Karol - Roy -04/04

While Roy uses the same symbol systems as Rushdie (nose, pickles, often Freudian symbols) her tone is closer Naipaul's because in many ways hers is an angry novel and Rushdie's is not. Roy mentions sex and death in a Freudian way like Rushdie would but I think her protagonists leanings are closer to destruction than creation. Whereas, Rushdie's protagonist has an equanimity of perceptive reasoning between the two. Joseph makes a good observation on the temporally defamiliaritve factors that separate the two authors.

I decided to compare Naipaul's and Roy's mentions of money and I was surprised with what I found because both author's mention money a lot and Rushdie only seems to mention in terms of luck and th horse races (could be wrong. Money is often associated with scholarships with both authors. Naipaul seems to have a better understanding economics but in Roy the characters are always influenced by it.

He had no pressing reasons to stay in touch with his

parents. The Rhodes Scholarship was generous. He

needed no money. He was deeply in love with his love...

along with the pressures to living together came

penury. There was no longer any scholarship money,

and there was the full rent of the flat to be paid." (Roy, 212-213)

 
"Young men, not all of them from the lycée, took to

turning up at the shop, sometimes with books in their

hands, sometimes with an obviously borrowed Semper

Aliquid Novi blazer. They wanted money. They said

they were poor and wanted money to continue their

studies. Some of these beggars were bold, coming

straight to me and reciting their requests; the shy ones

hung around until there was no one else in the shop." (Naipaul, 56)
 
I am tempted to call both of these authors materialist but I'm not sure I'd have to give it more thought.