Salman Rushdie’s ‘Midnight’s Children’
1 Introduction
This paper will try to show how Salman Rushdie uses narrative technique, genre and the concept of history in a very new way in Midnight’s Children in order to place his story outside the euro-centric tradition of literature, narrative and history. These traditions, appearing in the colonial period, have constructed a notion of universalism in literature where the ‘classics’ of the western canon have set the order of the day (Ashcroft 91-92). Additionally, history has been written with Europe as the subject of all interpretations of history (be they Whig, Tory, Marxist, etc.), thus constructing a master narrative which Chakrabarty calls ‘the history of Europe’, where even the histories of the third world countries are written with Europe as subject (Chakrabarty 383). The theory of history presented in Midnight’s Children (elaborated on in section 4) attempts not to replace the centre in this traditional binary of centre and margin, but rather to deconstruct this binary in order to gain access to history and literature[1].
Salman Rushdie tries to break the binary by using a very different kind of narrative, a mixture of an oral narrative style with all the colloquialisms typical of that style, on the one hand, and a very formal style typical of written language on the other. In addition to this other ‘Englishes’ like Pidgin English are used. These elements serve to place the novel outside the Western tradition, even though it uses a language, English, and a format, the novel, which are central to the Western literary canon. I will analyse the style and genre of the novel to show how Rushdie accomplishes all this. Next I will try to show that the n...
... middle of paper ...
... and the Artifice of History’. The Post-Colonial Studies Reader. Ed. Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths, Helen Tiffin. Great Britain: Routledge, 2001.
‘Excerpts from a Conversation with Salman Rushdie’. Imaginative Maps. 4 December 2002. http://www.trill-home.com/rushdie/uc_maps.html.
Nietzsche, Friedrich. ‘The Will to Power’. The Theory of Criticism. Ed. Raman Selden. USA: Pearson Education Inc., 1988.
Rushdie, Salman. ‘”Errata”: or Unreliable narration in Midnight's Children’, ‘Imaginary Homelands’, and ‘The Riddle of Midnight: India August 1987’. Imaginary Homelands. England: Penguin, 1991.
Rushdie, Salman. Midnight's Children. Great Britain: Arrow Books, 1995.
[1] For details see Ashcroft 135-136.
[2] The definition of Magic Realism is based on a seminar hand-out, a lecture and Abrams, M. H. A Glossary of literary Terms. USA: Harcourt, 1999.
The Meaning of Vertical and Horizontal Integration Horizontal integration is where an organisation owns two or more companies, on the same level of the buying chain. An example of this is the First Choice Group; they own First Choice Travel Agency and First Choice Hypermarket, both of which are on the same level of the buying chain. The advantage of horizontal integration is that it can increase the company’s market share. Another good example of this type of integration is when EasyJet purchased the airline Go from British Airways. Now EasyJet and Go both operate under the company name of EasyJet.
Joyce, James. “Araby.” The Norton Introduction to Literature, Shorter Eighth Edition. Eds. Jerome Beaty, Alison Booth, J. Paul Hunter, and Kelly J. Mays. New York: W.W.Norton.
To read such a powerful text in merely terms of religious blasphemy is an injustice to literature. Rushdie has elucidated how Fiction, though it may take ideas and roots from canons like religion, it spirals off with the novelists’ imagination, and what is produced must not be condemned, but viewed in terms of the creativity of the novelist. In an age of freedom of speech and a modern, liberalized society, the novelist should not be fettered by bounds of religion. For literature and science fill the pools that religion leaves unfilled. Pitiably, Rushdie’s Verses will be remembered more for the controversy and uproar it caused, than the pure genius of magical realism that this work is. However, this very reaction exemplifies the magnamity of the novel, and the sheer genius of the notoriously evasive Salman Rushdie.
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.
Brantlinger, Patrick. "Heart of Darkness: Anti-Imperialism, Racism, or Impressionism?" Heart of Darkness. New York: Knopf, 1993. 303-22. Print.
When discussing the controversial authors of Indian literature, one name should come to mind before any other. Salman Rushdie, who is best known for writing the book “Midnights Children.” The first two chapters of “Midnights Children” are known as “The Perforated Sheet”. In “The Perforated Sheet” Rushdie utilizes magic realism as a literary device to link significant events and their effects on the lives of Saleem’s family to a changing India. In fact, it is in the beginning of the story that the reader is first exposed to Rushdie’s use of magic realism when being introduced to Saleem. “On the stroke of midnight/clocks joined palms” and “the instant of India’s arrival at independence. I tumbled forth into the world”(1711). Rushdie’s description of the clocks “joining palms” and explanation of India’s newfound independence is meant to make the reader understand the significance of Saleem’s birth. The supernatural action of the clocks joining palms is meant to instill wonder, while independence accentuates the significance of the beginning of a new era. Rushdie also utilizes magic realism as an unnatural narrative several times within the story to show the cultural significance of events that take place in the story in an abnormal way.
When Rape of Sita was first published it was immediately attacked because of the title linking the Hindu goddess Sita, who symbolized chastity, to the word “rape.” Even though Collen’s novel does focus around political struggles, literature is not politics. However, literature is able to be a form of social action. What is literature is it doesn’t post those crucial questions that get humans thinking? Collen believes in reflecting on concrete situations and posing moral dilemmas in literature. For her it is a way to share experiences towards the “other” (Williams 201). The Rape of Sita is a part of a postmodern turn to ethics. Where it uses language to make political comments suggesting a new perspective on history. Williams examines how The Rape of Sita calls for that change in attitudes through its narrative structure and symbolism. Which in turns allows for the story of rape to be told differently.
In his short story, “The Prophet’s Hair,” Salman Rushdie make use of magic realism, symbolization and situational irony to comment on class, religion, and the fragility of human life. The story is brimming with ironic outcomes that add to the lighthearted and slightly fantastic tone. Rushdie’s use of the genre magic realism capitalizes on the absurdity of each situation but makes the events relevant to readers’ lives. In addition, the irony in the story serves as a way to further deepen Rushdie’s commentary on class and religion. Finally, his use of symbolization focuses on the concept of glass, and just how easily it can be broken.
Hamid’s fiction deals with varied issues: from infidelity to drug trade in the subcontinent and, in the light of contemporary developments, about Islamic identity in a globalised world. His first novel, Moth Smoke (2000) won a Betty Trask Award and was shortlisted for the PEN/Hemingway Award in 2000. His other novel, The Reluctant Fundamentalist (2007) was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, the Decibel Award and the South Bank Award for Literature. This book serves as a testament to his elegant style as he deftly captures the straining relationship between America and Pakistan.
Booker, M. Keith. “A Practical Introduction to Literary Theory and Criticism.” White Plains: Longman Publishers USA, 1996. Print.
work addresses many of the issues associated with colonialism. One such issue is the oppressive
Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children, published in 1980, was perhaps the seminal text in conceiving opinions as to interplay of post-modern and post-colonial theory. The title of the novel refers to the birth of Saleem Sinai, the novel’s principal narrator, who is born at midnight August 15th 1947, the precise date of Indian independence. From this remarkable coincidence we are immediately drawn to the conclusion that the novel’s concerns are of the new India, and how someone born into this new state of the ‘Midnight’s child’, if you will, interacts with this post-colonial state. To characterise the novel as one merely concerned with post-colonial India, and its various machinations, is however a reductive practice. While the novel does at various times deal with what it is to be Indian, both pre and post 1947, it is a much more layered and interesting piece of work. Midnight’s Children’s popularity is such that it was to be voted 25th in a poll conducted by the Guardian, listing the 100 best books of the last century, and was also to receive the Booker Prize in 1981 and the coveted ‘Booker of Bookers’ in 1993. http://www.bookerprize.co.uk/
Rushdie eventually began his literary career in 1975 when he made his debut with Grimus, a sort of fantastical science fiction novel based on the twelfth century Sufi poem “The Conference of Birds”. Grimus however received little fame and Rushdie truly broke into the literary world with his second novel Midnight’s Children, in 1981, which won him the Booker prize and international fame. This novel began his controversial persona as well. The novel is a comic allegory of Indian history that revolves around the life of its narrator, Saleem Sinai, and the one thousand children born after India’s Declaration of Independence.
Riot (2001), Shashi Tharoor’s third novel is set in the context of a fictitious riot that has resemblance to the riot that rocked Uttar Pradesh in 1989 as an aftermath of the Babri Masjid- Ram Janmabhoomi controversy. Tharoor unravels the history of communal India from the fictional context of the investigation of the death of a twenty-four year old idealistic American girl, Priscilla Hart, who was slain in India in the riot. From its premises, Tharoor also communicates his ideas “about ownership of history, cultural collision, religious fanaticism and the impossibility of knowing the truth” (
the prefix "post"....implies an "aftermath" in two senses - temporal, as in coming after, and ideological, as in supplanting. It is the second implication which critics of the term have found contestable: if the inequities of colonial rule have not been erased, it is perhaps premature to proclaim the demise of colonialism. A country may be both postcolonial (in the sense of being formally independent) and neo-colonial (in the sense of remaining economically and/or culturally dependant) at the same time. (7)