An Analysis of the Importance of Imagination in Haroun and the Sea of Stories

Stories are account of real or imagined events. Haroun and the Sea of Stories contains many of them that do not clearly distinguish the line between reality and imagination. In fact these stories, true or untrue, show that imagination is necessary to work and feed the mind as well as to provide hope and courage for life's daily challenges. For imagination is a part of reality.

Imagination is served by creative minds and can stir minds into creativity. Creativity is an expression of imagination.

The Guppees, a colourful and diverse people, have immense imagination and engage in all forms of creativity. Their beautiful architecture and landscape show their skills in designing. Their advance technology (especially at P2C2E House) shows their ability to mix facts to new scientific realm. Their love for sharing their views and engagement in debates does not divide them but move them into new levels of agreement and unite them towards a common goal. For disagreement is a form of exploratory imagination.

Get quality help now

Dr. Karlyna PhD

Verified writer

Proficient in: Free Essays

4.7 (235)

“ Amazing writer! I am really satisfied with her work. An excellent price as well. ”

+84 relevant experts are online

Hire writer

Finally, their passion for the Ocean of the Streams of Stories shows how occupied they are over stories for they stir their imagination. Their minds are active and they constantly seek satisfaction for their curiosity. Their lifestyle cannot be lived devoid of the creative powers of imagination.

On the other hand, the Chupwalas are dull and uninteresting. Their dark, cold and colourless city reflects their lack of imagination. Their cultmaster controls them by enforcing silence in the land of Chup. The lack of communication dulls their mind and causes them to be fearful and suspicious even of their own shadows.

Their silence and the cultmaster's control reduce the Chupwalas to simply existing without living to the fullest. For without imagination, the people have no curiosity, will not seek answers to questions and, eventually, become like machines.

Back on earth, politicians value Rashid's storytelling ability. They know that stories can entertain, make voters happy and gain them more votes. Yet the novel shows that these stories, through imagination, can rouse their mind to see reality. Imagination can work like light to expose the grey or dark area for better decisions. The politicians are people with conflicting desires and vulnerable to imagination's bright glare. Rashid uses the adventure he shares with his son to expose Buttoo's desires to the voters at the Valley of K. He helps them to gain a clearer picture of Butto. Then in one accord, the masses chanted "Mister Buttoo--go for good; Mister Buttoo--Khatam-shud" to express their decision.

Imagination not only works on the intellectual level but also the emotional level. It searches for other possibilities that give hope and courage to move on. If it is embodied in stories and illustrated by the ocean, sea and streams, then it is alive, dynamic and fluid. For the sea propagates life and it is mutable, limitless and eternal. The Source of Stories, imagination in all its purity, appeals to the senses with it colours, warmth and brilliance, and lifts one from dark despondency to hope for the better.

Haroun's life turns for the worse when he allows scepticism to seep in and loses his faith in imagination. His outlook in life becomes pessimistic and he lets despondency take over. He does not believe that the road downwards can change direction. Even Rashid goes through depression when his wife accuses him with "[y]our brain is full of make-believe" and favours Mr Sengupta who "has no imagination at all...". Then he loses his perspective on imagination when he says "The Moody Land was only a story".

Haroun begins to see light as he finds similarities between one of his father's tales and the Valley of K. He concludes that the real world was full of magic, so magical worlds could easily be real." With that little link with the unreal, his outlook in life begins to brighten. His trip to Kahani helps him see how reality contains imagination and restores his faith in imagination. As he watches the streams to stories change mix and become new stories, he begins to understand that his own life's story can change. There is reason to hope. His adventure stretches his imagination through what he sees with his own eyes, things that he will usually dismiss as unreal: the Water Genie, the Floating Gardener, the Plentimaw Fishes, the Shadow Warrior and the Shadow World.

When Haroun accepts imagination as part of life, he courageously volunteers for a dangerous mission to face the evil and dark Khattam-shud and restore the Ocean. The test of his powers of imagination comes when he drinks the Wishwater and banishes the world of shadows. As he sees it happening, he knows that he has just used pure imagination, through exercising his will power, to dismantle the dark ship and move the moon. No physical force required. That is the point where he breaks from introspection to exercise hope and courage for the better.

Imagination is a part of life. It is part of our thinking processes and we need it to boost our hope and courage to take on challenges in good and bad times. Yet, imagination is not just a weak and immaterial substance but one that requires the discipline to execute. When it is executed, it can even overcome the rational part of our being because it is stronger (Haroun's exercising of his imaginative powers at the dark ship destroys the control of P2C2E's over the moon's revolution). Thus, untrue stories, which are made up by our imagination, cannot be ignored nor set aside, but harnessed to enrich our lives here on good, solid and practical earth.