Aesthetics Survival and Morality in Githa Hariharan’s Novel When Dreams Travel

Abstract

In her book When Dreams Travel, Githa Hariharan, the 1993 Commonwealth Writers Prize winner for Fiction, examines important narratively-related topics. The narrator skillfully combines Scheherazade, also known as Shahrzad of the Arabian Nights, into a lively and creative tale about a game that is always played: the pursuit of power and love. Two ambitious brides, sisters Shahrzad and Dunyazad, who aspire to be heroines or martyrs, live between the Sultan, who desires a virgin every night, and his brother, who has tasted the bitter taste of betrayed love. The story, which unfolds with all the grandeur of a contemporary myth, examines a number of topics, including the crises inherent in the act of narratives itself and the fallibility of narrative. It discusses ethical issues and the role that aesthetics plays in ethics.  All of the aforementioned topics will be covered in my paper as I attempt to investigate the boundaries of meaning in extreme acts of narrative, like Shahrzad’s instance, and how these affect ethical and aesthetic concerns in tales.