Midnight's Children

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Rushdies Magic Realism

The postcolonial experimentalist who managed to bring into the spot light
the fabulous and the fantastic, all wrapped up into one novel i.e. Midnights
Children. It is this second novel that brought him acknowledgment for his work,
and also the all so famous Booker Prize. And he did not stop there. The following
years he continued to publish one great novel after another. Amongst these are
The Satanic Verses, Shame, The Ground beneath Her Feet, and last but not least,
The Enchantress of Florence. The first of them brought him into the center of a
major controversy when Muslims accused him of blasphemy, and an order for his
execution was given by the Iranian Government on his name. Luckily he got away
into the safe bosom of England the one that, to this day, keeps a protective wing
over him.
1. The excerpt from Midnights Children obliquely speaks of postcolonial
issues more or less obvious to the reader. One of them, rapidly surfaces from
within the body of the text i.e. the problem of Indianess vs. Englishness. It seems
that the latter is perceived by Padma as a contamination of this sacred world, a
thing which under no circumstances should have happened. In other words, the
roles are reversed. Usually, England is seen as an utopic place and all the other
foreign countries as a contamination. Only this time it is England that must submit
2.to the rules of otherness. The reference to the Anglo-Indian points to hybridity
which is again not acceptable in Indian terms, and is also associated with the loss
of ones name. Since Saleem is a writer, writing an autobiographical novel about
his birth, and another one thousand children, exactly at midnight, on 15
th
August
1947 when India was liberated, this immediately raises another question: How can
you translate who you are amongst so many nations? Likewise, the reference to
the name may serve as intertextuality, pointing to Shakespeares whats In a
Name from Romeo and Juliet. Furthermore, the idea of hybridity and
contamination is plainly pointed in the text: No: Im no monster. Nor have I been
guilty of trickery. And in paragraph five the image of a contaminated country, of
a shattered dream takes shape, and the only one to be held responsible is the
British Empire.
7, 8. Magic realism is a way for Rushdie to approach the truth by other means
i.e. fiction. Thus this type of fabulated story telling can actually end up telling as
much truth as a photograph, which ultimately brings about the discussion of
reality geo-politically determined and the reality of fiction in the same time i.e.

2
3.metafiction. But also historiographical metafiction, through which he rewrites
the history of India. As a matter of fact, this is a central paradox of the text, being
fathered by history and rewritten by fiction. Thus, actual events from the past are
taken, subjectivised and rewritten with the help of fiction only the future events
are left out. On a smaller scale however the realism of the text is reinforced by
references to excerpts from newspapers, as in our case. This comes as a an extra
evidence along with accurate details that the alleged photograph might actually
exist and trick the reader into believing so.
4. Since Rushdies novel is metafictional, and going back to what was stated
before i.e. the fact that Saleem is a writer, writing an autobiographical novel,
some interesting aspects in terms of dialogue are clearly visibile. The first
paragraph shows that actually. Saleem-the narrator speaks of Saleem the
character with Padma which stands for the naratee. However this is not her only
function. She actually stands for the constantly dissatisfied reader, or the
superficial reader who constantly complains about the narrative. Actually this
5.goes hand in .hand with the diegetic levels. Slaeem places himself at the center
of the narrative but, by jumping backwards in time thus he gains certain a distance
from the action which allows him to narrate from a different standpoint. This
means that the story spans from a homodigetic level with the story told by the
character-narrator Saleem, to an intradiegetic level with events that are part of the
same story as the narrators but also a heterodiegetic level with the voice of an
authorial narrator often associated with omniscience. However, the narrator
cannot maintain this attitude and, when the story of Saleems birth comes in, he
cannot hide any longer behind the mask and attitude of a traditional realist
10.historian/narrator. The different diegetic levels are also rendered in the text by
the use of simple inverted commas which usually report direct speech. Also the
multitudes of I may also point to the same thing shifting from I- the narrator or I
the character. Actually I also becomes a metonymical device standing for group
but also the I which becomes the group.
9. As previously stated, Rushdies novel gravitates around the idea of truth
and with use of magic realism he helps define not only time, but history as being
relative as well. Thus, he separates personal history from the collective one. Thus,
6.he uses the history of a country, subjectivises it, and rewrites it. The structure of
the text, and the words written in italics draw attention to history, time and India.
Especially when speaking of India as her your mother the one you will never be
able to deny no matter how much you try.

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All in all, Rushdie offers an outstanding fiction which brings much novelty onto
the literary stage by blending history and fiction like no one had ever done before
.The world he depicts is indeed magical and the intertextual references to the 1001
Arabian Nights or Tristram Shandy only help to reinforce this statement and help
the reader escape into a surreal world.

Consulted Bibliography
Michaela, Praisler 2005 On Modernism, Postmodernism and the Novel,
Ed.Didactica si Pedagogica R.A.,Bucuresti
Luis de JUAN HATCHARD, SALEEM'S HISTORICAL DISCOURSE
IN MIDNIGHT'S CHILDREN to be found at:
http://www.miscelaneajournal.net/images/stories/articulos/vol15/juan15.p
df
Salman Rushdie on Magical Realism to be found at :
http://www.charlierose.com/view/clip/9515

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What are some of the postcolonial issues discussed in the excerpt?

How does Rushdie use magical realism in his writing?

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Rushdies Magic Realism

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