The Defeat of Many by One Essay -- Moor Last Sigh Essays

The Defeat of Many by OneIn The Moors Last Sigh, Salman Rushdie uses the complex and changing character of the Moor to represent a complex and changing image of India. By making the eclectic family biography of the Da-Gama Zogoiby family the central theme in the first both parts of the novel, Rushdie portrays India as a culturally and religiously pluralistic society. This pluralistic society is mould by violence caused by the corruption of numerosity by various(a) characters and the threat of Hindu fundamentalism. As pluralism is bastinadoed by fascism in sectionalization Three of the novel, the nature of the violence changes drastically and is symbolized by the Moors significant character change The Moor whose tragedy-the tragedy of multiplicity washed-up by singularity, the defeat of Many by One-had been the sequences united principle (Rushdie 408). The defeat of pluralism is not only the uniting principle in Auroras sequence of paintings, but also in Rushdies The Moors Last Sigh. Rushdies vision of India is essentially the battle between multiplicity and singularity and the consequential violence that has plagued Indias history. In the first two parts of the novel, Rushdie portrays the positive aspects of pluralism through the story of the Da-Gama Zogoiby family. The Moors grandfather, Camoens describes an high-flown pluralistic world A free country Belle, supra righteousness because secular, to a higher place class because socialist, above caste because enlightened, above hatred because loving, above vengeance because forgiving, above tribe because unifying, above language because many tongued, above colour because multi-coloured, above poverty because ... ...lent singular vision, he ends rather optimistically. The Moor, at the end of his story and at the end of an explosion of violence lays his mastermind down in hope for a better time. In the hold he sees the Alhambr a, the Moors triumphant masterpiece and their last redoubt (Rushdie 433). Rushdie uses this beautiful metaphor of the Alhambra, that depository of lost possibility that nevertheless has gone on standing to get the message that pluralism still has a fighting chance in India. (Rushdie 433) Rushdie suggests that equitable like the Moorish masterpiece withstood a fierce oppositional force and the hear of time, so will India and its uniquely resilient and diverse society. Works CitedEmbree, Ainslee. Utopias in Conflict. Los Angeles University of California Press, 1990.Rushdie, Salman. The Moors Last Sigh. New York Vintage International, 1995.