Wednesday 22 November 2023

Assignment Paper -202

 


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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