The Satanic Verses: Study Questions. IV. Ayesha
1. Ayesha appears in two forms--ultimately as a saintly village girl, but first as the Empress against whom the exiled Imam is fighting. What is she? What does she represent? What does she stand for--especially in opposition to him? (In Gibreel's dream she seems to turn into Al-Lat, but that in turn raises the question of what Al-Lat stands for.)
2. What do you make of the connections between the Imam and the "Mahound" story? The Empress Ayesha has the same name as one of Mahound's wives; Khalid is the Imam's son; Salman is his guard; Bilal is Bilal X, an African-American convert. Are these merely playful duplications of names, or do they suggest deeper relationships between the stories?
3. The Imam obviously resembles Khomeini. Two points about him may be particularly discussed: (a) his connection with the theme of exile and therefore with the larger theme of migration and cultural conflict; (b) the nature and importance of his message. Is there a connection between these two issues?
4. As dreams, how do the two dreams of Part 4 seem different for Gibreel the dreamer? How does his role in them change? To what degree and in what respects is he just a passive dreamer? In what ways does he play an active role either in the creation of the dreams or as a character in the dreams themselves?
5. Mirza Saeed Akhtar is one of the two central characters of the Ayesha story (Ayesha herself being the second). He is defined by very clear characteristics--his old house, his love for his wife, his lust for Ayesha, his status in the community, his attitude towards religion. Is he a relatively sympathetic character? How do his own conflicts influence his attitude towards the pilgrimage that Ayesha proposes?
6. Ayesha is beautiful, chaste, epileptic, and visionary. What do you make of the fact that she is surrounded by butterflies, which she eats? What do you make of her belief that she is the bride of the Angel Gibreel? What do you make of the pilgrimage that she proposes? Is she deliberately misleading the others?
7. Why does Mishal Akhtar agree to go into Purdah (the seclusion of women), as her husband wishes, although her husband is not otherwise a strict Muslim? Why is she strongly attracted to Ayesha, even before she learns that she is dying? What is the significance of the fact that her mother comes to live with them? How do the facts that we know about her personally shape our sense of her marriage and of her husband?
8. Osman the clown is a former Hindu untouchable who has converted to Islam, is strongly attracted to Ayesha, and is, like Mirza Saeed, skeptical of the pilgrimage that she proposes. What is his role in the story, as we can see it thus far?
9. What connections can you make between the two dreams of this section--between the two characters named Ayesha, between the Imam and the village girl, between the second Ayesha and Al-Lat, between Ayesha the village girl and Ayesha the wife of the Prophet? Especially, what comparisons can you make between religious experiences as they are represented in each dream?