustad looks back on his fathers and grandfather's families with awe and admiration, he did not cry at their passing. He does, however, cry when realizing the possible collapse of his family due to his own devices. This points out to him how much more important his own family is to him, not a glorified past based on romantic idealism. A brick was almost hurled at his head. His obsessions almost led to his own misfortune and he almost grabbed a brick instead of caressing a butterfly. He learns his lesson that neither is a son an object like a kite, nor is a family and object to be put under glass like a butterfly.
Overall, the lesson is learned through the martyr Tehmul and he dies happily knowing that his death had a purpose. He dies with a smile on his face saying, "Gustad. Thank you, Gustad" (334). Tehmul's rambling, almost incoherent speech that was used to signify selfishness in Gustad is gone with the unselfish act of dying for another. Earlier on in the text, Gustad is described as, "one of the few who could decipher [Tehmul's] speech" (32). Perhaps it is so because Mistry's caricatural idiot was speaking only to Gustad. At the end of the narrative,
Gustad removes the blackout paper on his windows and a moth is set free. The obsession that once held Tehmul and, symbolically, Gustad, is set free. The selfish frame is removed. The idiot's example is learned from.
After all that, there still remains an element of Mistry's novel that remains problematic in Indian Literature. If Tehmul Lungraa can be read as a caricature of Gustad Noble, then the Noble family can be seen as a microcosm for current day India. In this system, the older generational, Gustad families pined over by Gustad in admiration must be understood as a representation of the past glory filled days of ancient India. By using this reading, the theme of romanticizing the past comes to the forefront. Continuing the metaphorical allusion, Gustad, representing the people, almost loses his place in current day India because he looks too fondly on the past. He almost does not see what he is missing in the present. Through the aid of a martyred idiot he realizes what form of future might develop due to this lack of proper sight. This issue is brought up by Desai's novel, Clear Light of Day. Once again, in keeping with the theme of this essay, there is an important character that takes on the role of an idiot. As with the last example, Desai uses her idiot to represent a metaphorical parallel toward a certain character. However, she goes one step further and uses the idiot as the ultimate consequence.
The novel relays a story that almost completely revolves around a character named Bim. Just as Gustad Noble, Bim is portrayed as a character that is very set in ways that, if maintained, could lead to negative consequences. Bim lives in a world of disillusion. In the begriming of the text she is portrayed as the last bastion of the old world. She still lives in the house her parents raised her in, in Old Delhi – a place that "does not change" (5). She is almost proud when she claims "here almost nothing happens at all. Whatever happened, happened long ago – in the time of the Tughlaqs, the Khiljis, the Sultanate, the Moghuls"(5). To complete this system, Bim, with a sneer of contempt, creates a juxtaposition of New Delhi where everything happens and nobody is dull and gray. Through most of the novel, Bim plays up her contentment in her situation. However, after delving with the narrator into her past, we see that it cannot be so. Although she seems at first to glorify the ancient surroundings that she has become a part of, the ancient world of Moghul and Sultanic empires, her past shows a much different Bim. The younger Bim is portrayed as a rambunctious young adult who embraces the literature of the new world colonists and secretly mocks her brothers boring old world, Urdu, poetry. The reader gets a sense that the sky could be the limit for the ambitious Bim who wishes to go to school, learn and get a higher education, all characteristics that today's society deem as progressive. Unfortunately, Bim's family crumbles around her at a young age. Both her parents die, her brother runs away to join another family and her sister gets married and moves to Ceylon. She is left in charge of her mentally disabled brother Baba and her ill nanny/aunt Mira. Both of these characters become totally dependant on her and she remains stuck in the home of her childhood. By the end of the narrative, Bim is presented as a character that is rather a bitter, old creature that is stuck in her mire and resentful for being left behind to take care of her brother, mother and aunt. The arrogant Bim slowly begins to realize her faults by the end of the narrative and Desai leaves the reader with a sense that things will change. She loses her anger toward her siblings, especially her brother Raja,
One of the devices that Desai uses to achieve this realization is through Desai's idiot. Baba is a curious character. Unlike his predecessor, Tehmul Lungraa, Baba is not a direct caricature of this novel's example of Gustad, Bim. Rather, he is drawn as an extreme example that is held to Bim, which she realizes by the end of the narrative. Baba is a slow character that probably has a form of autism. Unlike Tehmul, he never speaks in the narrative, although Desai never makes mention that he is unable. His silence is key. The character constantly plays old records, over and over again. When first asked if she minds the noise, " ‘Not any more', [Bim replies], the lightness of her tone carefully contrived. ‘I don't hear it anymore' ". The fact that the narrator added to her response that it is contrived, is the foundation for the argument that Bim is not happy with the state she is seeped in. This culminates in Bim coming to the realization that she is not where she wishes to be. Desai foreshadows the fact by pointing out to the reader that Bim does not wish for such a conservative live as she tries to make everyone believe. As a young girl, she first displayed a distaste for the archaic through her brother's poetry. She prefers modern classics to ancient ones. As she grows older, although she professes to prefer life as it was, she takes care of her house very poorly. The symbols of her childhood home, the rose gardens and plants, are not looked after properly, and the house is falling apart. "Bim is stubborn"(162), the motherly character of Jaya laments. She is stubborn just like Gustad, in Mistry's novel. Both characters pride and stubbornness almost leads to their fall. Gustad was saved by his caricature idiot. Bim is saved by realizing that Baba represents the consequence of her actions.
Baba leads a simple, dull life that can almost be seen as maniacal. The records he plays represent the past and the fact that they are being played over and over again makes the past become duller and duller. Desai presents a character that listens to those records and is stuck, willingly, in his little world, due to his autism. However, the fact that her answer is contrived points out that Bim does not really want to be stuck with her brother, living in a past that is full of old records. She once longed for new records and newer literature, not the old Urdu poetry of her brother. Slowly, but surely, Bim, just as Gustad before her, becomes more and more like her brother. The records play over and over just like Bim tells the contrived accounts of her happiness. Obviously, she is not a happy camper. It all comes crashing down, for Bim, with an event that is paramount. "Then Baba, shaded and sequestered in his own room, played "Don't Fence Me In" once too often. It was what Bim needed to break her in two" (163). Oddly enough, a Cole Porter song, aptly named, is what drives Bim off the edge. Her true emotions start to flow after the confrontation she has with Baba. The reader gets a sense at this point that Bim is beginning to realize what she has become and her anger is immense. Bim ties herself too much to a notion of the past and a glorification of how things used to be. By getting caught in this illusion, Bim slowly becomes just like her brother, a skipping record caught in the past. Had she continued her ways she would have been fenced in, as the Cole Porter standard suggests. She would have ended up just like her autistic brother: caught in the past and incapable of change. This is fine for an autistic person, but for Bim this is disastrous. Suddenly, she can't stand the records her brother plays. They gnaw at her brow. The representation that Desai chooses to symbolize the past being played over and over, ad nauseam, eventually gets to Bim and she realizes that she is starting to turn into her brother, "shaded and sequestered" away in Old Delhi: the record that gets played again and again and nothing ever changes. Most of all, just like her brothers silence, she begins to lose her voice in a family that lives without her. Holding on to this past and trying to fit Gustad Noble's glass frame over it will lead to the same results, namely stagnation and self-inflicted harm. Therefore, the idiot in Desai's novel, as represented in Baba, is used to point out and exemplify stagnation, due to an unprecedented and unhealthy romanticizing of the past. Once again the idiot comes to the rescue to point out the protagonist's faults. Thankfully, the sweet character of Baba, does not have to be martyred to make a point. Ironically, "Don't fence me in," is a song about a cowpoke that begs first the law not to put him in jail then a lover not to ask him to commit, because it's the skies and open road that he loves. However, Baba is not the law nor a lover that wishes to trap cowboy Bim. The only person that holds Bim back is herself.
Although both Tehmul and Baba are used to mirror the protagonists of their respectful stories, the idiot can be used in many other fashions to achieve the same outcome. In Salman Rushdie's novel, Shame, the idiot is not used as a distorted mirror. Instead the character of Sufiya Zinobia embodies an important counterpoint. In the chapter that Rushdie tellingly names, "Behind the Screen," Rushdie reveals his intentions in the novel. The fable telling, first person narrator claims, "This is a novel about Sufiya Zinobia . . . Or perhaps it would be more accurate, if also opaque, to say that Sufiya Zinobia is about this novel"(55). In the world that Rushdie describes, both within the narrative story and the sidebars of nonfiction that he interjects throughout the text, the theme of shame, or lack thereof, plays an important role. Rushdie's idiot, Sufiya Zinobia, is used as the personification of the shame that is so lacking in the context of the novel. Therefore, in this case, the idiot is used as a device whose purpose is to embody what is lacking in the rest of the characters in the novel.
In Rushdie's novel, there is no end to the characters that lack shame. At one point the narrator sardonically refers to the home of these characters as the "town of shame" (50), due to its inhabitants lack of shame. The epitome of these shameless characters is Omar Khayyam. This character is different from the others in the novel because he was intentionally raised with the ideal that his three mothers instilled in him. The main "virtue" that his mothers taught him was to live without shame. He is reared with the ideal that there is a "forbidden emotion of shame" (33). The narrator asks "What's left when sharam [i.e.. shame] is subtracted? That's obvious: shamelessness." In other words, Omar becomes the embodiment of shamelessness. Therefore, unlike the rest of the characters in the narrative (excluding his counterpart Sufiya Zinobia) his lack of shame is due to his mothers teachings. This distinction is what allows him to transcend the rest of the characters, just as Sufiya does. Therefore, the narrative encompasses two figures that transcend the rest of the characters. We have the embodiment of shame, Sufiya Zinobia, and the extreme of shamelessness, Omar Khayyam.
The relationship between the two characters is one of exploration, namely on the behalf of Omar Khayyam. Omar first becomes interested and involved in Sufiya's life through a malady that plagues Sufiya. Omar grows up to be a doctor and a famous immunologist. At one point, Sufiya is brought to him due to her disease. It seems that Sufiya suffers from an odd disease. The narrator puts it best: "Sufiya Zinobia, the idiot, is blushing." She has been plagued with this odd disease since birth when she emerged from the womb burning like "petrol fires"(124). The reason for her blushing is paraphrased by the narrator, "To speak plainly: Sufiya Zinobia Hyder blushed uncontrollably whenever her presence in the world was noticed by others. But she also, I believe, blushed for the world"(124). In the almost shameless world that Sufiya lives, she becomes the receptacle for the shameful emotions "that should have been felt, but were not" (125). By being used as the device that embodies shame, Sufiya becomes what the narrator refers to as a receptacle that receives all the spilled emotion that should have been used for "regret for a harsh word, guilt for a crime, embarrassment, propriety, shame"(125). The result of her being used as a receptacle is seen through her immolation. After all, the narrator points out that "Blushing is slow burning" (126). Just as a good sacrifice should do -- she burns. The burning is symbolized through the universal symbol of shame – the blush. So, "Sufiya the moron blushed" (125). (Note: You have to love Rushdie. His wordings just fall into line). However, the narrator backtracks and claims that it is also "a psychosomatic event. A sudden shut down of the arterio-venous anastomoses of the face folds the capillaries with the blood that produces the characteristically heightened colour"(126). Sufiya Zinobia's disease is listed as a psychosomatic. This greatly interests the physician Omar Khayyam. So it follows that the embodiments of Shame and Shamelessness meet, "As they must because what I have to tell is – cannot be described as anything but – a love story"(126). The relationship between shame and shamelessness will be explored. But first, shame is examined by the one who is shameless. Omar Khayyam is brought the child of shame to try and heal her. He becomes entranced by the realization that Sufiya is "willing the damage upon herself"(147). "Somewhere along the line, it happens. Omar Khayyam falls stupidly, and irretrievably, in love [ with Sufiya]" (148). As the narrator points out, "It's not rational" (148), but it is completely understandable, after all, the concept that opposites attract is not a new one. Eventually, the seemingly improbable marriage of shame with shamelessness is undertaken -- but not consummated. As the narrative progresses, Omar tries to consummate his marriage with his young wife. This is essentially impossible. One cannot force shame to be controlled by shamelessness. The narrator points out that, just like Franz Kafka's character Joseph from, The Trial, dies, "Like a dog . . . as if he meant the shame of it to outlive him," Sufiya Zinobia turns into a dog-like creature to fight the advances of shamelessness. She is eventually drugged, to contain her shame-rage (if I am permitted to coin such a term) and is studied by him who lacks her disease completely, and epitomizes shamelessness – Omar Khayyam. Eventually, his attempts to tame her affliction fails and she escapes, to wreak havoc and strike's fear on the inhabitants of the shameless of the land. She eventually returns by the end of the novel, as if to consummate the marriage. "He stood beside the bed and waited for her like a bridegroom on his wedding night . . . Well wife, so here you are at last" (304), and then she kills him. The final scene of the novel describes the destruction of shamelessness by shame but subsequently "the judges are not exempt from judgement"(304), and she dies with him, literally consumed by what she embodies – shame. Clearly, this marriage was doomed from the start.
This love story is the basis of the power struggle that runs rampant throughout the text.
As his model for criticism, Rushdie uses the example of an East London, Pakistani father that murders his own daughter for bringing what he deemed as dishonor on her family "by making love to a white boy" (117). The narrator expresses his distaste for the actions of the father but also reserves an understanding, and empathy for the killer. By describing himself as a Pakistani father himself and the head of a Moslem household, the narrator claims that he understands where the father is coming from. The support for the father continues even after it is found out that the girl didn't even "go all the way." Effectually, the shame of what might have happened overpowers the truth of what did occur. Clearly, shame is written as a complex issue. The narrator claims that, "My Sufiya Zinobia grew out of the corpse of that murdered girl"(119). He does not claim to have the answers to these questions. He only chooses to write about them. The issues of shame are large, and complex within Rushdie's society. The narrator makes claim that he wanted to write about the girl that was murdered. He even "went as far as to give her a name: Anahita Muhammad"(118). He decided that to do so, he would have to put her into the atmosphere that is most associated with shame, his native country. But by doing so she "caught-brain fever and turned into a sort of idiot" (119). Rushdie did write the story that his narrator pines for. He wrote a novel about the complexities of shame and uses the idiot as a pawn in that battle. Anna lives on in Rushdie's novel. Her situation embodies the complexities of shame. The form of the idiot symbolizes the strength, purity and innocence of the shame that plays a role in the death of Anna. Unfortunately for her, purity turned to puritanism and good intentions turned into a decomposed butterfly.
The question remains, how do all three authors attain characters to properly embody their intentions? Perhaps Rushdie's narrator put it best when he writes that he made Sufiya Zinobia an idiot "to make her pure"(123). All three of the idiot characters used in this paper, Tehmul Lungraa, Baba and Sufiya Zinobia, are pure because as Rushdie's narrator points out "idiots are by definition, innocent" (123). Only by using an innocent character can authors purvey their intentions properly without regard. Had Steinbeck's idiot, Lenny, not been completely pure innocent then the reader would question if he has any motives of his own, like his pal George. The lack of motive and intention in the characterization of the idiot allows for him/her to become a device as the voice of the author. This device is used in the three novels discussed in this paper as direct representations of the authors concerns regarding their own respective societies. Mistry and Desai use the idiot as the voice of concern for India's obsession with the past and Rushdie uses the idiot to discuss his concerns with the concept of shame. Clearly, the idiot is not a character that is to be overlooked and dismissed (with disgusting rationale) as simply comic relief.
