Disfiguration and its links to people, language, family, history and identity

Disfiguration is a recurring theme in Rushdie’s ‘The Moor’s Last Sigh’. He portrays this idea especially through his depiction of people and his unique use of language. He presents his characters as crippled either mentally or physically and this is further reflected in the hybrid nature of his language. Abraham, Vasco and Aurora are people who are exhibited as psychologically disturbed on various levels while Moor Zogoiby, the protagonist is significantly handicapped from birth. He is a premature by four months, suffers from a syndrome that causes accelerated ageing in addition to being asthmatic. All these conditions hamper his ability to lead a normal life, which is parallel to how the author has purposely employed language that is an aberration of conventional English in order to convey a message unlike any other literary work. The Moor’s conditions can also be a representation of the chaotic and troubled history of the subcontinent and the conflicts between the different cultures and regions.

         

Rushdie paints the idea of disfiguration as essential for the renewal or regaining of identity or the self and the need to express originality even if it means resorting to ugly measures in order to trace our origins and achieve true emancipation. Language is fundamental as a literary device in this work by Rushdie because he uses its potential for deformities as analogous to the tendency for the human identity to undergo a transformation subject to its surroundings and circumstances.  Rushdie employs literature as a tool to not only deconstruct identity but also beliefs. He highlights the perils of sticking to one way of reading anything and uses the notion of disfiguration aesthetically to challenge embedded beliefs and values, a phenomena evident in his treatment of religion and politics.

Another characteristic that stood out was his distortion of verbs in Aurora’s dialogues: “One day you will kill-ofy my heart.” (page 8) and “ It stick-ofies too far out.” (page 12). Such words play an important role in the disfiguration of the normality of language. Yet another element in Rushdie’s language is his blending together of words from a variety of languages and cultures- English, Portuguese and Hindi. This idea is used to depict how families twist around language and mix the different dialects they are familiar with to reinvent verbal habits and language in a way that defines them. Rushdie employs the hybridization of language and vocabulary to blend reality and fantasy together and to corrupt the audience’s view of what is normal.