Sufiya Zinobia as a Symbol in Salman Rusdie’s ‘Shame’ Megha Ghosh College

Although Salman Rushdie's Shame is considered by some critics a feminist text, others find that Rushdie's novel "reinscribes the patriarchal role of women as passive", as commented by Stephanie Moss, in her essay “The Cream of the Crop: Female Characters in Salman Rushdie's Shame”. The female stories, marginal in Pakistani history, "explain, and even subsume, the men's" narratives. In particular, Sufiya Zinobia becomes an exemplary case of the concepts contained in the novel's title - and emerges as a character richly suggestive of both sociopolitical and literary allusions.

Sufiya Zinobia provides the greatest element of magic realism than any other character in the novel. She is the second child of her parents, after their first born son, who was extremely weak and lost his life. Sufiya Zinobia, is the "miracle that went wrong". She symbolizes the Pakistan that came forth after the partition. She is split in two like the hair she will later divide to its roots, which also anticipates the materialization of Bangladesh. Wise and loving she is also warlike and violent. Blushing from birth, this new Pakistan reddens with shame "whenever her presence in the world was noticed by others. The blood that rushes to Sufiya's cheeks is a...