Satanic Verses
Discipline: English
Type of service: Essay
Spacing: Double spacing
Paper format: MLA
Number of pages: 5 pages
Number of sources: 1 source
Paper details:
This essay is about the novel: Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie. Please choose one of the following prompts for the essay. Use strong textual evidence (rather than plot summary) and a strong thesis (and not merely describe the events of the narrative). I uploaded a file of the book to help you with the textual evidence.
Prompts:
- Are there ideas or arguments in the novel that seem to indicate that there might be value to censorship? What is the difference between censorship and laws which prevent mixing or hybridization (anti-miscegenation laws, immigration laws, etc.)? Is censorship one way of maintaining ideological purity? What are the consequences of that purity?
- If censorship is (as we have argued in class) about identity—specifically a resistance to external or new influences that might change/challenge/contaminate an original—how might Rushdie’s ideas about identity and metamorphosis help us think about censorship? Are we constantly undergoing change (and so censorship is futile) or should we protect new/fragile ideas from being destroyed (hence censorship might be necessary)?
