a) on the personal level:
 

•          loss of voice due to personal problems (Rashid can't speak after his wife leaves);
•          conforming with oppression (people as passive recipients of commands), yet:
•          stress on action (actions speak louder than words);
•          visual beauty (Shadow Warrior showing alternative ways of communication).

•          dictatorship (Khattam-Shud literally silences his subjects by sealing their lips);
•          threat to the freedom of speech (those who speak are punished regardless of what they say);
•          lack of consensus leading to backstabbing and destruction (battle Gup-Chup);
•          the end of society, since society is built on communication;

•          giving someone a voice means giving them power and therefore relinquishing control (Khattam-Shud cannot control stories, so he decides to annihilate them);
•          naming is empowering (e.g. Haroun has to name a bird, so that he can go to the Moon Kahani);
•          silence is powerful, because people do not know what you think (the Shadow Warrior and his shadowdisplay reactions that cancel each other out; it is an alternative form of silence and the Guppees do not really know what he thinks; similarly, Haroun is intimidated when his friends refuse to speak for himbefore the Walrus);

•          silence is needed as the hermeneutic code of the story ? if you are told what will happen, you would not want to read on (the book opens by repeating a couple of times that something terrible happened, buttakes twenty pages to say what that was; the only explanation Haroun gets for any event is P2C2E which  invariably makes him look for something beyond; when Khattam-Shud explains everything by stating fact, reality becomes dull).

•  quite a few typically folktale/fairytale elements (e.g. princess rescue story);
•  the narrative is like that of a folktale (a true story told by a participant or observer);
• structured on oppositions (good-evil, etc);
• several disjunctures and resolutions;
• definitive ending with a satisfactory resolution;
•  one-dimensional characters;
• main character has to show certain qualities ? integrity, perseverance, etc. to succeed;
• animal or wondertale helpers with access to magical powers;
• subverted through play with conventions: princess is ugly, stories get mixed up; technology is used to create magic.

• first encounter with a character is purely visual and often wrong, so it prompts the reader to look beyond the surface image (e.g. Water Genie first perceived as thief by Haroun);
• each character on Kahani resembles a character on Earth, so the reader knows immediately what to expect from that character (e.g. Butt resembles the bus driver, so he is going to be helpful and loyal, but a bit difficult to control);
• very rigid oppositions are established based on visual imagery and perceptions coming through the other senses (light-darkness; color-grayness; warmth-cold; speech-silence); these oppositions hold the story together and are thus a major structural element;
• the image of the environment tells the reader what people he/she would find there, since it often reflects the nature of its inhabitants (in the dull town everyone is miserable; the people of Chup live in eternal darkness);
•  pure aesthetic pleasure can be derived from images; it's not necessary to understand how something happens (the sea of stories is beautiful when clean; most things in Kahani are created through a P2C2E).

• love and caring are of primary importance; money and social status are secondary;
•  promotion of traditional family (biological parents living with their child in a family home);
• there are distinct feminine and masculine roles in the family, but they are not static and are often ridiculed (e.g. the Princess of Gup acts in a feminine way ? she sings and she designs uniforms for the army, but? she is not very good at it);
• the family is forever (e.g. the Plentimaw fish are faithful to one partner for life ? a metaphor of the ideal family);
• the family is a single unit that functions in harmony and finding your other half is essential (the couple formed between Haroun's mother and Mr Sengupta is like a poisoned story ? the wrong elements are mixed together and happy ending is impossible);
• the family is based on consensus ? there is no oppression of any of its members by the others;
• the family is of the utmost importance; identity is built through the family and is lost when the family falls apart (e.g. all the members of Haroun's family lose their voice when the family breaks up);
• the Shadow Warrior is a maverick; he has social duties that are dangerous and that put him apart from the rest of society; that is why he will probably not marry; his role is almost that of a priest ? he serves as a model of a perfect individual loyal to higher principles;
• in folktales: similar traditional view of the family; problems arise when the traditional family structure collapses (e.g. a step-parent appears).

• importance of education (Alice: reeling and writhing, "dry" lessons; Haroun: Haroun consistently tries to slip back into what he has been taught is "logical" and "normal", but is faced with P2C2E, e.g. the Floating Gardener, which he tries to explain as a Floating Garden);
• religion (Alice muddles badly religious hymns that are supposed to teach certain morals; Haroun: the cult of silence subverts itself, since a believer has to express somehow his/her faith, which is impossible when communication is forbidden);
• control of language (Alice constantly gets in trouble for not being able to express herself in a suitable manner; Haroun wants all processes explained, but is inevitably forced to accept the formula P2C2E)
•  having a name means having an identity (in Alice, the girl is the only one who has a name, but seemingly the only one who does not know who she is; in Haroun several characters/places have the same name, or the same character/place has different names and it is never clear who is who).

    a) Prisoners of the Sun:
 

• he Incas cannot observe their religion or speak their language in public;
•  power is officially in the hands of foreigners;
•  crisis is resolved by turning the weaknesses into strengths (silence becomes a tool of power; segregation is enforced by the Incas themselves)

    b) Haroun and the Sea of Stories:
 

• two parallel crises (on Earth and on Kahani), which represent the same thing;
• identity threatened through the destruction of traditional values and through the suppression of the freedom of speech;
•  crisis is resolved through liberation and democratization (artificially imposed restrictions, incl. holding the orbit of Kahani are removed).

• tells the truth masked as fantasy (the opposite of politicians who try to pass fantasy as truth);
•  entertainment;
•  teaches a moral;
•  has a healing effect;
• solves problems;
•  gives a different perspective on reality (makes reality more open to interpretation, not limited to fact)
•  serves as a political tool (can cause rebellions);
• preserves freedom of speech;
• extremely powerful ? can physically change reality;
• silence and anti-stories are an attempt to impose dictatorship, a rigid world-view, and dry matter-of-factness; all of these would take the joy out of people and will turn their life into a meaningless mechanical existence.
•  similar importance of storytelling and silence in folktales (e.g. in Pretty Maid Ibronka, Ibronka survives by not speaking her secret and then kills the devil by telling her story again).

•  unity (metaphor: the Disconnecting Tool; has to prove he is worthy of it);
•  identity (tries to reconstruct his father's world, but ends up being better than him; metaphor: nightshirt);
• voice (has to find his own voice, tell his own story, get away from socially imposed limiting frameworks such as education; metaphor: Blabbermouth who ends up by revealing her true identity).