The Satanic Verses

Gibreel is one of the two protagonists in The Satanic Verses. His existence is a paradox in that he is a self-avowed atheist who grows to believe that he is actually an angel. Gibreel acquires a halo, blows fire out of a magical trumpet, and experiences vivid dreams in which he acts as the voice of God to religious leaders. Despite his seemingly supernatural and divine qualities, Gibreel never believes in religion. He is a passive observer of the celestial, reduced in his own visions to a helpless servant who has no choice but to carry out other people's orders, even when he does not want to. Gibreel is a powerless figure, even though he possesses great power. He is a harmful person, even though he thinks of himself as an innocent man. Gibreel's delusion is so strong that he ignores reality to preserve his ego. To him, the role of the archangel is just another role that he plays in the general performance that is his life. He views himself as being as powerful as the gods he plays in films, rather than accepting that he exists in a supernatural world. Gibreel's existence is a paradoxical puzzle that he has no interest in solving.

Gibreel does not want to take responsibility for his actions, so he would rather ignore or dismiss potential issues in his life. When he abandons his affair with Rekha Merchant, for example, she kills herself and her children. Gibreel does not want to think about his role in her death. Even though he refuses to think about Rekha, she appears to him in visions, and her ghost becomes a manifestation of his unspoken guilt for her death. Similarly, Gibreel's vivid dreams about religion speak to his developing supernatural abilities. Gibreel dreams about religion, angels, and miracles, but he subconsciously plays a passive role in these dreams, reducing his responsibility and his agency as he does in his waking life. Gibreel wants to view himself as a powerless, innocent man who suffers from misfortune. Because he refuses to acknowledge his responsibility for the suffering of others, his guilt and shame forge a subconscious tension expressed through dreams or visions. The ghost of Rekha Merchant and the dreams of religious figures are Gibreel's guilt and shame speaking to him while he does his best to ignore his emotions.

By the end of the novel, Gibreel has killed Alleluia in the same location where Rekha Merchant died by suicide. Gibreel is trapped in a cycle of violence and pain; he can no longer suppress his role in the suffering of others and cannot absolve himself of his role in Alleluia's death. His mental health has completely deteriorated, and he launches into a long, rambling explanation of his past sins to Saladin. The conversation is a form of confession; Gibreel finally acknowledges his mistakes and flaws, even if he does so in the form of a disjointed rant. The pain of Gibreel's confession finally frees him from his delusion, and he cannot forgive himself. Gibreel shoots himself, abandoning the passivity and delusion of his past and reclaiming his agency by punishing himself for his sins. 

Alleluia is an English-Polish mountain climber who enjoys a whirlwind romance with Gibreel that changes the course of her life. Alleluia is defined by her relationship to Mount Everest. She climbed the mountain without an oxygen tank and became world-famous for achieving the extraordinary feat. However, the ascent of Everest took a toll on Alleluia. After she returned, she began suffering from fallen arches and needed a cane to walk. She also felt the after-effects of the thin air at the top of the mountain and began seeing visions of a dead mountaineer in her daily life. Furthermore, she was left without any goals in life. Having looked down on the world from one of its highest points, there was nowhere else for Alleluia to go. In a physical, psychological, and emotional sense, her achievement changed her. Alleluia's greatest triumph contained elements of tragedy that would haunt her for the rest of her life.

However, Alleluia finds some purpose in life by taking care of Gibreel. On numerous occasions, she finds him unconscious in public or on her doorstep. Though their initial relationship was a three-day fling, Alleluia built something meaningful following Gibreel's accident onboard Flight AI-420. He struggles with the signs of a mental health condition and tries to put his life together. Given the massive scale of Gibreel's attempts to resolve his character flaws, Alleluia satiates her listlessness by helping someone else. The care she provides to Gibreel is selfless and sincere, delivering her the satisfaction and sense of achievement that she can no longer derive from climbing mountains. Unfortunately for Alleluia, the triumph of her love for Gibreel also contains elements of tragedy. He becomes so attached to her and so obsessed with the idea that she might betray him that he throws her from the top of a building. Alleluia finds relief from her sense of hopelessness; however, the same love and affection she thought could heal Gibreel only results in her tragic death.  

Ayesha is a powerful, destructive foce and an important figure in one of Gibreel's dreams. She is a young, poor orphan who leads an entire town on a fateful pilgrimage to Mecca. The first image of Ayesha in the novel is when Mirza Saeed Akhtar spots her on his lawn, eating butterflies. The image is a symbolic one, filled with foreshadowing. The town is famous for its butterflies, and Ayesha is eating them slowly and methodically. At the end of the story, she will devour the townspeople just as she devoured the town's famous butterflies. Mirza Saeed does not appreciate the symbolism, however, and he welcomes Ayesha into his home. Though she has epilepsy and a bad reputation, the people of the town eventually accept that she is receiving messages from the archangel Gibreel. Mirza Saeed—a man who is disinterested in organized religion and loves his life—is forced to reckon with the young girl who takes everything from him. First, she announces that Mirza Saeed's wife Mishal is stricken with cancer. Then, Ayesha convinces the entire town to make a pilgrimage to help save Mishal.

After the pilgrimage, Ayesha brings the people of the town to the edge of the Arabian Sea. By this time, people are beginning to doubt her. Ayesha promises that the sea will part and, by way of a minor miracle, the people's doubts vanish when they see a cloud of butterflies gather over (and then plunge into) the water. Like the earlier image of Ayesha eating butterflies, this miracle is foreboding. The butterflies represent the townspeople, who follow Ayesha's command and plunge themselves into the Arabian Sea that has not miraculously parted. Many people tragically die, led astray by the force of Ayesha's conviction. In terms of the consequences of her actions, Ayesha is a false prophet. She leads people to their deaths rather than salvation. In the context of Gibreel's dreams, however, she is not markedly different from Mahound or the Imam. All three possess great power over people, power they wield with tragic consequences. The role of Ayesha is to illustrate the hollowness of the promise of salvation. Her death and her actions are a warning to others, allowing Gibreel to justify his skepticism regarding religion. 

Pamela is Saladin's white, English wife. Like Saladin, she resents her own ethnicity. She became interested in radical politics when she was young; however, she respected people that did not take her seriously due to her background, accent, and parents' wealth. Saladin experienced a similar problem; he grew up in a country he came to loathe and tried to escape his own birth by travelling to England and adopting the culture. Pamela and Saladin both resent their backgrounds because their history prevents them from integrating into the group they respect the most.

Pamela's resentment of her whiteness and Englishness creates a fundamental problem in her marriage. She dislikes the aspects of herself that Saladin loves. Saladin’s marriage to Pamela allows him to feel accepted by a white and English culture, while Pamela's marriage to Saladin allows her to demonstrate to her parents and peers that she is trying to escape her own background. The marriage is one of convenience for both Saladin and Pamela; they both fetishize one another's culture and status rather than love each other authentically. As a result, they both seek genuine affection elsewhere.