The Satanic Verses

“Why did he leave? Because of her, the challenge of her, the newness, the fierceness of the two of them together, the inexorability of an impossible thing that was insisting on its right to become.”

Gibreel is perpetually unsure what he wants from his life, and his brief relationship with Alleluia is a challenge. He revels the "challenge of her" (21), learning from Alleluia the satisfaction of taking on an impossible challenge and triumphing. The triumph of Gibreel's love for Alleluia is his own personal Everest. 

“England was a peculiar-tasting smoked fish full of spikes and bones, and nobody would ever tell him how to eat it.”

Saladin is fiercely independent and completely dedicated to doing everything for himself. He hates the difficult-to-eat English food but struggles through the boney, peculiar kipper as a demonstration of his strength. By teaching himself how to eat the fish without help, he believes that he is exerting his agency in a country that is hostile to his presence. The experience of eating the kipper—much like many of his experiences in England—is miserable, but he does it anyway, convincing himself that this is what he wants. 

“They pay you to imitate them, as long as they don’t have to look at you. Your voice becomes famous but they hide your face.”

Saladin is a remarkably talented voice actor, but the nature of his profession reveals the nature of his role in British society. Saladin is praised for his malleability; he can perform any voice and any character asked of him. However, the same people asking him to perform do not want to see his face. To them, Saladin is a foreigner. His talents exist to be exploited for money, and his true identity and worth are pushed to the side. 

“The old must die, you get my message, or the new cannot be whatnot.”

Gibreel mangles a quote by the Italian Marxist philosopher and writer, Antonio Gramsci. In the original quote, Gramsci suggests that the old world is dying and the new world is struggling to be born. The period between the two worlds, Gramsci suggests, is a monstrous one. Gibreel and Saladin are emblems of this monstrous moment of history; Saladin has a monstrous appearance while Gibreel's behavior is often monstrous. That Gibreel only half-remembers the quote is an illustration of his character: He feels a deep sensation that something is wrong but lacks the memory or understanding to vocalize these ideas, so he falls back on misremembered, scrambled quotations. Gibreel's mind is nothing but scrambled memories of the past, trying to make sense of the present. 

“It was a wonderful thing I did. Deeper truth. Bringing you the Devil. Yes, that sounds like me.”

In Gibreel's dream, Mahound is a fallible man. He makes mistakes, and many of his actions or decisions are a product of his ego. He agrees with the idea that he did a "wonderful thing" (77) and is thankful for the excuse for his mistake. By mentioning that this behavior "sounds like me" (77), he demonstrates that he already has an awareness of his reputation, and most of his actions from here forward burnish this legend. As a result, Mahound's need to soothe his ego and excuse his mistakes creates the infallible prophet at the heart of the religion. 

“Staring at the telephone, he found himself remembering a drama production seen in Bombay, based on an English original, a story by, by, he couldn't put his finger on the name.”

Saladin calls his home and Joshi answers. He correctly understands that this means that his wife is having an affair. Saladin is distraught yet self-involved; he cannot think to compare his wife's infidelity to the affair he carried out just a few months before. Saladin is angry and upset with Pamela for acting just like him. He is arrogant in that he views her infidelity as distressing, yet his infidelity is excusable. 

“She lay down amid the random clutter of an English life, cricket stumps, a yellows lampshade, chipped vases, a folding table, trunks; and extended an arm toward him.”

Rekha Merchant in the guise of Rosa Diamond seduces Gibreel in a boathouse. As they lie down on the ground to have sex, they are surrounded by “the random clutter of an English life” (95). These items are an example of the objective correlative, a literary technique that uses inanimate objects to convey an emotional idea. In this moment, the clutter is symbolic of a certain idea of England as a messy, old, and worn-out place, especially as it contrasts with the raw pain of Gibreel’s emotional state. He will feel out of place in England because he is a foreign, pained presence amid the clutter of an imagined English that no longer exists. 

“They have the power of description, and we succumb to the pictures they construct.”

The hospital is filled with people who are turning into animals or other objects and substances. The patients are products of the “power of description” (103), becoming physical embodiments of the dehumanizing language that the British use. The more the immigrants are told that they are not human and that they are animals, the more they literally become animals, symbolically conforming to the racist stereotypes projected upon them. 

“We have all known each other too long, Pamela thought as Jumpy left. We can hurt each other with memories two decades old.”

Pamela believes that memories are not always treasured recollections of the past. Instead, they are weapons in an arsenal that one can deploy to cause pain. Her belief is a damning indictment of her relationship with Saladin. Rather than comfort her in times of need, her memories are merely weapons awaiting deployment. 

“The terror of losing his mind to a paradox, of being unmade by what he no longer believed existed, of turning his madness into the avatar of a chimerical archangel, was so big in him that it was impossible to look at it for long.”

In an example of magical realism in The Satanic Verses, Gibreel is forced to confront that the supernatural exists and affects him, even if he is an atheist. He is caught in a paradox in which he believes he is an archangel in a religious tradition that means nothing to him. Gibreel chooses to ignore these difficult thoughts and feelings because he believes that such tensions are "impossible to look at" (116) for long. 

“When the nocturnal story changes, when, without warning, the progress of events in Jahilia and Yathrib gives way to the struggle of Imam and Empress, Gibreel briefly hopes that the curse has ended.”

Gibreel is cursed to live in his dreams. The vivid, historical versions of reality that come to him in his sleep often involve a similar cast of characters, wrestling with many of the problems he encounters in life. To him, these so-called nocturnal stories are a "curse" (130) because he lacks the tools to untangle their arcane meaning while being forced to play a role in the stories that he does not understand. For the actor who specialized in playing many different gods from many different religions, the prospect of forever joining with the same repeating character seems like torture.

“Everything is required of us, and everything will be given.”

Ayesha repeats this phrase, calling for her followers to give everything they have in exchange for everything they want. The mantra is a vague promise and open to interpretation. Mirza Saeed resents the vagueness of Ayesha's statement. However, the ambiguity of the phrase is the point because it allows the listener to project any meaning onto Ayesha's promises. 

“He looked like a marooned genie in search of a magic lamp.”

Saladin becomes untethered from his own reality and increasingly unsure of his own identity as his body undergoes many changes. He does not say so exactly, but the longing for a magic lamp is a reference to his father who owns a similar item. Saladin seems to yearn for the previous version of himself. 

“Abandoned by one alien England, marooned within another.”

Saladin has spent his entire adult life trying to integrate himself into white, middle-class England, but he is rejected. He longs to be a part of the world that Pamela was born into and that she has spent so long trying to escape. Feeling abandoned by the manners and protocol of polite middle-class England, Saladin feels equally unwelcome in the immigrant community in Britain who seem utterly alien to him. He is marooned in a world, surrounded by people like himself with whom he cannot identify. 

“I mean, people can really identify with you. It's an image white society has rejected for so long that we can really take it, you know, occupy it, inhabit it, reclaim it and make it our own.”

The younger generation of Mishal and Anahita appreciate Saladin as a countercultural symbol. To them, the man with the devilish appearance represents the image that white society has projected on to immigrants. The younger generation wants to reclaim this image and make it their own; they want to show the white community that immigrants are human beings, not devils. 

“In spite of the flat feet which made any serious mountaineering out of the question she was still infected by Everest.”

Climbing Mount Everest transforms Alleluia physically and emotionally. Alleluia feels “infected” by Mount Everest as she is still haunted by the ghosts she saw up the mountain. Although she has experienced the rush of triumph from completing such an arduous journey, she now feels as if there is nothing greater for her to accomplish, and it is this feeling that now “infects” her.

“In a word, Gibreel solemnly pronounced, their weather.”

While Saladin covets an idea of Englishness to which he can never belong, Gibreel makes a game of listing England's faults. He eventually decides that the problem with the English is the wet, overcast weather that floods their mood with pessimism. This drab, depressing version of England that Gibreel attacks creates a natural juxtaposition to the version of England that Saladin reveres. Even in their views of the colonial power, they hold opposing views. 

“Gibreel dreamed campfires.”

Mizra Saeed’s and Mahound’s stories are contained within the framing device of Gibreel's dreams. Each time the text punctuates the narrative with a reference to Gibreel's dreams, the audience is reminded that the dreams are not real life. The dreams are events—true, false, or mythologized—as interpreted through Gibreel's mind.  

“Whores and writers, Mahound. We are the people you can't forgive.”

Baal's parting words to Mahound are a scathing reminder of Mahound's fragility. Baal and the prostitutes exist beyond the boundaries of Mahound's comprehension and outside of the legal framework of his religion. The egotistical businessman cannot deal with abstract ideas like art or romance, so the only people he cannot forgive are the people who embody these ideas. 

“You don't have to be an angel to be innocent.”

This quote refers to the plight of Dr. Uhuru Simba as he is falsely accused of murder. It echoes Gibreel’s struggles to resolve the tension between his supposed identity as an archangel and his many flaws and mistakes. Both angels and humans are flawed yet still deserving of basic human rights, such as the presumption of innocence. 

“Gibreel is fast becoming the sum of Saladin's defeats.”

To Saladin, Gibreel and Alleluia have everything that he has always wanted. Saladin envies Gibreel but does not understand him; he is bound to the other man and doomed to never quite understand the nature of his own envy. 

“It is becoming impossible to describe the world.”

As the narrative develops, the expression of the themes and ideas in the novel become increasingly difficult to express through language. As such, The Satanic Verses presents a paradox inherent to the book, in which the book uses words and language to describe a world, the complexity of which is inherently "impossible to describe" (276). The result of this is that Saladin and Gibreel's efforts to understand their existence are hindered because they lack the words to express their discontent with an indescribable world. 

“When it becomes clear that miracles don't happen, they will turn back.”

Mirza Saeed believes the pilgrims will stop following Ayesha when they realize that she cannot perform miracles. Like the pilgrims, Mirza Saeed has faith and is desperate to believe that the world is one way, despite all evidence suggesting that this is not true.