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Summary
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Satanic Verses, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
The Fallibility of Prophets
Immigration and Identity
Religion and Blasphemy
Racial Prejudice and Xenophobia
Metamorphosis and Identity
Summary
Analysis
Sometime around New Year’s Day, on a cold winter morning, two men are freefalling from 29,002 feet in the sky. One of the men, Gibreel Farishta, is singing happily and striking various poses in the air. The other man, Saladin Chamcha, is irritated by Gibreel’s levity and tells him to be quiet. A narrator reveals that the men are freefalling because they were on a flight (Flight 420) that exploded. All around them, other people and objects from the flight are also falling. Gibreel continues to sing. The narrator notes that it should not be possible for Saladin to hear Gibreel, and yet, he does hear him.
The novel begins in the middle of the action, as two men are falling through the sky without a specific explanation for what happened to their flight. Rushdie is writing in the genre of magic realism which combines realistic narrative techniques with surreal or fantastical elements. In this novel, the narration makes no attempt to explain the plot’s fantastical elements—rather, the reader must simply accept them at face value. Additionally, many of the scene in the novel parallel scenes from Islamic texts such as the Quran. Like the Christian Bible, Islam has an account of the Fall of Man. In Islam, this descent to Earth is not seen as a curse or original sin that affects all of humanity. Instead, the fall is a test for Adam, Hawwa (the Islamic equivalent of Eve), and their descendants. Islam sees humans as born without sin and fully capable of choosing between right and wrong, with guidance provided by God through prophets.
Themes
As Saladin and Gibreel fall through a thick layer of clouds, Gibreel maneuvers through the air and grabs ahold of Saladin. Saladin is falling upside-down, while Gibreel is positioned upright. While Gibreel is holding on to Saladin, Gibreel’s deceased lover, Rekha, appears on a flying carpet. To Gibreel’s surprise, Saladin cannot see or hear Rekha. Gibreel and Rekha insult each other, clearly not over whatever ended their relationship. Both imply that the other did something wrong, though they do not speak in specifics. Rekha curses Gibreel and warns him that he is headed to hell. Then, she disappears just as Saladin and Gibreel exit through the bottom layer of clouds.
The position of the two men falling together through the clouds symbolically suggests an underlying similarity between the two of them. This similarity becomes more obvious as the novel progresses. Meanwhile, Rekha is a figure who will haunt Gibreel throughout the novel and serves as a manifestation of Gibreel’s guilt.
Themes
Saladin tells Gibreel that they must fly and sing. He does not understand where his orders come from. He feels a new force within him rise up and give these instructions. It is as if he has undergone some kind of transformation—one that he will later deny—which he does not understand. Both men begin flapping their arms and singing, allowing them to float down safely into the English Channel.
The novel regularly examines whether certain actions or orders indeed come from God. In this case, it seems completely out of character for Saladin to suggest that he and Gibreel fly and sing, yet he does it anyway. It is this order that ultimately saves Gibreel and Saladin, who otherwise would have fallen to their deaths, indicating divine intervention.
Themes
Some unknown amount of time later, Saladin and Gibreel wash up on a beach—the only two people to survive the disaster. After the incident, Gibreel is convinced that something supernatural—perhaps divine—allowed them to live. Meanwhile, Saladin believes that they were simply lucky. Here, the narrator interrupts to say that they know the truth of what happened because they watched it occur. The narrator does not reveal their identity, though they do describe themselves as an omnipotent and omnipresent force. Back on the beach, Gibreel wishes Saladin a happy birthday and Saladin bursts into tears.
The narrator is an interesting force in the novel because, although the narrative mostly reads as though it is written in third-person, the narrator repeatedly interjects in ways that makes it seem as if the story is actually a first-person retelling of events. Rushdie employs this narrative technique to play with the idea that his third-person omniscient narrator is God, a figure who is also supposed to be all-knowing. As Gibreel and Saladin arrive on the beach, Gibreel embraces the idea that they have been reborn, whereas Saladin appears deeply upset by the turn of events and does not agree with Gibreel’s framing of their situation.
Themes
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