Assignment Paper :- Indian English Literature – Post-Independence
Name :- Aarti Bhupatbhai Sarvaiya
Batch :- M.A. Sem. 3 (2022-2024)
Enrollment N/o. :- 4069206420220027
Roll N/o. :- 01
Subject Code & Paper N/o. :- 22407
Paper :- Indian English Literature –Post-Independence
Email Address :- aartisarvaiya7010@gmail.com
Submitted to :- Smt. S. B. Gardi Department of English – Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University – Bhavnagar – 364001
Date of Submission :- 1 December, 2023
Narrative Technique in Midnight's Children
Introduction :-
"Midnight's Children" is a novel by Salman Rushdie that explores the tumultuous history of India through the life of Saleem Sinai, a boy born at the exact moment of India's independence in 1947. The story weaves magical realism with historical events, offering a unique perspective on the country's social and political changes. Rushdie's narrative style and intricate storytelling contribute to the novel's acclaim and recognition, including the Booker Prize for Fiction in 1981.
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.
About the Novel :-
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.
Narrative Technique in Midnight's Children's :-
Salman Rushdie is undoubtedly one of the most famous novelists in present time. His second novel Midnight's Children received greater critical acclaim and made Rushdie a famous literary figure in the English speaking world. The novel won him the Booker of Bookers prize in 1993. In the novel Rushdie introduces an innovator narrative technique which is different from the contemporary writers.He uses the first person narrative through Saleem Sinai, the protagonist of the novel. Rushdie also makes good use of the device of Magic Realism in Midnight'sChildren. Further Rushdie's use of cinematic elements can clearly be seen in the novel. All this shows Bombay Cinema's influence on Rushdie and Rushdie's Use of Indianized English is his biggest achievement. His use of Indian worldlike ekdum, angrez, firangee etc. give Indian flavour to the novel. Above all,Rushdie can be considered the master of narrative techniques at present time.
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. With the new shift in narration he explains the bombings like a movie trailer. On page 398 he states, “in short, there are still next-attractions and coming-soons galore; a chapter ends when one’s parents die but a new kind of chapter begins.”
THE TECHNIQUE OF FIRST PERSON NARRATION
Rushdie employees the technique of the first personnarrative in Midnight's Children. The characters are introduced long before they actually appear in the novel. It creates suspense in the mind of the readers. The novel covers a period of seventy five years of the history of the Indian subcontinent. The protagonist, Saleem Sinai, narrates the story of his birth and the birth of Indian subcontinent. The narrative blurs the chronological boundaries. As, Rushdies counterpart, Saleem Sinai narrates his story from a distance of time, and place. Like the narrator of Mahabharta, Sanjay who is endowed with special power to see things from a distance, and narrates the events of the Kurukshetra war, Saleen is endowed with magic power so that he can see from a distance and read the mind of readers.
THE USE ORIENTAL AND WESTERN TEXTS
Rushdie has cleverly used both oriental and Western text in the novel. He remains indebted to a few writers and their works, chief of which are Laurence stern's Tristram ShandyGunter Grass The Tin DrumGabrial Garcia Marquez'sOne Hundred years of Solitudeand Rudyard Kipling's Kim. Saleem, in the novel, himself is truly cosmopolitan. He is partly Hindu, partly Muslim and partly Christian intermixing of various religions and cultures that make of India. Midnight's Children Do not agree with the Hindu world view of Indian society as homogenous one. Rushdie also owes his narrative device to Punch Tantra and Katha Sarit Sagar.
MAGIC REALISM :-
Rushdie adopts the device of Magic realism in Midnight's children. Magic Realism is a term originally coined by German out Critic Frantz Roh in 1925 to describe the tendencies in the work of certain German painters in the early twenties. But the term was first applied to literature by Cuban novelist Alejo Carpentier in the late 1940's. Basically magic realism was a Latin American phenomenon characterized by the incorporation of supernatural elements into realistic fiction. Some well-known writers who used this new device were Jorge Amanda, Jorge Luis Borges, Gabriel Gorcia Marques etc. Some characteristics of this new style were identified as the mingling of the realistic and fantastic, natural and supernatural, skillful time shifts, use of dreams, myths, fantasy and fairy tales. Salman Rushdie has written critically acclaimed magical realist novels. His Midnight's Children,Shame, and The Satanic Verses Incorporate the technique of magic realism. While reading the Midnight's Children We find that the whole novel is a perfect combination of reality and imaginary between the real and the unreal.There are many places in Midnight's Children Where Rushdie used the device of magic realism for the framework of the novel. When we go through the novel, we find that Saleem Sinai, the protagonist, has the gift of having an incredible sense of smell which allows himto determine other's thoughts and emotions. This gift of Saleem is same to that of his grandfather Adam Ajiz who also had the same large nose and magical gift. In the novel we see that how Adam's incredible sense of smell and his magical nose saved him from being killed in the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre :"As the fifty-one men March down the alleyway a tickle replaces the itch in my grandfather's nose... Adam Aziz Ceases to concentrate on the events around him as the tickle mount to unbearable intensities. As Brigadier Dyre issues a command the sneeze hits my grandfather full in the face "Yaaaakh-thoooo!" he sneezes and falls forward, losing his balance, following his nose and thereby saving his life" .Thus Adams' sneeze provides a sense of humors as well as a kind of pity and fear in the heart of readers. In this way, the author plays beautifully with magic realism in such realistic and serious incidents of history of India.
Conclusion :-
To conclude, one can say that Rushdie's use of innovative narrative technique has made Midnight's Children a complex and highly challenging work of fiction. Along with the content and its marvellous treatment, this new and innovative narrative technique enabled Rushdie to capture the topmost position among the winners of the Booker Prize over the past twenty five years.
Word Count :- 1640
Images :- 03
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