Salman Rushdie's Shame – Analysis

Considering the title, the narrator is going to deal with the theme of migration and people who are forced to move to another country.

The speaker is a speaking voice who may redirect to Salman Rushdie, because he speaks in first person ("I, too, know something of this immigrant business."). He has a theory: "the resentments we mohajirs engender" are linked to the "conquest of the force of gravity", in fact they "have flown".

Gravity is compared to belonging and its evoked image of roots. People are grounded by these two invisible forces: the first force is external to the people, the second one is internal to the people.

The concept of roots is not compared to something real: they "are a conservative myth, designed to keep us in our places.".

The two ways of looking for freedom are to fly and to flee: the second way bears within its execution against one's will. The speaking voice suppose to compare belonging with the counter-force of gravity, anti-gravity. Also, he imagines the existance of an anti-gravity pill in order to permit people to fly (or to flee).

Its consequences are economic bankruptcy of world's airlines and problems with individual flight. It would to be necessary to build jet-packs to counter prevailing windspeeds.

The connection between gravity and roots mentioned is the force they can make a people to stick to the ground, like roots make trees stable and grounded for their entire life. So there is an analogy with human life and existance.

The best thing about the migrant people is their hopefulness, the worst one is the emptiness of one's luggage, empty and "meaning-drained mementoes", floated from Time.