Shame

The house of Nishapur separates Omar and his family from the outside world, and its vastness almost renders it a character in and of itself. The house is an isolated place, a once wealthy and lavish center of the community that has become a symbol of isolation and an implicit battleground for the ongoing theme of Shame Versus Shamelessness. The house is home to many secrets, from the hidden poverty of the family to the identity of Omar’s father. Both of these secrets are enough to bring shame on the family, so the three sisters have chosen seclusion as the only appropriate response to a society that wants them to feel shame when they have absolutely no intention of doing so. However, this seclusion comes at a price, for they are forced to pawn what is left of the family legacy to pay for their isolation. Being able to indulge in seclusion as a defense against the judgment of society is a costly business: one that slowly impoverishes the family until they have nothing left. For most people in society, shame must be endured, for attempting to flee the imposition of shame is very costly and is an option available only to the social elite.

The secret that motivates the sisters’ withdrawal from society is the identity of Omar’s father. At the time of their seclusion, this secret feels to them like the most important thing in the world. They are determined enough to hide the man’s identity that they sever all connections with the world. As a result, Omar grows up in the shadow of his three mothers’ ironclad secrecy. When he reaches the age of 12, the identity of his father is just as much of an issue as his desire to step outside the walls of Nishapur has become. When he is trapped inside the walls of a house with three mothers who have dedicated their lives to keeping his father’s identity a secret, then this secret naturally takes on an exaggerated importance. Once Omar is outside the house, however, his efforts to uncover his father’s identity gradually become less important. He studies people on the outside for some time but he makes no progress. Once he finds more debauched interests, he stops caring at all and the secret is eventually forgotten. Omar never learns his father’s identity but he simply stops caring once he is away from his mothers, just as he stops caring about his reputation or his sense of shame. He is distracted by his own shamelessness, to the point where the secret that once defined his life is nothing more than a distant memory, and thus, his actions in the wider world add greater depth and nuance to Rushdie’s examination of Shame Versus Shamelessness.

While Omar may be able to forget about his shame, other people cannot, and this dynamic is made abundantly clear in his very first attempts to venture beyond the boundaries of the mansion. When he first emerges into the town from inside the dumbwaiter, a crowd is waiting to receive him. All the petty grudges and grievances that have built up against the sisters over the years are about to be visited upon their son, the supposedly shameful product of the three sisters’ seclusion. Thus, Omar comes into the world pre-judged, surrounded by a group of people who want him to embody a shame that he does not understand. Omar’s detached reaction to the crowd eloquently illustrates his larger relationship with shame. Armed by his mothers’ injunction never to feel this emotion, he simply laughs off the people’s judgment, and his refusal to feel shame defuses the tension of the moment. The scene also serves as a primer to demonstrate how Omar will approach every situation in his life from this point forward. From now on, Omar absolutely refuses to feel shame, no matter how his actions might be judged by society. Whether emerging from the dumbwaiter or raping Farah, he is more than willing to justify his actions with flimsy excuses and never burdens himself with the shame that shaped his mothers’ lives.