Exile Through Heartbreak

In Salman Rushdie's Shalimar the Clown, the reader is given a glimspe at a form of exile primarily instigated by heartbreak. Shalimar's love for Bhoonyi makes her betrayal that much more difficult to endure. Maxmillian's affair is the ultimate catalyst. Shalimar's exile comes in a violent form, as he becomes an assassin and ultimately murders Maxmillian. With the intense political backdrop, it is interesting that Shalimar's exile is arguably brought about because of his own feelings. I guess that Shalimar can be most closely related to Nabokov's Humbert Humbert in this regard, although his feelings were not nearly as unconventional, and his actions proved dangerous on a different level. The motivations for the exile of the characters we have examined is truly astonishing, since there can be such a broad range of factors.