Language of Agony of Clowns: A Study of Saulbellow’s Herzog and Rushdie’s Shalimar the Clown

Abstract

The late twentieth century and the first decade of the 21st century have seen brutal wars waged by the “most aggressive nation” on developing nations such as Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq apart from interfering with the internal affairs of Latin American nations such as Cuba, Nicaragua, Panama, Haiti. Back in India, Kashmir has been suffering from terrorism and state terrorism for a couple of decades. In this historical background, this article makes a comparative study of American novelist Saul bellow’s Herzog and Indian English novelist Salman Rushdie’s Shalimar the Clown. In Saul Bellow’s Herzog as well as Rushdie’s Shalimar the Clown, one finds the protagonists struggling to find the meaning in their lives in an objective world. They feel quixotic in the face of crisis but react differently to it under the impact of different historical and ideological currents. Herzog seeks to achieve freedom through main consciousness. Shalimar, a Muslim turns to terrorism to avenge the stealing of his wife by an American ambassador. In both cases, the masculine notion of honour accentuates the crisis. This notion of honour resting mainly on one’s physical strength, sexual prowess, or capacity for violence makes a person subjective. The worship of Intellect minus love and emotion of hatred unseasoned by mercy causes suffering to Herzog and Shalimar respectively. Relationships based on objective and historical thinking provide a balm to pain produced by possessiveness and intellectual chaos born of egocentric thinking.