Possible Essay Questions (25 points each!!!)

1. Consider the politics of silence as it affects the individuals and the societies portrayed in
   Haroun and the Sea of Stories. Is silence a single uniform problem, a matter of zipping or
    stitching of lips, or is it, like the P2C2E, more complex? Consider especially the role of the Shadow
    Warrior.

2. If Haroun and the Sea of Stories is a clever pastiche of folktale motifs and elements, what holds
    these motifs together? Consider the importance of the folk tale tradition in the spinning of this
    latest postmodern yarn.

3. It has been said by others, earlier this semester, that "image always comes first." What are the
    primary images in Haroun and the Sea of Stories? To what extent do these images hold the story
    together, rendering the characters themselves rather thin and caricatural?

4. How does Haroun and the Sea of Stories extend or develop the theme of "family life?" What
    family values are at stake here? To what extent are these connected to a particular cultural context and
    to what extent to the family template constructed in many folk tales we have read this semester?
    How do the Shadow Warrior, Khattam-Shud and the Chupwalas relate to this "family life"?

5. Word play dominates both Alice's Adventures and Haroun and the Sea of Stories. How does such
    word play destabilize the cultural norms implicit in the text? How much does it provide a norm of its
     own, a zone in which various referential systems (aquatic and airborne creatures, books or playing cards,
     political figures, even the question of interest-bearing accounts: adventures or explanations) compound,
     mix up and complexify? What is, after all, a caterpillar or a hoopoe?

6. Discuss Haroun and the Sea of Stories and Prisoners of the Sun each as allegories for a crisis
    in national and cultural identity and mission. Drawing on the cultural conflicts portrayed in each book,
    including motifs such as the sad city, the sick scientists,  the switch from a storytelling to an accounting
    model, or from a scientific to a magico-religious approach to reality, explain the nature of the crisis in each
    case, and how in each story the crisis appears to reach a resolution. Is the resolution equally satisfying in each?
    Why or why not?

7. In Haroun and the Sea of Stories the terrible question, "What's the use of stories that aren't
    even true?" is asked by four different characters, each time to negative results. Does the text
    provide any answer (s) to this question? Consider the function of storytelling, the importance/power
    of stories, the notion of anti-story, and the cult of silence in either or both the Valley of K and the
    moon Kahani. Make connections, where appropriate, with the enforcement of silence or the need to
    narrate in one folktale.

8. If the story of Haroun follows the outline of a quest story, what is the object of his quest, and what
    purpose is served by his nightshirt with the purple patches, his theft of the Disconnecting Tool, and
    his attraction to Blabbermouth?  How are these three attributes related to each other?

9. Other than silence and speech, Haroun and the Sea of Stories, in the tradition of Alice's Adventures,
    Prisoner's of the Sun, and Halmoni and the Picnic lays emphasis on dialogue. How is dialogue
    achieved in Haroun? How is it achieved in one of the other books just mentioned? Consider especially
    alternative modes of communication available (telepathy, dance, etc.), as well as the impossibility of
    preventing dialogue (remember that the Wall of Force is falling apart in Haroun, the Queen and her
    court in Alice are discovered to be "just a pack of cards...", etc.).

10. Consider the conflicts between tradition and modernity played out in Haroun and the Sea of Stories.
      What kinds of power are associated with either tradition or modernity, and how is that power exercised?
      To what group or groups of traditional texts might Haroun and the Sea of Stories belong? To what group
       of modern texts?

                                              Possible Short Answer Question!
(6 points)

Briefly discuss the importance of balance in one folktale and in Haroun and the Sea of Stories. How is balance achieved? In Haroun, consider in particular the literal and metaphoric meaning of the juggling scenes that take place at two crucial points in the book. What statement does Haroun and the Sea of Stories make on extremes? What statement does the folktale make?