Midnight's Children

 Hello Everyone, I'm a student of the Department of English,M.K.B.U. This blog is a part of a thinking activity which is assigned by Dr.Dilip Barad Sir. In this blog I'm going to give some basic information about the novel and also give answers of two questions.

Introduction :-

Midnight's Children is a 1981 novel by Indian-British writer Salman Rushdie, published by Jonathan Cape with cover design by Bill Botten, about India's transition from British colonial rule to independence and partition. It is a postcolonial, postmodern and magical realist story told by its chief protagonist, Saleem Sinai, set in the context of historical events. The style of preserving history with fictional accounts is self-reflexive.

Midnight's Children sold over one million copies in the UK alone and won the Booker Prize and James Tait Black Memorial Prize in 1981. It was awarded the "Booker of Bookers" Prize and the best all-time prize winners in 1993 and 2008 to celebrate the Booker Prize 25th and 40th anniversary. In 2003 the novel appeared at number 100 on the BBC's The Big Read poll which determined the UK's "best-loved novels" of all time.

About the Writer :-

Sir Ahmed Salman Rushdie is an Indian-born British-American novelist. His work often combines magic realism with historical fiction and primarily deals with connections, disruptions, and migrations between Eastern and Western civilizations, typically set on the Indian subcontinent. Rushdie's second novel, Midnight's Children (1981), won the Booker Prize in 1981 and was deemed to be "the best novel of all winners" on two occasions, marking the 25th and the 40th anniversary of the prize.

After his fourth novel, The Satanic Verses (1988), Rushdie became the subject of several assassination attempts and death threats, including a fatwa calling for his death issued by Ruhollah Khomeini, the supreme leader of Iran. Numerous killings and bombings have been carried out by extremists who cite the book as motivation, sparking a debate about censorship and religiously motivated violence. In 2022, a man stabbed Rushdie after rushing onto the stage where the novelist was scheduled to deliver a lecture at an event in Chautauqua, New York.

In 1983, Rushdie was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He was appointed a Commandeur de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres of France in 1999. Rushdie was knighted in 2007 for his services to literature. In 2008, The Times ranked him 13th on its list of the 50 greatest British writers since 1945. Since 2000, Rushdie has lived in the United States. He was named Distinguished Writer in Residence at the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute of New York University in 2015. Earlier, he taught at Emory University. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 2012, he published Joseph Anton: A Memoir, an account of his life in the wake of the events following The Satanic Verses. Rushdie was named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time magazine in April 2023.

Summary of the novel :-

Midnight’s Children, allegorical novel by Salman Rushdie, published in 1981. It is a historical chronicle of modern India centring on the inextricably linked fates of two children who were born within the first hour of independence from Great Britain.

Exactly at midnight on Aug. 15, 1947, two boys are born in a Bombay (now Mumbai) hospital, where they are switched by a nurse. Saleem Sinai, who will be raised by a well-to-do Muslim couple, is actually the illegitimate son of a low-caste Hindu woman and a departing British colonist. Shiva, the son of the Muslim couple, is given to a poor Hindu street performer whose unfaithful wife has died.

Saleem represents modern India. When he was 30, he wrote his memoir, Midnight’s Children. Shiva is destined to be Saleem’s enemy as well as India’s most honoured war hero. This multilayered novel places Saleem at every significant event that occurred on the Indian subcontinent in the 30 years after independence. Midnight’s Children was awarded the Booker McConnell Prize for fiction in 1981. In 1993 it was chosen as the best Booker Prize novel in 25 years.

Characters of the Novel :-

Saleem Sinai :- The protagonist and narrator of the novel, Saleem Sinai is born with special powers and sees himself as the representative of the new India. 

Shiva :- A fellow midnight's child, Shiva is Saleem's nemesis and embodies the opposite of Saleem's qualities. 

Parvati :- Saleem's love interest, Parvati represents the idealised vision of India and its potential for unity. 

Amina Sinai :- Saleem's mother, Amina, plays a significant role in the story as a source of comfort and support for Saleem.

Questions based on the Novel :-

1. Make a thematic study of the novel Midnight’s Children.

1). Identity :- The theme of identity is prominent throughout the novel as Saleem struggles with his own sense of self. Being born at the exact moment of India's independence, Saleem feels a deep connection to his nation but also faces an identity crisis due to his unique abilities. The novel explores the complexities of personal and national identities in a post-colonial context. 

On the other hand we can see that Shiva and Saleem both are being exchanged by a nurse at hospital, so they both are living one and other lives.  When Saleem's blood did not match with their parents at that time, Saleem's father doubted his mother. So, this novel is mostly based on identity.

2). History and Memory :- Midnight's Children delves into the power of history and memory in shaping individual and collective narratives. Saleem's narrative is intertwined with the historical events of India, and he becomes a symbol of the nation's collective memory. The novel questions the reliability and subjectivity of memory and how it influences our understanding of the past. 

Saleem's story is very much connected with the history of England. How Saleem's family is divided into two countries and how the people survived at the time of independence. History of England is not directly told by the writer but the story of Saleem is symbolically represents the history of England.

3. Colonialism and Independence :- The novel explores the impact of British colonial rule and the struggle for independence on the characters and the nation as a whole. It reflects on the trauma, violence, and division caused by the partition of India and the long-lasting effects of colonialism on individuals and nations.

It also explores the behaviour of British people towards Indian or Pakistani people. How the Indian people became members of the army and how they were killed by the opposite party. Their sacrifice does not matter for the British people; they only want protection.

2. Write an essay on narrative technique in Midnight’s Children.

The narrator of this novel is Saleem Sinai. The narrative pattern of this novel is the story within the story. 

Throughout this novel the narrative style is always shifting. Saleem narrates in the first person, addressing the audience directly and informally. At the beginning of the story he is writing as if he is trying to get everything out as fast as possible, in a stream of consciousness form. This shows how important his story is to write before he dies. Throughout his narration, he is weaving in and out of different stories from generations, leaving holes in some of his stories. Saleem even admits his own mistakes in his narration style. This might reflect how Saleem himself is having a hard time grasping and understanding all that is going on in his life. It also allows the reader to connect certain things they would not have connected with a linear account. For example, when Mary Pereira reveals the truth about Saleem’s birth, the characters experience what it is like when the past comes to affect the present. This might be used to show that history not only repeats itself, but it also comes back. 

The Structure of Midnight's Children, It is difficult to categorise Midnight's Children. The structure of the novel is more like a Chinese box - stories within the stories. There are so many books like Panchtantra, Kathasaritsagara and Arabian Nights, which use the technique of stories within the story. Though Midnight's Children also uses the frame story in which all the other stories fit together, the structure of Rushdie's novel is different from that of the ancient storybooks. 

There are four generations and two families,one was poor and the other one was rich. There are various stories and secrets in this novel. In all the stories Saleem comes as the protagonist who is struggling with his identity and fate. The novel starts with Saleem's maternal background and then there is the information of his mother and his aunt. Then after he is talking about his personal life and then there is a story of his child. So, inshort we can say that this novel uses the narrative structure like a Chinese box.

Conclusion :-

Midnight's Children is a captivating and thought-provoking novel that explores a range of themes through its intricate storytelling. The characters, with their personal struggles and connections to India's history, bring the narrative to life. Salman Rushdie's masterful writing and the novel's richly layered plot make it a must-read for anyone interested in Indian literature and the complexities of identity and history.