The Literary Beasts of Racial Differences

Within the scope of racial differences in the novel Satanic Verses, it is the invisibility of Chamcha after his transformation into the goatish bestial angel that is most notably intolerable by the reader, due to its link back to the inhumanities of slavery and racial bigotry throughout the history of the known world. The punishment and humiliation faced by Chamcha, particularly by the London police, leads to the invisibility that he will deal with throughout the novel.

It is Chamcha's differences from what the everyday sees that makes him a target for the intimidations and beatings from the London police. His transformation opens Chamcha up for ridicule and mistreatment, because he is simply different from what they are. As Bennett and Royle discuss, "...it is this ambiguous status of the other (racial or otherwise) that makes it so threatening, so disturbing, so dangerous." (Bennett and Royle, 200) To the police, his beastly appearance is frightening and amusing at the same time, such as many of different races have experienced.

The fear that the police officers have of the goatish imp they have found is manifested in the torture that Chamcha endures in the back of the police wagon. Their fear of the beast they have caught lends itself to the invisibility that Chamcha is a person, but that he is an animal deserving of their punishment. "...Bruno joined in: 'You're all the same. Can't expect animals to observe civilized standards. Eh?'" (Rushdie, 164) Because of his appearance, and only because of his appearance, the police no longer see that Chamcha is in fact a man who has transformed into a beast, but as a beast only. This narrow minded thinking is what leads to Chamcha's eventual institutionalization and the abuse inflicted upon him during his ride in the police van.

Racial invisibility is allows the inflictors to justify their behaviors upon their victims with a clear conscious. If they are animals, if they are beasts, then the acts of violence against them are befitting. Since the officers refused to acknowledge Chamcha as what he once was-a man, his invisibility becomes much clearer to the reader. He is an animal, because of appearance; the idea of a man is lost to those who witness the goat. Chamcha is lost in the mask of his transformation, hidden in the outward notion of a beast.

Despite his own humiliations, Chamcha expresses his own intolerances to racial differences. "The humiliation of it! He was-had gone to some lengths to become-a sophisticated man! Such degradations might be all very well for riff-raff from villages in Sylhet or the bicycle-repair shops of Gujranwala, but he was cut from a different cloth!" (Rushdie, 164) Even in his own moments of invisibility, he acknowledges his own bigotry, expressing how he should be seen and treated as a civilized man, and how this treatment is appropriate for others beneath his stature in a civilized society. There is not an ounce of empathy for those who Chamcha sees as beneath him, as he is forced to endure the hardships they suffer on a consistent basis.

Irony of the situation is indeed Chamcha's lack of sympathy and compassion for others who might be in his situation of racial intolerance. Even through his torment, Chamcha still maintains that he is a civilized man, and is unnecessarily receiving behavior unfitting of a man of his stature. Within the several pages of Chamcha's capture by the police, there is no moment of epiphany that this is a situation that millions face on a daily basis.

Perhaps this is the idea that Rushdie is trying to convey: the unawareness that a majority of the western civilization has towards each other and humanity. "The Western constitution as a historical construct constituted by the exclusion, marginalization and oppression of racial others." (Bennett and Royle, 201) Through Chamcha's invisibility, the reader is allowed to address the hypocrisy of the situation; how Chamcha, in a moment of possible understanding, does not see fit to engage himself in a bit of empathy for his fellow man, but instead, focus on the matter at hand-his self-imposed stature within the English speaking society.

Chamcha's invisibility as a man does eventually allow him to transform back into his human form, but the reader must question: is he better off at that moment or has he learned nothing from his brief time spent as a racial other? Does imposed racial invisibility allow persons to understand each other better? The question raised in the novel allows the reader to decide for themselves. Can there be a moment when differences can be set aside, outward appearances held without judgment? Can a person be seen as who they truly are, without prejudice?

Rushdie, Salman. Satanic Verses. New York: Random House, 2006.
Bennett, Andrew and Nicholas Royle. An Introduction to Literature, Criticism and Theory. 3rd ed. Philadelphia: Trans-Atlantic, 2004.