Postcolonial Environments in Midnight’s Children
“To understand just one life, you have to swallow the world,” says Saleem Sinai, the autobiographical protagonist of Rushdie’s Midnight’ Rushdie’s Midnight’ss Children Children. n order to ma!e meaning out of his life, Saleem Saleem first "swallows "swallows the world # he tries to understand his country’ country’ss colonial colonial past$ ‟
ma!es sense out of its burgeoning independent indepen dent present$ and comes to terms with his %and ndia’s& postcolonial identity. identity. 'ostco 'ostcolon lonial ial discou discourse rse was born born in respon response se to the imperi imperial al e(pansi e(pansion on of )ester estern n colonial empires during the nineteenth and early twentieth century. 'ostcolonial writers li!e Rushdie, therefore, emerged out of the e(perience of coloni*ation and asserted themselves by writing in response to the authority wielded by the imperial powers. The prose of +frican countries, countries, +ustralia, +ustralia, angladesh, angladesh, -anada, -aribbean countries, countries, ndia, alaysia, /ew 0ealand, 0ealand, 'a!i 'a!ist stan an,, Singa Singapo pore re,, South South 'acif 'acific ic sla sland nd count countri ries es,, and Sri Sri 1an!a 1an!a are are all all e(am e(ampl ples es of postcolonial literatures. The desire to reclaim the ndia of his past was the driving force behind Rushdie’s decision to write idnight’s -hildren 2 the novel was born when Rushdie reali*ed how much he wanted to restore his past identity to himself. Midnight’ himself. Midnight’ss Children Children was was his first literary attempt to recapture ndia. The novel e(plores the ways in which history is given meaning through the retelling of individual e(perience. 3istory is seen subjectively through the eyes of the protagonist Saleem Sinai, therefore the retelling of history is fragmented and, at times, erroneous. Rushdie is relating Saleem’s generation of midnight’s children to the generation of ndians with whom he was born and raised. +s a product of postcolonial ndia, Saleem pieces together the multifarious fragments of his identity, just as ndia begins a new in rebuilding her identity in the wa!e of
colonialism. Saleem’s story represents the plural identities of ndia and the fragmented search for self through memory. Saleem’s attempt to reconcile his various multiple identities reflects ndia’s struggle to reunite its multiple nationhood after colonial rule. n a narrative build4up to the day of ndia’s independence, Saleem refers ndia as a nation which had previously never e(isted. +lthough it had five thousand years of history, although it had invented the game of chess and traded with iddle 5ingdom 6gypt, ndia would never e(ist. t can e(ist only by the efforts of a phenomenal will 4 the will of its citi*en. n order to brea! down the physical constraints of colonial rule, ndia needs to come together as a nation$ it needs to unite its multiple national identities to form a great nation 4 a mythic land as Saleem calls it. Saleem’s struggle with self4identity parallels Rushdie’s analogy of multiple rooting. 7ne e(ample of this is the role of multiple parentages in Saleem’s life. Switched at birth by a nurse in the hospital, Saleem is raised by parents that are not biologically his own. +s a baby, due to the opportunistic hour of his birth, he is coveted by all of his parent’s neighbors and assumes different roles when visiting each of them. 3e says# “6ven a baby is faced with the problem of defining itself$ and ’m bound to say that my early popularity had its problematic aspects, because was bombarded with a confusing multiplicity of views on the subject” %89:&. ;urthermore, when his parents discover they are not his true biological parents, they leave him for an e(tended period of time with his
references to multiple parentages relate to the feelings of homelessness and displacement as well to the fragmentation of identity and memory that plague Saleem throughout the novel. ultiplicity is also metaphorically represented by the idnight’s -hildren -onference. +t the age of nine, Saleem starts to hear voices in his head and reali*es that he can telepathically communicate with all of the other children born at the midnight hour of ndia’s independence. 3e spea!s of his newfound telepathic powers thus# “ am nine years old and lost in the confusion of other people’s lives which are blurring together in the heat” %=>9&. Through Saleem’s gift of telepathy and his ability to communicate with all of the other children born at midnight who are scattered throughout the nation, he is able to directly e(perience ndia’s diverse plurality. The diversity of their powers and bac!grounds parallels Rushdie’s point that ndia is a nation that is much too comple( and diverse to be defined by one homogenous culture. 7ne of Rushdie?s most prominent themes is the fragmentary effects of displacement and migration. 3e cites the fragmentation of memory and identity as one of the common attributes of the displaced ndian writer. n Imaginary Homelands he states, “)hen the ndian writer who writes from outside ndia tries to reflect that world, he is obliged to deal in bro!en mirrors, some of whose fragments have been irretrievably lost” %8@&. ecause e(patriates e(perience a physical and mental displacement from their homeland, it is inevitable that their identities also become fragmented and disjointed. 1i!e Rushdie, the characters in the novel attempt to solve the pu**le of their own identities. ;or e(ample, during their courtship, +adam +*i* gains familiarity with his future wife, /aseem, through a white perforated sheet whose singular hole allows him to e(amine her body. 3e becomes familiar with her body in fragments# “So gradually Aoctor +*i* came to have a picture of /aseem in his mind, a badly4fitting collage of her severally4inspected
parts. This phantasm of a partitioned woman began to haunt himB” %=C&. +adam pieces together the pu**le of /aseem’s appearance. The perforated sheet is repeatedly mentioned throughout the te(t and represents the fragmented identities that the novel’s characters attempt to piece together. Saleem refers to it as a ghostly essence which doomed his mother to love his father in segments ‟
and condemned him to see his own life 4 its meanings, its structures 4 in fragments. Dust as the perforated sheet symboli*es the fragmented identities of +adam and /aseem, +mina ESaleem’s motherF trains herself to love her husband in segments. n love with the memory of another man, +mina assiduously falls in love with her husband piece by piece. To do this, “she divided him mentally, into every single one of his component parts, physical as well as behavioralBin short, she fell under the spell of the perforated sheet of her own parents, because she resolved to fall in love with her husband bit by bit” %98&. 3er husband’s identity is therefore, in her eyes, a fragmented amalgamation of his various parts. She is unable to see him as a whole person, just as the displaced postcolonial identity is often fragmented rather than a unified whole. Rushdie also uses fragmentation and disintegration as a metaphor for the loss of identity. Rushdie describes +adam +*i* as possessing a void or hole in his center as a result of his uncertainty of God’s e(istence and newfound disillusion with his 5ashmiri homeland. )hen +adam hits his nose on the ground while attempting to pray he resolves to never again !iss the earth for any god or man. This decision, however, “made a hole in him, a vacancy in a vital inner chamber, leaving him vulnerable to women and history” %H&. +adam is described throughout the novel with reference to the image of the hole in his stomach 2 the disintegration of his body parallels the rapid chaotic turmoil that besets ndia. -oncurrently Saleem, throughout his narrative, often refers to the "crac!ing and disintegration of his e(terior. 3e says, “ have begun ‟
to crac! all over li!e an old jugB am literally disintegratingB” %>C&. Saleem intersperses his
narration of the past with present allusions to his rapidly disintegrating condition$ a reflection of his inability to cope with his multiple fragmented identities.
Magic Realism and Postcolonialism
Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children is !nown for its brilliant use of magic realism, through the use of which it has attained the status of a perfect postcolonial te(t. 3is writings deal with the issue of split identity and conflict of immigration and e(ile. +s a novelist from a country with a colonial legacy the idea of nation has always been the central concern in his fictional and non4 fictional writing. The postcolonial concept of a nation differs from the general notion of nation referring to same people living in same place. Since ndians are different people living in the same place, ndia remains pluralistic in its languages and cultures with different histories of communities. )ith magical realism, postcolonial writers are able to challenge realistic narrative and present an alternative reality. +ccording to 1inda 3utcheon, the postmodern techniIue of magic realism is lin!ed to postcolonialism in that they both deal with the oppressive force of colonial history in relation to the past. n a magic realist te(t, we can see a conflict between two oppositional systems and each of them wor! towards the creation of a fictional world from the other. These two oppositional systems are the world of fantasy and the world of reality and they can be seen to be present and competing for the reader’s attention. n Midnight’s Children, through fantasy, realism ma!es its voice heard. The narrative framewor! of Midnight’s Children consists of tale which Saleem Sinai recounts orally to his wife4to4be 'adma. This self4referential narrative recalls indigenous ndian culture, particularly the similarly orally recounted Arabian Nights. The events in Rushdie’s te(t also parallel the magical nature of the narratives recounted in the Arabian Nights.
n this novel, the mingling of the fantastic and ordinary, which is an aspect of magical realism, seems ndian as the characters involved in contemporary political and social upheavals also possess the power of mythic heroes. n the beginning of the novel, there is a fine passage as an e(ample for this mingling of the real and fantastic. Grandfather +dam +*i*’s blood solidifies and turns into rubies and his tears too turn into diamonds. ian +bdullah’s humming without a pause causes the window of the room to fall and causes one his enemy’s eyes to crac! and fall out. 1ater in the novel we see +mina, who is Saleem’s mother, having fears of getting a child with a cauliflower in its head instead of brain %HC8&. )e also come across another strange washerwoman Aurga whose breasts are colossal and ine(haustible with a torrent of mil! %C==&. Such incidents in the novel give a !ind of dream li!e Iuality due to the mi(ing up of the real life with the fantastic elements. The novel remains a continuous and subtle investigation of the relations between order, reality and fantasy. The narrator Saleem constantly relates his life to that of his country ndia. 3is birth, growth, development and destruction are related to that of ndia. The other characters too seem to wander through the pages of history, colliding with important moments in the development of ndia seemingly by accident. Thus, Saleem’s grandfather is on his !nees after a mighty snee*e when rigadier Ayer’s fifty machine4gunners open fire in the +mritsar massacre of 8J8J$ it is Saleem’s father who buys one of ethwold’s villas$ Saleem is born at the moment ndia is$ and almost all of the major events of his life, leading finally to the destruction of the midnight’s children and also ndia at the moment of declaration of 6mergency are coincidental to developments in the new country. Saleem and ndia must deal with genealogical confusion as they struggle to construct their identities.
The loss of reference to the identity of the characters in the novel is clearly understood when Saleem’s grandfather finds it difficult in identifying himself after 8JH9 due to the fight between ndia and 'a!istan over 5ashmir. The crac! in the body of politics corresponds to the crac!s in Saleem, as he feels himself going to pieces. This conversion of metaphors into events is another type of magic in the novel. )hen Saleem informs his family of his special gift of hearing voices, his father hits him in the ear. 3is stupid crac!s are literali*ed into physical crac!s. Thus, in this novel, magic realism is a way of showing reality more truly with the aid of various magic of metaphor. Kuite naturally, this novel significantly shaped the course of ndian writing in 6nglish after its publication. Rushdie loo!s li!e a story4teller who tries to return the 6nglish language to the tradition of magic realism which has a history from -ervantes through Sterne to ilan 5undera and arIue*. Midnight’s Children is regarded as a postcolonial te(t and if postcolonial literature is understood in the binary model of coloni*er vs. coloni*ed, then Rushdie’s narrative fits in that model. Since post4colonialism remains part of 6nglish Studies, critics who focus on colonialism also endorse the view of Rushdie as a perfect postcolonial writer. 'rotagonists or narrators in postcolonial writings are often found to be pressed with the Iuestions of identity, conflicts of living between two worlds and the forces of new cultures. 'ostcolonial writings ta!e place through the process of re4writing and re4reading the past. Rushdie wants his midnight’s children to Iuestion the colonial paradigms so that the constructed. 7ther may give ndia and some such coloni*ed countries a decoloni*ed identity. Rushdie’s view of the unchanging twoness of things, the duality of up ag ainst down, good against evil, finds parallel in the term magical realism. The search for the whole in Saleem can be ac!nowledged as finding what will ma!e up his identity which is a central concern in
postcolonial literature. Rushdie’s subject is identity$ both national and personal. 3is literature discusses the themes of identity that brea!s down colonial constructs of )estern dominance over 6astern culture. )ith this, he tries to establish himself as a prominent +nglo4ndian postcolonial writer. esides using magic realism as a strategy to upturn the usual realism, the novel stands against the colonial models too. +s a political position, post colonialism provides the needed space for resisting the )estern realism. The metaphors and allegories in which the novel is steeped, facilitate a politici*ed resistance against western paradigmatic inconsistencies li!e its historical discourse of orders which is not only false but also derogatory from a postcolonial perspective. ;or e(ample, the strange connection between Saleem and ndia not only metaphori*es Saleem’s life as a microcosm of the nation but also sees it as an alternative to the grand narrative in which the history of ndia is written by its )estern conIuerors. Rushdie tries to subvert )estern colonial constructs of identity and culture by employing specific postcolonial literary techniIues such as fragmentation, plurality and language along with magical realism. Midnight’s Children can be considered as one such attempt of Rushdie to recapture ndia. ;rom this perspective, it can be concluded that Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children successfully lin!s magical realism with post4colonialism.
CONCLUSION
'ublished in 8J:8, Salman Rushdie’s Midnight's Children significantly shaped the course of ndian writing in 6nglish. This great wor! of art gave Rushdie a prominent position in the literary canon. 3e got a definite place in the readers heart. -ritics accepted Rushdie as a story4 ‟
teller who returned 6nglish language to the tradition of magic realism. Rushdie began to be widely accepted as a perfect postcolonial writer. Midnight's Children was truly a fate changing novel for Rushdie. Midnight's Children is a typical e(ample of a postcolonial novel that integrates the elements of magic realism into it. The author’s intentional use of magic realism helps in bringing out the surreal and unreal dimensions of the ndian subcontinent and thereby ma!ing it a postcolonial wor!. y synchroni*ing the national history and the personal history, Rushdie narrates ndia’s colonial past and postcolonial present. 3is narration of the nation is subjective and therefore history in the te(t is fragmented and, at times, erroneous. Rushdie’s use of magic realism ma!es Midnight's Children the more appealing. t gives a fantastical element to the te(t. ;antasy is deliberately used so as to transcend the reality. agic realism helped the author to spea! the unspea!able. Larious themes and elements of magic realism li!e the themes of multiplicity, displacement, migration, fragmentation and disintegration are metaphorically used in various incidents in the te(t. The elements of pity and fear, time and space, bawdy puns and funny anecdotes, eroticism, recurrence, all give an unrivalled beauty to this novel. The use of poetic language too is worth noticing in this regard. Rushdie assumes magic realism as an effective tool to solve the problems of post4 colonialism. So, by connecting and combining historical events, mythological stories and fictional narratives, Rushdie tries to create and convey a true picture of ndian post4colonialism.
)hile the coloni*ers categori*ed ndia and ndians as a monolithic place and people, the novel illustrates ndia’s multiplicity and diversity, in an attempt to overturn the colonial image of ndia. Midnight's Children is therefore an attempt to recapture ndia. +ll these attempts would have been impossible without the inclusion of magic realism.
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