Salman Rushdie is a meta-fiction writer, composing Midnight’s Children in a way that systematically draws attention to the fact that it’s a fictitious concoction questioning the relationship between fiction and reality. In Midnight’s Children, Rushdie uses historical events as reference points in the lives of his characters. Saleem Sinai’s life, and the lives of his familial predecessors, is defined by historical events. Beyond using historical events to denote the lives of his characters, Rushdie uses magical realism as a post-colonial device. He uses pastiche to keep the reader’s interest trained on the stories, referencing The Arabian Nights, among other works. Rushdie employs parody throughout the novel, molding history to his tastes, and states himself that “sometimes legends make reality, and become more useful than the facts.” Rushdie, in “Mercurochrome,” the second chapter in the first book, depicts the Jallianwala Bagh massacre of 1919 through the eyes of Aadam Aziz, Saleem Sinai’s grandfather, using all three literary methods of magical realism, pastiche and parody. By telling the story of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre through Aadam’s eyes, instead of just retelling the British version, Rushdie manages to change the significance of the massacre from an Indian rebellion that needed to be dispersed to a horrific historical event that cannot be forgotten for the sake of ensuring that there is no repetition.
Rushdie uses magical realism as a post-colonial device to emphasize the relationship between the time following the establishment of independence in India and Saleem Sinai’s fantastical tie to it. This self-alluding narrative references indigenous Indian culture, particularly the story of the Arabian Nights. Magical rea...
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...01): 2681-2688. Print.
Richard, Sir, Richard Burton, and A.S. Byatt. The Arabian Nights: Tales From a Thousand and One Nights. 1st Modern ed. Random House, Inc., 2001. Print.
Rushdie, Salman. Midnight's Children: A Novel. New York: Random House Inc., 1980. Print.
“Amritsar Massacre Jallian Wala Bagh." Amritsar. http://www.amritsar.com, n.d. Web. 23 Apr. 2011. .
"Difference Between Parody and Satire | Difference Between | Parody vs. Satire." Difference Between Similar Terms and Objects. Web. 13 May 2011. .
"Salman Rushdie Quotes - Quotations and Famous Quotes by Salman Rushdie." Famous Quotes, Quotations and Proverbs in Proverbia.net. Web. 26 Apr. 2011. .
1. Define 'satire' and provide one example of personal or social satire that yoou have encountered. You may use any source for your example:TV, media, news editorials, movies, comedy, etc.
Harris, Robert. "The Purpose and Method of Satire." VirtualSalt 20 Aug. 1990. 13 April 2001. <http://www.virtualSalt.com/satire.htm>
Rushdie, Salman. `Outside the Whale' Imaginary Homelands: Essays and criticisms 1981-1991 Penguin Books Ltd. (1992)
There are many stories that follow Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey, and tells the tale of a Heroic character. These fables introduces us to heroes that begin their journey in an ordinary place, then receive a call to enter an unknown world full of bizarre powers and peculiar events. These heroes often display great traits, such as bravery or intelligence, that defines their character. One of these heroic's tales is Haroun and the Sea of Stories, telling the adventures of a young man named Haroun. This essay will prove that Haroun from Haroun and the Sea of Stories by Salman Rushdie is a hero, because he possess heroic qualities. Haroun shows his heroic qualities by overcoming obstacles, helping his friends, and having good intentions.
A mind provoking essay that embodies the fear and concerns of this new entertainment era, author Salman Rushdie highlights the defects within our society, the vain and egotistical side, using personal anecdotes, logos, and pathos to further illustrate his point.
Satire is a great tool used by many writers and actors since ancient times. The earliest example that we know about is a script from 2nd millennium BC in Ancient Egypt (Definition: Satire) and since then has evolved into a great part of our society. Satire is used to point out the faults of human vice in order for change and reform in either of two ways. There is a very bitter Juvenalian or a mild and light Horatian. In order to fully understand these forms of satire, method, purpose, and applications will be addressed.
SparkNotes Editors. “SparkNote on The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe.” SparkNotes.com. SparkNotes LLC. n.d.. Web. 22 Mar. 2011.
The Arabian Nights.Trans. Husain Haddwy. Ed. Muhsin Mahdi. New york: W.W. Norton & Co., 1990. E Book.
While the tone may range from playful to angry, satire generally criticizes in order to make a change. Exaggeration, parody, reversal, and incongruity are satirical devices. Author’s use satirical devices to strengthen their central idea.
Norris, H.T. "The Arabian Nights: A Companion." Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 58 (1995):148-149.
A story is classified as magic realism when surreal or fantastic events occur within a realistic narrative and setting. This type of writing is present throughout Salman Rushdie’s short story, “The Prophet’s Hair.” The story is set in the early 20th century in the Kashmir Valley in India. This setting is not only realistic, but it actually is a real location in India. In addition, all of the
Bibliography w/4 sources Cry , the Beloved Country by Alan Paton is a perfect example of post-colonial literature. South Africa is a colonized country, which is, in many ways, still living under oppression. Though no longer living under apartheid, the indigenous Africans are treated as a minority, as they were when Paton wrote the book. This novel provides the political view of the author in both subtle and evident ways. Looking at the skeleton of the novel, it is extremely evident that relationship of the colonized vs. colonizers, in this case the blacks vs. the whites, rules the plot. Every character’s race is provided and has association with his/her place in life. A black man kills a white man, therefore that black man must die. A black umfundisi lives in a valley of desolation, while a white farmer dwells above on a rich plot of land. White men are even taken to court for the simple gesture of giving a black man a ride. This is not a subtle point, the reader is immediately stricken by the diversities in the lives of the South Africans.
Magical Realism evolved only in the last century. Franz Roh was the first to use the term to describe paintings and the new style that had come about after the expressionistic era (7, p.15), however it was Alejo Carpentier who used it to describe Latin America's fanatastical writing styles (3, p.373). He felt that magical realism expounded upon reality and "was able to elude realism's insufficiency, in its inablility to describe an ex-centric experience"(3, p.373). Latin America, though perhaps the first to name the new writing phenomena, was not the only country to use it. In the course of this paper I will compare and contrast several different novels from female authors who evoked magical realism into their writing styles. These authors come from Latin America, Africa, and the Caribbean, showing the wide range of history and environments. Feeling that the Caribbean alone may prove to narrow a topic for a style that has taken the world by storm, I felt it only fitting that other countries should be included the theme of women in the paper. Also, I selected Africa and parts of Latin America to compare to Caribbean writings because these two continents play a pivotal role in shaping what the Caribbean has become today.
Chitra Banerjee’s The Mistress of Spices is a diasporic tale built amidst a stream of voices, both male & female, sharing their joys and sorrows as immigrants to the United States. The author interweaves her text with strands of Magical Realism, Postcolonial Criticism and Feminine discourse to produce a patchwork of messages that overlap but never contradict.
The novel critiques concepts of history by challenging traditional conventions. Rushdie uses unreliable events to subvert official notions of history. For example, in his description of the Amrister Massacre he describes the troops that fire on the crowd as being white, when they were not. He does this perhaps to illustrate how much history is based on interpretation and ideology. It also illustrates how fact (written down as history), fails to take into account different notions of space and time. For example, in the pas...