The telling of stories is a temporal process. Describing people, places and events in words can only be done a bit at a time. A narrative might focus on a nose or a certain trait of speech - like repeating "whatsisname" arbitrarily in sentences. Narrative is a fragmentary process. It builds up the illusion of a reality through fragments only. But these fragments glimsped through a hole - cannot be said to constitute a person or an event - instead they make something else. A fiction.

Consider the image of a blinking eye at the top-left of this document and you will notice that the concealing/revealing process works from both sides of the sheet. What sort of face does the eye belong to? What sort of person is it? We can only guess from the clues that we are given. In any case - it isn't a person it's a computer graphic. There is no person to go with the eye. In Rushdie's narrative the process of constructing the illusion of people from fragments is made explicit.

Another example of this building up by fragments is Amina Sinai's attempt to fall in love with her husband systematically - bit by bit. The perforated sheet metaphor presides over the whole narrative and is linked to the symbol of the washing chest in terms of being concerned with partial/ unusual perspectives.

See the list of other prominent motifs.