MAGIC REALISM AS A POST COLONIAL DEVICE IN

SALMAN RUSHDIE'S MIDNIGHT'S CHILDREN

By, Christy P Benny

Email: christypbenny123@gmail.com
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

PAGES

INTODUCTION………………………………………………………...……….01

CHAPTERS

I. WHAT IS MAGIC REALISM, REALLY?

1.1 Meaning and Definition……………………………………....03

1.2 History and Development……………………………………04

1.3 Characteristics…………………………………………….….09

1.4 Major Magic Realists and Their Works……….…………...12

1.5 Salman Rushdie as a Magic Realist………….……………....14

1.5.1 About Rushdie‟s Novels………………………….….15

1.5.2 Magic Realism and Rushdie‟s Purpose for it………..17

II. MAGIC REALISM IN SALMAN RUSHDIE’S

MIDNIGHT’S CHILDREN

2.1 Magic Realism in Midnight’s Children…………….……..19

 2.2 Midnight’s Children: Fantasy as Matrix………….............23

2.3 Narrative Techniques in Midnight’s Children……............27

2.4 Midnight’s Children: A Cocktail of History and

Fantasy……………………………………………………….30

III. MAGIC REALISM AS A POSTCOLONIAL DEVICE IN

SALMAN RUSHDIE’S MIDNIGHT’S CHILDREN

3.1 Salman Rushdie’s ‘Stereoscopic Vision’:

Postcolonial Environments in Midnight’s Children…............34

3.2 Midnight's Children: The Link Between Magic

Realism and Postcolonialism…………………………............38

3.3 Magic Realism as a Postcolonial Device in Salman Rushdie’s

Midnight’s Children…………………………………………...42

CONCLUSION………………………………………………….…………….....48

BIBLIOGRAPHY
 INTRODUCTION

The project entitled „Magic Realism as a Postcolonial Device in Salman Rushdie‟s

Midnight’s Children‟ deals with the literary term magic realism and how it gets applied to the

postcolonial work Midnight’s Children. Over the past few decades, magic realism has developed

into a truly international literary phenomenon. The Anglo-Indian writer Salman Rushdie stands

out among the few other writers who successfully incorporate magic realism in their works. Not

only is Rushdie one of the most distinguished postcolonial writers, he is also generally

recognized as one of the most important representatives of magic realism outside Latin America.

I have chosen Midnight's Children for several reasons. Firstly, Midnight's Children is a

typical example of a text which incorporates the narrative technique magic realism. Secondly,

Midnight's Children is considered as a post-colonial novel containing all aspects of post-colonial

literatures. And finally, Salman Rushdie is recognized as one of the most significant and

controversial authors of the 20th century literature.

My project runs into three chapters. The first chapter entitled „What is Magic Realism,

Really?‟ explains the literary term „magic realism‟. The first section of this chapter gives various

definitions of magic realism. Later the discussion focuses on the origin and development of

magic realism as a literary device from the Weimer Republic of Germany of the 1920s, to the

1940s and 1950s in Latin America and finally to the last decades of the twentieth century in the

English-speaking world. By explaining the developments of the term chronologically, this

chapter provides an elaborate understanding of the term. This chapter also provides some

important characteristics of magic realism. Later part of this chapter also discusses about major
magic realists and their works. Finally, the last section of this chapter speaks of Salman

Rushdie‟s importance as a magic realist. It also focuses on Rushdie‟s purpose for magic realism.

The second chapter entitled „Exploring the Magic and the Real in Midnight’s Children‟ is

divided into four sub topics. This chapter provides an explicit idea on how Rushdie incorporates

the narrative technique of magic realism in his magnum opus Midnight’s Children. This chapter

also deals with reality and fantasy, the two main aspects of magic realism and also speaks of how

Rushdie in Midnight's Children, mixes reality with fantasy. The final section of the chapter

shows how Rushdie blends history and fantasy.

The third chapter of the project entitled „Magic Realism as a Postcolonial Device in

Salman Rushdie‟s Midnight's Children’ is the core of my project. This chapter falls into three

sub topics. The first section deals with the postcolonial environments in Midnight's Children.

The second sub topic shows how Rushdie links the literary device magic realism and the literary

theory Postcolonialism. The last section of this chapter asserts the fact that magic realism is a

postcolonial device.

Through these three chapters, I try to assert that magic realism is the most effective

narrative technique for writing postcolonial novels. I also try to affirm that Salman Rushdie‟s

Midnight's Children is one of the best novels that apply the literary device magic realism.
1.1 Meaning and Definition

The Oxford Concise Dictionary of Literary Terms defines magic realism as a “kind of

modern fiction in which fabulous and fantastical elements are included in a narrative that

otherwise maintains the reliable tone of objective, realistic report”. Magic realism mixes and

disrupts ordinary everyday reality with strange, „impossible‟ and miraculous episodes and

powers.

Magic realist novels and stories have, typically a strong narrative drive, in which the

recognizably realistic merges with the unexpected and the inexplicable and in which elements of

dreams, fairy story, or mythology combine with the everyday reality, often in mosaic or

kaleidoscopic pattern of refraction and recurrence.

In magic realism, we find the transformation of the common and the everyday into the

awesome and the unreal. It is predominantly an art of surprises. Time exists in a kind of timeless

fluidity and the unreal happens as part of reality. Once the reader accepts the fait accompli, the

rest follows with logical precision.

The term is broadly descriptive rather than critically rigorous: Professor Matthew

Strecher defines magic realism as "what happens when a highly detailed, realistic setting is

invaded by something too strange to believe." A literary mode rather than a distinguishable

genre, magic realism aims to seize the paradox of the union of opposites. For instance, it

challenges polar opposites like life and death and the pre-colonial past versus the post-industrial

present. Magic realism differs from pure fantasy primarily because it is set in a normal, modern

world with authentic descriptions of humans and society.

 In magic realism, the magical elements are blended into a realistic atmosphere in order to

access a deeper understanding of reality. These magical elements are explained like normal

occurrences that are presented in a straightforward manner which allows the „real‟ and the

„fantastic‟ to be accepted in the same stream of thought. It has been widely considered a literary

and visual art genre; creative fields that exhibit less significant signs of magic realism include

film and music.

The presence of the supernatural in magic realism is often connected to the primeval or

„magical‟ Indian mentality, which exists in conjunction with European rationality.

1.2 History and Development

Magic realism is a term used to describe the commingling of everyday reality with

supernatural events. The two terms „magic‟ and „realism‟ have become so intertwined that

strange, unearthly happenings become almost an accepted, even normal part of daily life. The

term 'magic realism' (Magischer Realismus) was coined by the German art historian Franz Roh

in his essay Nach Expressionismus, Magischer Realismus: Probleme der neuesten Europäischen

Malerei (After expressionism: Magical Realism: Problems of the newest European painting)

written in 1925 to describe a type of painting called neue Sachlichkeit (the New Objectivity)

wave that flourished during the Weimar Republic in Germany, associated with artists like Otto

Dix, George Grosz, Carl Grossberg and Alexander Kanoldt. This type of painting was

characterized by clear, cool, static, thinly painted, sharp-focus images, frequently portraying the

imaginary the impossible, or the fantastic in a realistic manner. Roh believed magic realism is

related to, but distinctive from, surrealism, due to its focus on the material object and the actual

existence of things in the world, as opposed to the more cerebral, psychological and
subconscious reality that the surrealists explored. Alejo Carpentier was the first one to describe

its current usage in the prologue to his book: The Kingdom of This World (1949).

The term was adopted in the United States with the 1943 exhibition in which works by

Edward Hopper (1882-1967) and Charles Sheeler (1883-1965) were on show at the New York

Museum of Modern Art entitled, „American Realists and Magic Realists‟. Magic realism was

later used to describe the uncanny realism by American painters such as Ivan Albright, Paul

Cadmus, George Tooker and other artists during the 1940s and 1950s. During 1950s, the term

„magic realism‟ was changed to „magical realism‟. Even though, both „magic realism‟ and

„magic realism‟ are used nowadays with equal importance.

In contrast with its use in literature, magical realist art does not often include overtly

fantastic or magical content, but rather looks at the mundane, the everyday, through a hyper-

realistic and often mysterious lens. Italian writer, Massimo Bontempelli, for instance, is

considered as the first magic realist creative writer who sought to present the "mysterious and

fantastic quality of reality." He claimed that literature could be a means to create a collective

consciousness by „opening new mythical and magical perspectives on reality‟, and used his

writings to inspire an Italian nation governed by Fascism.

During 1950s, magic realism became a major literary technique of Latin American

writers especially, Jorge Luis Borges and the Columbian novelist Gabriel García Márquez. In

fact, Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary defines magic realism as, “a literary genre or style

associated especially with Latin America that incorporates fantastic or mythical elements into

otherwise realistic fiction. In the 1970s and 1980s, the term gained a new application and usage

with the American and Latin American literary scholars employing it to define and describe

certain genre using „the marvellous in the real‟. During the same period, it was adopted in Britain
by several of the most original of the fiction writers, including, notably, Emma Tenant, Angela

Carter, and Salman Rushdie. The magic realism technique popularized by Salman Rushdie

attracted a large number of Indian novelists in 1990s such as Rukun Advani, Mukul Kesavan and

Makarand Paranjape.

Many people have been associated with the development of magic realism in its

recognized forms of post-expressionist painting from 1920s‟ Germany and modernist and

postmodernist modes of writing from Europe in the early twentieth century, and Latin America

and the English-speaking world in the second half of the twentieth century. Although, the key

figures in the development of the term are the German art critic Franz Roh best known for his

work in the 1920s, the mid-twentieth century Cuban writer Alejo Carpentier, the Italian writer

Massimo Bontempelli from the 1920s and 1930s, the mid-twentieth-century Latin American

literary critic Angel Flores and the late twentieth century Latin American novelist Gabriel García

Márquez.

The concept of magic realism is a troubled one for literary theory. In none of its

applications to literature has the concept of magic realism ever successfully differentiated

between itself and neighbouring genres such as fabulation, metafiction, the baroque, the

fantastic, the uncanny, or the marvellous, and consequently it is not surprising that some critics

have chosen to abandon the term altogether. Magic realism is a contested term primarily because

the majority of critics increase the confusion surrounding its history by basing their consideration

of the term on one of its explanations rather than acknowledging the full complexity of its

origins. For this reason the critic Roberto González Echevarría finds it difficult to validate a „true

history‟ of the concept. The American critic Seymour Menton is one of the few who does

attempt to unravel its past. The Appendix to his book The True History of Magic Realism (1998)
is a chronology of the term, and its subtitle reveals the irony of the book‟s title: Menton heads

the Appendix with a series of queried dates that have all been claimed to be the original date of

the coining of the term: „1925, 1924, 1923, 1922?‟.

But the term retains enough of what Fredric Jameson calls a „strange seductiveness‟ to

keep it in critical currency, despite the „theoretical vacuum‟ in which it lies. In Latin America,

the badge of magic realism has signified a kind of uniqueness or difference from mainstream

culture - what in another context Alejo Carpentier has called lo real maravailloso or „marvellous

American reality‟ - and this gives the concept the stamp of cultural authority if not theoretical

soundness. And recently, the locus for critical studies on magic realism has been broadened

outward from Latin America and the Caribbean to include speculations on its place in the

literatures of India, Nigeria, and English Canada, this last being perhaps the most startling

development for magic realism in recent years, since Canada, unlike these other regions, is not

part of the third world, a condition long thought necessary to the currency of the term in regard

to literature, though not to art. Further, critics until very recently have been singularly

uninterested in applying the concept of magic realism to texts written in English.

The incompatibility of magic realism with the more established genre systems becomes

itself interesting, itself a focus for critical attention, when one considers the fact that it seems, in

a literary context, to be most obviously operative in cultures situated at the fringes of mainstream

literary traditions. As Robert Kroetsch and Linda Kenyon observe, magic realism as a literary

practice seems to be closely linked with a perception of „living on the margins‟, encoding within

it, perhaps, a concept of resistance to the massive imperial centre and its totalizing systems.

Magic realism was considered as an effective tool in the situation of those countries newly freed
from the colonial rule. It is in this regard that writers from Latin America, India, Canada, etc.

used magic realism in their works.

Magic realism‟s sudden rise in South American literature could be attributed to the fact

that the social reality of the countries in that continent made magic realism an appropriate

response it. The literary magic realism was originated in Latin America. Writers often traveled

between their home country and European cultural hubs, such as Paris or Berlin, and were

influenced by the art movement of the time. Carpentier and Uslar-Pietri, for example, were

strongly influenced by European artistic movements, such as Surrealism, during their stays in

Paris in the 1920s and 1930s. The Argentinean short story writer and essayist Jorge Luis Borges

inspired and encouraged other Latin American writers in the development of magical realism -

particularly with his first magical realist publication, Historia Universal de la Infamia (A

Universal History of Iniquity) in 1935. Between 1940 and 1950, magical realism in Latin

America reached its peak with Gabriel García Márquez and others.

In the words of Márquez, “You can get people to believe anything if you tell it

convincingly enough”. This is the basic principle of magic realist writing. In the works of

Márquez, one finds the realistic reportage mingling in the extravagant fantasy as when the author

one moment describes the construction of a banana-processing plant and the next moment shoes

a woman ascending to heaven. His Chronicle of a Death Foretold (1981) demonstrates that truth

can be best viewed „as a communal collaborative construct‟ rather than integrated perception.

The highlighting of the limitations of individual reading of truth, and the very

unpredictability inherent in it, tends to view realism as essentially comic. Magic realism fiction is

marked by a strong narrative force which draws into the discursive pattern recognizably realistic

that mingles with the fantastic, „the unpredictable and inexplicable‟. In it the a
 uthors feel free to bring in elements of dream, mythology, fairy tale and day-to-day

living, creating a kind of „kaleidoscopic pattern of refraction and recurrence‟.

1.3 Characteristics

The extent to which characteristics get applied to magic realist texts varies. Every text is

different and employs a smattering of qualities. However, they accurately portray what one

might expect from a magic realist text. Some important characteristics of magic realist texts

include:

Hybridity:

Magic realists incorporate many techniques that have been linked to post-colonialism, with

hybridity being a primary feature. Specifically, magic realism is illustrated in the inharmonious

arenas of such opposites as urban and rural and Western and indigenous. The plots of magic

realist works involve issues of borders, mixing, and change. Authors establish these plots to

reveal a crucial purpose of magic realism: a more deep and true reality than conventional realist

techniques would illustrate.

Fantastical elements:

Magic realism in literature is defined as "a kind of modern fiction in which fabulous and

fantastical events are included in a narrative that otherwise maintains the 'reliable' tone of

objective realistic report, designating a tendency of the modern novel to reach beyond the

confines of realism and draw upon the energies of fable, folk tale, and myth while maintaining a

strong contemporary social relevance”. The fantastic attributes given to characters in such

novels, levitation, flight, telepathy, telekinesis, etc. are among the means that magic realism

adopts in order to encompass the often phantasmagorical political realities of the 20th century.
Sense of mystery:

Something that most critics agree on is this major theme. Magic realist literature tends to read at

an intensified level. Taking the seminal work of the style, One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967)

by Gabriel García Márquez, the reader must let go of preexisting ties to conventional exposition,

plot advancement, linear time structure, scientific reason, etc., to strive for a state of heightened

awareness of life's connectedness or hidden meanings. Carpentier articulates this feeling as „to

seize the mystery that breathes behind things‟, and supports the claim by saying a writer must

heighten his senses to the point of „estado limite‟ (limit state) in order to realize all levels of

reality, most importantly that of mystery.

Irony Regarding Author’s Perspective:

The writer must have ironic distance from the magical world view for the realism not to be

compromised. Simultaneously, the writer must strongly respect the magic, or else the magic

dissolves into simple folk belief or complete fantasy, split from the real instead of synchronized

with it.

The Supernatural and Natural:

In magic realism, the supernatural is not displayed as questionable. While the reader realizes

that the rational and irrational are opposite and conflicting polarities, they are not disconcerted

because the supernatural is integrated within the norms of perception of the narrator and

characters in the fictional world.

Metafiction:

This trait centers on the reader's role in literature. With its multiple realities and specific

reference to the readers world, magic realism explores the impact fiction has on reality, reality on
fiction and the readers role in between; as such, it is well suited for drawing attention to social or

political criticism. Furthermore, it is the tool paramount in the execution of a related and major

magic realist phenomenon: textualization. This term defines two conditions first, where a

fictitious reader enters the story within a story while reading it, making us self-conscious of our

status as reader and secondly, where the textual world enters into the reader's world. Good sense

would negate this process but magic is the flexible topos that allows it.

Political critique:

Magic realism contains an „implicit criticism of society, particularly the elite‟. Especially with

regard to Latin America, the style breaks from the inarguable discourse of „privileged centers of

literature‟. This is a mode primarily about and for „ex-centrics‟: the geographically, socially and

economically marginalized. Therefore, magic realism's alternative world works to correct the

reality of established viewpoints (like realism, naturalism, modernism). Magic realist texts, under

this logic, are subversive texts, revolutionary against socially dominant forces. Alternatively, the

socially dominant may implement magic realism to disassociate themselves from their „power

discourse‟.

1.4 Major Magic Realists and their Works

Critics and writers debate which authors or works fall within the magic realism genre.

Within the Latin American world, the most iconic of magic realist novelist is Nobel Laureate

Gabriel García Márquez, whose novel One Hundred Years of Solitude was an instant worldwide

success. He is arguably the most influential writer within the magic realist movement. Márquez

confessed: "my most important problem was destroying the line of demarcation that separates
what seems real from what seems fantastic." The names of Latin American authors like Jorge

Luis Borges and Jorge Amado are worth noticing.

Isabel Allende was the first Latin American woman writer recognized outside the

continent. Her most well-known novel, The House of the Spirits (1982), is arguably similar to

García Márquez‟s style of magic realist writing. Another notable novelist is Laura Esquivel,

whose Like Water for Chocolate (1989) tells the story of the domestic life of women living on

the margins of their families and society. The novel's protagonist, Tita, is kept from happiness

and marriage by her mother. "Her unrequited love and ostracism from the family lead her to

harness her extraordinary powers of imbuing her emotions to the food she makes. In turn, people

who eat her food enact her emotions for her”. For example, after eating a wedding cake Tita

made while suffering from a forbidden love, the guests all suffer from a wave of longing.

A European tradition in magic realism is much advanced with the work of Kafka

(Metamorphosis), with later writers such as Günter Wilhelm Grass (The Tin Drum, 1959),

Salman Rushdie (Midnight’s Children, 1981), Angela Carter (Night’s at the Circus, 1984) John

Fowles (The Magus, 1966) and Graham Swift (Waterland, 1983).

Modern writers with whom magic realism is especially identified are the Czech novelist

Milan Kundera, the Italian Italo Calvino, and Salman Rushdie. One can see protest and the

restriction placed on information and truth in the wake of Prague Spring and the internal

emergency imposed in India in 1976, in such of their woks as Kundera‟s The Book of Laughter

and Forgetting (1982) and The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1984) and Salman Rushdie‟s

Midnight’s Children (1981) and Shame (1983). In Salman Rushdie‟s hands, political satire and

caricature easily manage with fairy-tale fights of imagination that weave a fine gossamer pattern

of subtle allusions, caprice and humour.

 The magic realism popularized by Salman Rushdie influenced a large number of Indian

novels. According to Anita Desai, Rushdie showed English language novelists in India a way to

be „postcolonial‟. There is an entire generation of novelists who feel the weight of Rushdie‟s

influence as enabling their own talents. Quite apart from his idiosyncratic characters, he showed

Indians how the English language could be appropriated, bent in any way one wanted, to achieve

a sensational effect.

Beethoven Among the Cows (1984) by Rukun Advani, Looking Through Glass (1995) by

Makarand Paranjape, An Angel in Pyjamas (1996) by Tabish Khair, „Bombay Duck‟ (1990) by

Farukh Dhondy, The Memoir of Elephants (1998), and Asylum, U.S.A (2000) both by Boman

Desai are some of the important Indian novels written in the technique of magic realism.

1.5 Salman Rushdie as a Magic Realist

Salman Rushdie, one of the most renowned writers of Indian Diaspora, settled in

England, shot into fame through his magnum opus, Midnight’s Children. He was born to an

affluent Muslim family in Bombay on 19 June 1947. He grew up in Mumbai and graduated with

honours from King‟s College, Cambridge. Settled in England, Rushdie‟s literary career started

with his first novel, Grimus (1975), which was a poor seller. With the publication of his second

novel, Midnight’s Children, Rushdie‟s fame spread world-wide and the subsequent

novels Shame and The Satanic Verses (1988) made him one of the best contemporary novelists

in the world. The allegorical novel The Satanic Verses enraged Muslim fundamentalists

including Ayatollah Khomeini who issued a fatwā sentencing Rushdie to death. Midnight’s

Children won for him the Booker of Bookers prize in 1993. In 2008 it was selected as The Best
of Bookers. Midnight’s Children is also the only Indian novel on Times’s list of the hundred best

English-language novels since its founding in 1923.

Rushdie uses the narrative style of magic realism in which myth and fantasy are blended

with real life. He uses the narrative technique of magic realism to blur the distinction between

fantasy and reality. He gives an equal acceptance for the ordinary and the extraordinary. He fuses

lyrical and, at times, fantastic writing with an examination of the character of human existence

and an implicit criticism of society, particularly the elite. Rushdie can be considered as a writer

who plays with the narrative technique of magic realism. He has earned every right to be called

one of the greatest magic realists ever.

1.5.1 About Rushdie’s Novels

To uncover the life and times of Salman Rushdie one need only turn his fictional works

and then replenish these with details from his interviews and essays. Midnight’s Children,

Shame, and Satanic Verses, each a not-so-nearly bounded fiction about three different nations,

parallel the three national identifications of this author from three countries: England, where he

lives; India where he is born; and Pakistan, where his family lives. Writers often draw upon their

lives and expressions as raw material for their work; Rushdie more so than others. The acts of his

life, the incidents and characters that people it, are replayed in his fiction, but with their meaning

and significance drawn out, displayed, allegorized.

Salman Rushdie, uses in his works, tales from various genres – fantasy, mythology,

religion, oral tradition etc. Rushdie started off as a novelist with the work Grimus in 1975. This

was a fantastical science fiction. In 1981, he came up with his second novel Midnight’s Children.

In this novel, he writes about India‟s strive for independence from British colonialism.
Midnight’s Children shows how history revolves around Saleem Sinai, the narrator protagonist

of the story and ten thousand children born in the midnight of India‟s independence. Along with

The Man Booker Prize, Midnight’s Children won the James Tait Black Memorial prize in 1981.

This work was also awarded with the Booker of Bookers prize and the best of all time winners in

1993 and 2008. The success of this novel made Rushdie a celebrity lionized by the media the

world over.

Rushdie‟s third novel Shame was published in 1983. This novel is centered on a well-to-

do Pakistani family. Chronologically, Shame falls between Rushdie‟s most acclaimed novel

(Midnight's Children) and his most controversial (The Satanic Verses). In Shame, Rushdie uses

family history as a metaphor for the country. This story includes two historical characters –

Iskander Harappa and General Raza Hyder. Iskander, a playboy turned politician molded on the

former Prime Minister, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. General Raza Hyder was the associate of Iksander

and later his executioner. Shame deals with the themes of gender, identity and postcolonialism. It

seems to promote female activism towards gender equality.

In 1988, Rushdie came with his fourth novel The Satanic Verses inspired in part by the

life of Muhammed. As with his previous books, Rushdie used magic realism and relied on

contemporary events and people to create his characters. In the United Kingdom, The Satanic

Verses received positive reviews, was a 1988 Booker Prize Finalist and won the 1988 Whitbread

Award for novel of the year. However, a major controversy ensued as conservative Muslims

accused it of blasphemy and mocking their faith. The outrage among some Muslims resulted in

a fatwā calling for Rushdie's death issued by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the Supreme Leader

of Iran, on 14 February 1989. Although Rushdie himself has never been attacked as a result of
the book's creation, extremists have attacked several connected individuals such as

translator Hitoshi Igarshi, leading to his death.

1.5.2 Magic Realism and Rushdie’s Purpose for It

Salman Rushdie describes magic realism as an alternative way of approaching the truth.

In Midnight’s Children, there are several instances of preternatural, surreal, or otherwise

„magical‟ happenings.

The first appearance of magic realism in the novel is the character of Tai, or more

specifically, Tai‟s claim to being of great antiquity. Tai adamantly asserts to being so old that he

has “watched the mountains being born” and “seen emperors die” (13). The reason why Rushdie

had Tai seemingly exhibit impossible longevity is that he wanted Tai to represent the India of

old. This theory is supported well by Tai‟s disdain for Aadam‟s bag of foreign medical supplies

from Europe. Tai says of the bag: “Now if a man breaks his arm that bag will not let the bone-

setter bind it in leaves. Now a man must let his wife lie beside that bag and watch as knives come

and cut her open” (16). Tai‟s use of the word “now” implies that he is making a comparison

between the past which he trusts and the present which he scorns. Rushdie uses Tai for

symbolically representing the traditions of pre-colonial India. Because of this hence Tai claims

of seemingly ancient origin.

A second instance of magic realism that sticks out is the story of „The Hummingbird‟

Mian Abdullah‟s assassination. Not only was Abdullah able to hum at such a high pitch that

thousands of dogs across Agra came rushing to his aid, but he also seemed to be highly resistant

to the assailants‟ knives. It is said of Abdullah that “His body was hard and the long curved

blades had trouble killing him; one broke on a rib” (58).

 Midnight's Children is a representative of the India‟s struggle to retain her culture in the

face of colonialism for a number of reasons. Abdullah‟s assassins are implied to be at least

affiliated with Great Britain. The story of his assassination is prefaced by saying of him that

“The British attitude to him was always ambiguous. Brigadier Dodson hadn‟t wanted him in

town” (57). In this scenario, Abdullah‟s physical resilience would represent the difficulty in

quelling the culture of an entire people. Furthermore, his humming represents the emerging sense

of urgency that compels the Indians to action, and the dogs symbolize the action against the

British that would eventually take place.

There are many such instances in his novels where Salman Rushdie uses magic realism.

His portrayal of characters and style of storytelling are purposeful. He uses magic realism as a

means for finding truth. The factors he uses to find the truth give an element of magic

throughout.
2.1 Magic Realism in Midnight’s Children

Salman Rushdie artistically incorporates the elements of magic realism in Midnight’s

Children. His use of magic realism as a narrative technique is intentional. Not only does he use

magic realism - the fantastic, the magical, the strange - as a useful technical tool, but he

transcends it to portray the almost unreal and surreal dimensions of the Indian subcontinent. And

much like the Latin American writers, he brings a magic and refreshing view of the effects of

colonialism.

At its first glance, the words „magic‟ and „realism‟ do not seem to be compatible with

each other. Realism is all about events that have happened, largely dealing with historical

settings. On the contrary, magic concerns with the use of fantastic or magical elements in the

narrative. Magic realism is, more than anything else, is an attitude towards reality that can be

expressed in popular or cultured forms.

Magic realism is primarily an art of creating surprises, giving people a new perspective

on what otherwise would be usual and monotonous. Events are endowed with a sense of mystery

by the way they are described. For example, in Midnight’s Children, a crowd celebrating India‟s

independence is called „the monster in the streets‟. This results in an amazement, of something

extraordinary even when the events considered normal have happened. The reader‟s attention is

drawn to these events in a way they might not otherwise be.

History itself can be quite dry. So the incorporation of „magic‟ tends to make it a bit more

interesting to read. It helps to relax the readers a bit. As a whole, magic and realism are

complemented as magic helps achieve the effect which realism barely does, and vice versa. And

indeed, realism or authenticity is true to every piece of history no matter it is in the form of

narrative or documentary.
 Salman Rushdie‟s writing, and in particular Midnight’s Children, provides us with

perfectly illustrative examples of how magic realism can work with historical postmodernism. In

his essays on writing, Imaginary Homelands (1981-1991), Rushdie reflects the views of Jameson

and Tonkin, stating that “History is always ambiguous. Facts are hard to establish, and capable of

being given many meanings. Reality is built on prejudices, misconceptions and ignorance as well

as on our perceptiveness and knowledge” (Rushdie, 25).

Rushdie reached this point of understanding through the process of writing Midnight’s

Children. In this novel, he retraces the Bombay and India of his own childhood not as

autobiography but as cultural history. The history he provides is not that written in colonial

history books, but is one constructed around individuals and their involvement in the historical

process.

There are many instances in Midnight’s Children where Rushdie uses the framework of

magic realism. Saleem‟s gift of having an incredible sense of smell, allowing him to determine

others emotions and thoughts, stems from his grandfather Adam, who also had the same large

nose and magical gift. The novel explains how Adam‟s sensitive nose ultimately 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 mounts to unbearable intensities. As Brigadier Dyer 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” (Rushdie, 41).

The sneeze provides a sense of humour and levity to the brutal attack, distracting the reader from

the massacre itself. The author very beautifully plays with magic realism in such serious and

realistic incidents of history.

Midnight’s Children is a loose allegory for events in India both before and, primarily,

after the independence and partition of India, which took place at midnight on 15 August 1947.

In the temporal sense, Midnight’s Children is post-colonial as the main body of the narrative

occurs after India becomes independent.

In Midnight’s Children, history is seen through the eyes of Saleem Sinai, thus reflected

predominantly through individual experiences. For Saleem, born at the very moment of India‟s

independence, his life becomes inextricably interlinked with the political, national, and religious

events of his time. This gives him a strong desire to restore his past identity to himself. Realism

plays a big role here in terms of describing the significant events that have happened. It goes as

detailed as Sinai himself and his family members, especially the experiences of his grandfather,

provides a unique perspective for the readers to view what have happened during the period of

Indian independence. Without the „magic‟ elements, Midnight’s Children could have been ended

up as another historical documentary. Overall, the use of magic realism not only makes this

novel more appealing, it also exerts another level of importance in terms of the narrator himself

as well as the Indian history as a whole.

Saleem Sinai, the narrator of Midnight’s Children, opens the novel by explaining that he

was born at midnight on 15th August, 1947, at the exact moment India gained its independence

from British rule. He imagines that his miraculously timed birth ties him to the fate of his

country. He later discovers that all children born in India between 12 AM and 1 AM on 15th

August, 1947, are gifted with special powers. Saleem thus attempts to use these powers to
convene the Midnight Children‟s Conference. He acts as a telepathic conduit, bringing hundreds

of geographically disparate children into contact while also attempting to discover the meaning

of their gifts. In particular, those children who are born closest to the stroke of midnight possess

more powerful gifts than the others. Shiva of the Knees, Saleem‟s evil nemesis, and Parvati,

called „Parvati-the-witch‟, are two of these children with notable gifts and roles in Saleem‟s

story.

Saleem has to contend with his personal trajectory. His family is active in this, as they

begin a number of migrations and endure the numerous wars which plague the subcontinent.

During this period he also suffers from amnesia until he enters a quasi-mythological exile in the

jungle of Sundarbans, where he is re-endowed with his memory. In doing so, he reconnects with

his childhood friends. Saleem later becomes involved with the Emergency declared by Indira

Gandhi and her son Sanjay‟s „cleansing‟ of the Jama Masjid slum. For a time Saleem is held as a

political prisoner; these passages contain scathing criticisms of Indira Gandhi‟s overreach during

the Emergency as well as what Rushdie seems to see as a personal lust for power bordering on

godhood. The Emergency signals the end of the potency of the Midnight‟s Children, and there is

little left for Saleem to do but pick up the few pieces of his life he may still find and write the

chronicle that encompasses both his personal history and that of his still-young nation; a

chronicle written for his son, who, like his father, is both chained and supernaturally endowed by

history.

Now, nearing his thirty-first birthday, Saleem believes that his body is beginning to crack

and fall apart. Fearing that his death is imminent, he grows anxious to tell his life story. Padma,

his loyal and loving companion, serves as his patient, often sceptical listener.
 The incorporation of the elements of „magic‟ and „realism‟ gives beauty and meaning to

Midnight’s Children. Rushdie‟s use of magic realism as a narrative technique is very apt as he

portrays the postcolonial life in his novel. The Magic realism can therefore be seen as a device

binding Indian culture of the past to the contemporary multicultural interface.

2.2 Midnight’s Children: Fantasy as Matrix

One of the various dictionary definitions of „fantasy‟ is that it is “a creation of the

unrestricted imagination whether expressed or conceived” (The New Penguin English

Dictionary). A literary work of fantasy is often seen to be characterized by strange and

unrealistic elements. The apparent „unrealistic‟ elements in a fictional work dominated by

fantasy may give the impression that fantasy is motivated by a desire to escape from reality.

However, fantasy may be deliberately used by the author not to escape but to transcend reality, to

subvert it to create a more encompassing vision of reality. So fantasy may be consciously used as

a device, as a method, as Salman Rushdie and so many postmodernist novelists do so often.

Rushdie used fantasy as a method of producing intensified images of reality. He uses this

„intensified images of reality‟ in Midnight’s Children so as to portray the happenings preceding

and following India‟s independence. The desperate materials pertaining to those times of

political upheaval, popular upsurge, growing optimism, and chaotic developments that often

bordered on the fantastic could not have been woven together by any other method but that of

fantasy.

It is obvious that Rushdie borrows the technique of storytelling from Indian folk tales and

the epics. But there is deliberate subversion of the purposes of folk tales and epics. Contrary to

the predominantly moral and didactic concern of the creators of folk tales and epics, Rushdie
appears to be amoral. Both folk tales and epics make liberal attempt to entertain and to present a

more complete and complicated vision of reality that merges out of the apparent unrealistic and

unbelievable, and often chaotic happenings. The truth value of incidents and characters of a

world that blends fantasy and reality is not the primary concern of either the storyteller or the

listener/reader. What becomes relevant is the underlying „truth‟ or „reality‟, the images of which

emerge from what they read or listen to. In Rushdie‟s novel, what is real, or, what is unreal is

often uncertain not only to the reader but also to the narrator himself. Or, the real may have so

many facets as to blur reality itself. In a vast country like India, with an immense variety of life-

experiences and with constant mingling of „great‟ and „little‟ traditions that have their own

visions of reality, facts often get fictionalized, truth often seems incredible.

In Midnight’s Children, through the mixing and juxtaposition of the realistic and

fantastic, which are the features of magic realism, Rushdie makes an attempt to understand and

interpret the multi-layered and complex reality of the socio-political life of the Indian

subcontinent. At the same time, there is an attempt to relate the reality of the individual life to

that super-ordinate, all encompassing reality.

At the surface level, Midnight’s Children is the story of Saleem Sinai and the other

children of India‟s historic midnight of August 15, 1947. At a deeper level, it is the story of an

emerging nation, trying to come into its own. The narrator tries to convince us, the readers, that

there is an integral relation between the private destiny of an individual, Saleem Sinai, and the

public destiny.

The narrator-protagonist of Midnight’s Children admits that his history or a major part of

it „ends in fantasy‟ because in a situation where reality ceases to exist, or is subverted or made

invisible, where the truth is manufactured, fantasy is the only means of uncovering what is
hidden. Fantasy is a device of tracing and uncovering what is hidden, as Jackson points out, “The

fantastic traces the unsaid and the unseen of culture that has been silenced, made invisible,

covered over or made „absent‟ ”. So through his novel, Rushdie tries to uncover the hidden

identity of India.

The language of fantasy is not representational. Like any other postmodern fiction, the

language of Midnight’s Children is not representational. It does not represent facts or what is

real; instead it fabricates facts and the real. At times the language becomes metaphorical:

“Nobody could remember when Tai had been young. He had been plying this

same boat, standing in the same hunched position, across the Dal and Nageen

Lakes… forever” (10).

But as the narrator observes, “Reality can have metaphorical content; that does not make it less

real”.

Fantasy is marked by certain other features too. For example, there is a breach of

chronology in the story-telling, a breach of temporal and spatial unities. Rushdie‟s tale weaves

past and present. It begins with the mention of Saleem‟s birth in 1947, then it looks back to the

early years of the twentieth century, then briefly recalls Saleem‟s childhood experience, and then

goes back to 1919 and Jallianwala Bagh. In between, one notices self reflexivity in the narrator‟s

deliberate attempts to lay bare the process of constructing his own version of the reality.

Another element of fantasy found in Rushdie‟s novel is the overt violation of what is

accepted as possible or probable, true or fact. For example, like the Puranic characters, Tai the

eternal boatman is ageless: “Nobody could remember when Tai had been young. He had been

plying this same boat, standing in the same hunched position, across the Dal and Nageen
Lakes… forever” (10). In his poetic language, Rushdie describes the agelessness of and

something of the eternal in Tai: “His face was a sculpture of wind on water…” (10). At the same

time, incredulity is neutralized by exaggerating what could have been partially true or factual.

The boatman Tai gave up washing. “He took to drifting slowly past the Aziz household,

releasing the dreadful fumes of his body across the small garden and into the house. Flowers

died; birds fled from the ledge outside old Father Aziz‟s window” (29).

An inversion of the elements of this world is a marked feature of fantasy. Rushdie resorts

to this method in his novel very often. The midnight‟s children had mysterious magical powers.

A boy could step into mirrors and emerge from any reflecting surface, another could eat metal; a

girl could inflict physical wounds with words, another‟s finger was so green that she could prize

aubergines in the Thar desert. Saleem himself had a highly developed sense of smell. He had the

ability to “get inside grownups‟ thoughts”.

There is a deliberate attempt to subvert the conventions of realistic representation

throughout the novel. “It seems that the late summer of that year my grandfather, Doctor Aadam

Aziz, contracted a highly dangerous form of optimism… He was by no means alone, because

despite strenuous efforts by the authorities to stamp it out, this virulent disease had been breaking

out all over India that year” (39). This is obviously a reference to a real historical event, the Quit

India movement in 1942.

An attempt to reconstruct reality to produce strange and unfamiliar effect is made in the

novel. Mian Abdullah‟s hum “Could fall low enough to give you toothache‟ and when it rose to

the highest, more feverish pitch, it had the ability of inducing erections in anyone within its

vicinity” (46). When assassins came to kill hummingbird Abdullah, “…his humming became
higher and higher”, “out of the range of our human ears, and was heard by the dogs of the town”

(58).

Through all these the „unreality‟ of the confusing, amorphous reality of our times is fore

grounded. Fantasy serves as a time-tested device for doing so. In a tropical country like our

India, fantasy seems to be, as the narrator himself states, not an optional literary method, but an

inevitable natural psychic process, of grappling with the truth and reality that seem to be forever

fuzzy.

2.3 Narrative Techniques in Midnight’s Children

Rushdie‟s Midnight’s Children is divided into „three books‟. These three Books are

reminiscent of the Victorian three-decker novel. Book One covers the time from the Jallianwala

Bagh incident of April, 1919 to the birth of the protagonist, Saleem, on 15 August, 1947; Book

Two extends up to the end of the Indo-Pakistan war in September, 1965, and Book Three

envelops the period up to the end of the Emergency in March, 1977, and includes the Bangladesh

war as well.

Narration in Midnight's Children takes in the form of dialogues between two voices: that

of Saleem and Padma, who embodies the audience. Rushdie captures the reader‟s attention by

playing with pathos and emotions. The narrator starts the story saying:

"And there are so many stories to tell, too many, such an excess of intertwined

lives events miracles places rumours, so dense, a commingling of the improbable

and the mundane! I have been a swallower of lives; and to know me, just the one

of me, you'll have to swallow the lot as well" (4).

Here, the narrator, Saleem Sinai insists on the reader's necessary good will for the rest of his

story.

Rushdie uses the elements of pity and fear in his narrative. “The succession of

mutilations, from the piece of hair pulled out to the eardrum pierced by a mighty blow dealt by

his father (194), from the cut finger to the sinus operation which brings about the loss of

telepathy (364)”, all of them arouse the two emotions Aristotle attributed to the genre of tragedy

in his Poetics, that is to say pity and terror.

The second element Rushdie uses is to do with efficiency. Saleem is very intent upon

delighting his listener. Thus he emphasizes how he strives "to recapture the rapt attention of my

revolted Padma Bibi" by "recount[ing] a fairy tale" (382). This concern with efficiency

frequently makes use of what Roman Jakobson termed the phatic function, in order to keep

contact with the addressee. Efficiency in a narrative is fundamental to Rushdie. In an interview,

he drew a comparison between his style and the technique used by Indian storytellers: "In India

the thing that I've taken most from, I think, apart from the fairytale tradition that we were talking

about, is oral narration. Because it is a country of still largely illiterate people [like Padma] the

power and the vitality still remain in the oral storytelling tradition”.

The Book One is full of bawdy puns and funny anecdotes. Purple patches are also an

important factor in order to please the reader. Instances of humour can be seen in the description

of Doctor Aziz before the massacre recounted in the chapter „Mercurochrome‟ or when the

reader realises that William Methwold's hair is in fact a wig.

The elements of time and space are also used in the novel. The title of Chapter Sixteen,

„Alpha and Omega‟, reminds the reader of this element. The narrator often refers to the time of
enunciation and cannot help mentioning what is going to happen or what has just happened. He

announces the mysterious birth of Saleem and Shiva ("Noses and knees and knees and noses")

and foresees the crucial moments of his life:

"Spittoons will brain him - doctors will drain him - jungle will claim him - wizards

reclaim him! Soldiers will try him - tyrants will fry him . . ." (115).

In this oracle, the poetic function of language is particularly emphasized. The effect generated is

that of an incantation, of a magic formula that predicts Saleem's cycle of destiny.

Time ceaselessly transforms itself: it stretches in Book One, which starts in 1915 (or even

at the beginning of mankind, with Tai the boatman) and finishes in 1947, it then considerably

settles between Chapters Nine and Twenty, in which a period of eighteen years elapses, until the

Indo-Pakistani war of 1965. It then retracts itself even more in Book Three, which lasts twelve

years, until the aftermath of Indira Gandhi's Emergency.

The constitutive eroticism used in the introductory scene which launches the paradigm of

the „perforated sheet‟ is a metaphor for Rushdie‟s narrative technique. The pleasure drawn from

the „strip-tease‟ is reminiscent of quite a few voyeuristic characters. Like the perforated sheet

which lets us peep through its holes to reveal the rest of the body, every page of the novel is

turned to uncover what is hidden in the rest of the story.

2.4 Midnight's Children: A Cocktail of History and Fantasy

Years back, at the dawn of twentieth century, a young doctor Adam Aziz, educated in

Germany bruises his giant nose while praying in Kashmir valley and decides to stop believing in

God, causing the occurrence of a hole in the place of his heart and thereby setting off a chain of
events that culminated in the chronicling of them more than sixty years by his grandson Saleem

Sinai.

Saleem Sinai, born at the exact stroke of midnight, along with a great nation of huge

diversity as his sibling, by a quirk of fate got swapped just after birth with another child who is

destined to be his arch rival. Saleem was destined to be the great Messiah of the nation. But he

was beaten by his own family, the history and even by his lovers.

In Midnight’s Children, Salman Rushdie weaves the magic realist tale of a newly born

nation, its expectations, failures, and ultimate downfall with the Emergency, like a master

weaver. The story works in many levels. It can be read as a fantasy, a commentary on politics of

the subcontinent or as an allegory of actual events. It is a bizarre mix, a cocktail of fantasy and

history, where lot of actual events and people are interwoven to the narrative. Saleem who

possess several supernatural abilities is never able to use them to the help of his nation, his

sibling due to the differences in opinion from other midnight's children. The story unfolds like an

avalanche where small incidences trigger bigger ones which in turn cause bigger impacts.

„Recurrence‟ is a major theme of the novel. Some objects or happenings recur throughout

the story, in different places, with different people which give the novel a unique flow. The name

changes of characters are a recurring theme. In the novel, several characters change their names,

usually after their marriage. Another incident recurring is the shouting of ticket-

less passengers outside trains when those with tickets close the doors to avoid them. Initially it is

Saleem's grand father and his bride. Then his father and mother and when Saleem's turn comes

he is outside the train with ticket-less men. Infidelity and impotence are two other themes that

recur. Many characters are not faithful to their partners, like Saleem's mother who visits her
former husband in a cafe, or Pia Aunt unfaithful to her husband Hanif. These also play much

important part in the numerous twists and turns in the novel.

In many instances in the novel, men when subjected to failure, become impotent. Like

Ahmad Sinai, when his assets are frozen by the government, or Hanif after the failure of his

movies. But impotency becomes a major part at the end of the novel when Indira Gandhi, with

her son Sanjay, decides mass vasectomy operations to the poor. It works in two levels: In literal

level, it becomes a method to sterilize the midnight's children who has power to upset the

politics. In a deeper level it works as an allegory about the sterilization of a whole nation by

emergency, where any opponents are oppressed and thereby turning the whole country impotent.

History of the subcontinent plays a major role in the novel as Saleem's life is entangled

with the nation with whom he was born. His grandfather is present in Delhi while Jallianwallah

Bagh massacre occurs, and after his birth, while they live in Bombay, his presence happens in

many noteworthy events, like he becomes the cause of a slogan against Gujarati by Marathas

when he accidentally falls into the procession. Later he becomes the indirect cause to the death

of Nehru. Then there is the Sabarmati case in which Saleem is said to have his hands. When his

family migrates to Pakistan, he is the one with Ayub Khan in the first coup. Again because of his

great olfactory skills he gets a chance to be part of the team that overthrows Mujib in

Bangladesh. He is present in Dhaka when Manek Shah marches with army to liberate

Bangladesh.

Moving through the novel is like entering a dark cave with thousands of paintings on the

walls equipped only with a dim torch light and taking hours to see and enjoy each of those

beautiful paintings part by part, like Dr Adam Aziz, in the novel, attends his most beautiful
patient and the wife-to-be, Naseema behind a perforated cloth examining one part at a time and

proposing finally when he sees her face.

3.1 Salman Rushdie’s ‘Sterioscopic Vision’: 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’s Children. In order to make meaning out of

his life, Saleem first „swallows the world‟: he tries to understand his country‟s colonial past;

makes sense out of its burgeoning independent present; and comes to terms with his (and India‟s)

postcolonial identity.

Postcolonial discourse was born in response to the imperial expansion of Western

colonial empires during the nineteenth and early twentieth century. Postcolonial writers like

Rushdie, therefore, emerged out of the experience of colonization and asserted themselves by

writing in response to the authority wielded by the imperial powers. The prose of African

countries, Australia, Bangladesh, Canada, Caribbean countries, India, Malaysia, New Zealand,

Pakistan, Singapore, South Pacific Island countries, and Sri Lanka are all examples of

postcolonial literatures.

The desire to reclaim the India of his past was the driving force behind Rushdie‟s

decision to write Midnight‟s Children – the novel was born when Rushdie realized how much he

wanted to restore his past identity to himself. Midnight’s Children was his first literary attempt to

recapture India. The novel explores the ways in which history is given meaning through the

retelling of individual experience. History 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 Indians with whom he

was born and raised. As a product of postcolonial India, Saleem pieces together the multifarious

fragments of his identity, just as India begins anew in rebuilding her identity in the wake of
colonialism. Saleem‟s story represents the plural identities of India and the fragmented search for

self through memory.

Saleem‟s attempt to reconcile his various multiple identities reflects India‟s struggle to

reunite its multiple nationhood after colonial rule. In a narrative build-up to the day of India‟s

independence, Saleem refers India as a nation which had previously never existed. Although it

had five thousand years of history, although it had invented the game of chess and traded with

Middle Kingdom Egypt, India would never exist. It can exist only by the efforts of a phenomenal

will - the will of its citizen. In order to break down the physical constraints of colonial rule, India

needs to come together as a nation; it needs to unite its multiple national identities to form a great

nation - a mythic land as Saleem calls it.

Saleem‟s struggle with self-identity parallels Rushdie‟s analogy of „multiple rooting‟.

One example 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. As 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. He says:

“Even a baby is faced with the problem of defining itself; and I‟m bound to say

that my early popularity had its problematic aspects, because I was bombarded

with a confusing multiplicity of views on the subject” (178).

Furthermore, when his parents discover they are not his true biological parents, they leave him

for an extended period of time with his Uncle Hanif and Aunt Pia who become his surrogate

parents. Saleem refers to this period of time as his „first exile‟ (the second being when he moves

with his parents to Pakistan). Like Rushdie, who is a product of multiple nations (India, Pakistan

and England), Saleem sorts through his own multiple identities to recognize his true self. These
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.

Multiplicity is also metaphorically represented by the Midnight‟s Children Conference.

At the age of nine, Saleem starts to hear voices in his head and realizes that he can telepathically

communicate with all of the other children born at the midnight hour of India‟s independence.

He speaks of his newfound telepathic powers thus:

“I am nine years old and lost in the confusion of other people‟s lives which are

blurring together in the heat” (237).

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 experience India‟s

diverse plurality. The diversity of their powers and backgrounds parallels Rushdie‟s point that

India is a nation that is much too complex and diverse to be defined by one homogenous culture.

One of Rushdie's most prominent themes is the fragmentary effects of displacement and

migration. He cites the fragmentation of memory and identity as one of the common attributes of

the displaced Indian writer. In Imaginary Homelands he states, “When the Indian writer who

writes from outside India tries to reflect that world, he is obliged to deal in broken mirrors, some

of whose fragments have been irretrievably lost” (10). Because expatriates experience a physical

and mental displacement from their homeland, it is inevitable that their identities also become

fragmented and disjointed. Like Rushdie, the characters in the novel attempt to solve the puzzle

of their own identities. For example, during their courtship, Aadam Aziz gains familiarity with

his future wife, Naseem, through a white perforated sheet whose singular hole allows him to

examine her body. He becomes familiar with her body in fragments: “So gradually Doctor Aziz

came to have a picture of Naseem in his mind, a badly-fitting collage of her severally-inspected
parts. This phantasm of a partitioned woman began to haunt him…” (26). Aadam pieces together

the puzzle of Naseem‟s appearance. The perforated sheet is repeatedly mentioned throughout the

text 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 - its meanings, its structures - in fragments.

Just as the perforated sheet symbolizes the fragmented identities of Aadam and Naseem,

Amina [Saleem‟s mother] trains herself to love her husband in segments. In love with the

memory of another man, Amina 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

behavioral…in 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” (71). Her 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 Aadam Aziz as possessing a void or hole in his center as a result of his

uncertainty of God‟s existence and newfound disillusion with his Kashmiri homeland. When

Aadam hits his nose on the ground while attempting to pray he resolves to never again kiss 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” (4). Aadam is described throughout the

novel with reference to the image of the hole in his stomach – the disintegration of his body

parallels the rapid chaotic turmoil that besets India. Concurrently Saleem, throughout his

narrative, often refers to the „cracking‟ and disintegration of his exterior. He says, “I have begun

to crack all over like an old jug…I am literally disintegrating…” (36). 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.

3.2 Midnight’s Children: The Link Between Magic Realism and

Postcolonialism

Rushdie‟s Midnight’s Children is known for its brilliant use of magic realism, through the

use of which it has attained the status of a perfect postcolonial text. His writings deal with the

issue of split identity and conflict of immigration and exile. As a novelist from a country with a

colonial legacy, „the idea of nation‟ has always been the central concern in his fictional and non-

fictional writing. The postcolonial concept of a nation differs from the general notion of nation

referring to „same people living in same place‟. Since Indians are different people living in the

same place, India remains pluralistic in its languages and cultures with different histories of

communities. With magical realism, postcolonial writers are able to challenge realistic narrative

and present an alternative reality. According to Linda Hutcheon, the postmodern technique of

magic realism is linked to postcolonialism in that they both deal with the oppressive force of

colonial history in relation to the past.

In a magic realist text, we can see a conflict between two oppositional systems and each

of them work 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. In Midnight's Children, through fantasy, realism makes its

voice heard. The narrative framework of Midnight’s Children consists of tale which Saleem

Sinai recounts orally to his wife-to-be Padma. This self-referential narrative recalls indigenous

Indian culture, particularly the similarly orally recounted Arabian Nights. The events in

Rushdie‟s text also parallel the magical nature of the narratives recounted in the Arabian Nights.
 In this novel, the mingling of the fantastic and ordinary, which is an aspect of magical

realism, seems Indian as the characters involved in contemporary political and social upheavals

also possess the power of mythic heroes. In the beginning of the novel, there is a fine passage as

an example for this mingling of the real and fantastic. Grandfather Adam Aziz‟s blood solidifies

and turns into rubies and his tears too turn into diamonds. Mian Abdullah‟s humming without a

pause causes the window of the room to fall and causes one his enemy‟s eyes to crack and fall

out. Later in the novel we see Amina, who is Saleem‟s mother, having fears of getting a child

with a cauliflower in its head instead of brain (461). We also come across another strange

washerwoman Durga whose breasts are colossal and inexhaustible with a torrent of milk (622).

Such incidents in the novel give a kind of dream like quality due to the mixing 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 India.

His birth, growth, development and destruction are related to that of India. The other characters

too seem to wander through the pages of history, colliding with important moments in the

development of India seemingly by accident. Thus, Saleem‟s grandfather is on his knees after a

mighty sneeze when Brigadier Dyer‟s fifty machine-gunners open fire in the Amritsar massacre

of 1919; it is Saleem‟s father who buys one of Methwold‟s villas; Saleem is born at the moment

India is; and almost all of the major events of his life, leading finally to the destruction of the

midnight‟s children and also India at the moment of declaration of Emergency are coincidental to

developments in the new country. Saleem and India 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 1947 due to the fight

between India and Pakistan over Kashmir. The „crack‟ in the body of politics corresponds to the

„cracks‟ in Saleem, as he feels himself going to pieces. This conversion of metaphors into events

is another type of magic in the novel. When Saleem informs his family of his special gift of

hearing voices, his father hits him in the ear. His „stupid cracks‟ are literalised into physical

cracks. Thus, in this novel, magic realism is a way of showing „reality‟ more truly with the aid of

various magic of metaphor. Quite naturally, this novel significantly shaped the course of Indian

writing in English after its publication. Rushdie looks like a story-teller who tries to return the

English language to the tradition of magic realism which has a history from Cervantes through

Sterne to Milan Kundera and Marquez.

Midnight's Children is regarded as a postcolonial text and if postcolonial literature is

understood in the binary model of colonizer vs. colonized, then Rushdie‟s narrative fits in that

model. Since postcolonialism remains part of English Studies, critics who focus on colonialism

also endorse the view of Rushdie as a perfect postcolonial writer. Protagonists or narrators in

postcolonial writings are often found to be pressed with the questions of identity, conflicts of

living between two worlds and the forces of new cultures. Postcolonial writings take place

through the process of re-writing and re-reading the past. Rushdie wants his midnight‟s children

to question the colonial paradigms so that the constructed „Other‟ may give India and some such

colonized countries a decolonized identity.

Rushdie‟s view of the unchanging twoness of things, the duality of up against down,

good against evil, finds parallel in the term magical realism. The search for the whole in Saleem

can be acknowledged as finding what will make up his identity which is a central concern in
postcolonial literature. Rushdie‟s subject is identity; both national and personal. His literature

discusses the themes of identity that breaks down colonial constructs of Western dominance over

Eastern culture. With this, he tries to establish himself as a prominent Anglo-Indian postcolonial

writer.

Besides using magic realism as a strategy to upturn the usual realism, the novel stands

against the colonial models too. As a political position, post colonialism provides the needed

space for resisting the Western realism. The metaphors and allegories in which the novel is

steeped, facilitate a politicized resistance against western paradigmatic inconsistencies like its

historical discourse of orders which is not only false but also derogatory from a postcolonial

perspective. For example, the strange connection between Saleem and India not only

metaphorizes 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 India is written by its Western conquerors.

Rushdie tries to subvert Western colonial constructs of identity and culture by employing

specific postcolonial literary techniques such as fragmentation, plurality and language along with

magical realism. Midnight’s Children can be considered as one such attempt of Rushdie to

recapture India. From this perspective, it can be concluded that Salman Rushdie‟s Midnight’s

Children successfully links magical realism with postcolonialism.

3.3 Magic Realism as a Postcolonial Device in Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s

Children

Salman Rushdie‟s Midnight’s Children, remains a central text in postcolonial literature.

Rushdie‟s ambitious novel rejects the British colonial versions of India and constructs a „new‟

world and a new depiction of Indian citizens and history in an attempt to provide greater truth to

Indian images and history. Midnight’s Children follows Saleem Sinai, as he self-consciously
explains his family history to the readers and to his listener, Padma. While describing his

grandfather and grandmother‟s personal history, Saleem intertwines Indian history within his

narrative. This combination of his own familial history and Indian history culminates in the

moment of his birth.

Midnight’s Children‟s importance and significance as a postcolonial text arises from the

novel‟s ability to intertwine three major themes: the creation and telling of history, the creation

and telling of a nation‟s and an individual‟s identity, and the creation and telling of stories. The

novel expresses these themes and simultaneously introduces the problems of postcolonial

identity through connected and dependent forms of hybridity.

The novel employs different levels of hybridization, each depending on each other to

exist and work within the text, through which the novel illustrates India‟s emerging postcolonial

identity. The ability of the narrator, Saleem Sinai, to wordlessly communicate with the other

Indian children born on the same day demonstrates how magic realism gives Indians the

opportunity to communicate the thoughts, desires, and dreams of a nation. Hence, these midnight

children literally give voice to an entire subcontinent.

The formal technique of magic realism becomes the framework of the novel, through

which the characters become able to communicate their individual perspectives and provide their

own, more accurate versions of history. In order to effectively illustrate a new and emerging

Indian postcoloniality, it becomes necessary to write in a new method to properly communicate

to the colonial and post-colonial citizens. Rushdie‟s use of magic realism in Midnight’s

Children becomes not only a new literary technique, but a necessary one, vital to communicate

the new problems and struggles associated with Indian postcoloniality.

 Midnight’s Children uses the framework of magical realism to explore the problems of

postcolonialism. Through the novel‟s focus on the personal histories of its characters, along with

its use of humor, the text destabilizes the authority and power of major historical events. By

undercutting the power of these historical events, the novel grapples with both the Britain‟s

power over Indians, along with the Indian‟s attempts to reassert their own power, through

independence, and the consequences of this newly acquired independence.

The novel‟s creation of new and seemingly more accurate versions of Indian colonial

and post-colonial history stems from the text‟s explicit references to historical events. The

Indian characters in the novel attempt to displace and distort British colonial versions of Indian

history. Saleem melds Indian and his familial history and connects both histories to his own

present moment. Saleem‟s position as author, writer, and creator of his familial history brings up

the idea that history may be created, just as a family history may be embellished and

exaggerated. Saleem appears as a „symbol‟ for India; his birth and his ability to communicate

with his fellow midnight children associate him with a „mother-earth‟ figure, like „Mother India‟.

Through the formal framework of magic realism, the novel allows its multitude of

characters, belonging to different cultural backgrounds, to evaluate and formulate their own

versions of Indian history, thus subverting British colonial versions of history. Magic realism

becomes necessary to communicate the postcoloniality of India, and within its framework, the

novel explores and presents a postcolonial history of its own. The cultural and social hybridity,

along with the historical hybridity present within the novel allows the text to illustrate the major

themes of the novel and postcoloniality itself: the creation and telling of history, identity, and

narratives. The novel effectively and clearly depicts the problems of postcoloniality and seeks to

solve them.
 In the novel, identity creation occurs at both the national level and the personal level.

Thus, while the novel describes the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre from the perspective of Indian

citizens in an attempt to accurately depict the event, the description of the event serves as a

means for Saleem to explain and understand his grandfather‟s past.

Humor remains one method the novel uses to grapple with the incredible violence

spawned by colonization. By focusing on Aadam‟s struggle to control his sneeze during the

Jallianwala Bagh Massacre, the novel seeks to solve a problem of postcoloniality: the difficulty

of creating and determining one‟s own personal and national identity. Through humor, Saleem

becomes able to focus on his own familial identity, allowing Saleem to gain a greater

understanding of his own identity. He becomes able to see the origins of his sense of smell and

telepathy, through his grandfather‟s actions. The creation and telling of a postcolonial citizen‟s

personal history remain inextricably linked to the creation and telling of a postcolonial

nation‟s history, due to the unavoidable presence of the colonizers in the citizen and nation‟s

past.

In an effort to solve the problems of postcolonialism, the difficulties of creating and

determining one‟s history, identity, and point of origin, the novel employs magic realism as its

formal technique. Although the novel‟s presence of magic realism illustrates another form of

hybridization (mixing fantasy and reality) within the novel, this formal technique is not merely

another example of hybridization in the text. Magic realism remains the framework of the novel

itself, and within magic realism, the entire novel explores postcolonial problems in an attempt to

solve them via connected forms of hybridity. This formal technique remains necessary to

express India‟s growing postcoloniality, and without its usage, the novel‟s attempts to adequately
illustrate varying Indian citizens and their more accurate versions of history would remain

difficult, if not impossible.

Midnight’s Children‟s formal technique of magical realism, then, becomes not only a

mere formal innovation, but the most adequate expression of the history of Indian colonialism

and the modern moment of Indian postcoloniality. The novel connects historical events,

mythological stories, and fictional narratives and combines them to form a true picture of Indian

postcoloniality. Through the varying character narratives and their myriad connections to each

other, the novel accurately depicts the problems of the colonial project. While the colonizers

categorized India and Indians as a monolithic place and people, the novel illustrates India‟s

multiplicity and diversity, in an attempt to overturn the colonial image of India.

By depicting a myriad of characters, Rushdie demonstrates the impossibility of

identifying a true authentic Indian identity or history. Instead, he shows that if a postcolonial

citizen remains able to create his or her own history and identity, as Saleem does, it becomes

possible to ignore questions of authenticity.

The novel, through Saleem‟s personal narration, understands the need to explore the

history and identity of one‟s nation in order to adequately express one‟s own personal history.

Thus, the ways in which the novel‟s characters interact and overlap allows for the combination of

fiction with myth and history. This mixing and melding of history, identity, and storytelling

occurs through the social interactions within the novel, mostly occurring relationally to Saleem.

Thus, the social and cultural hybridization occurring within the text directly influences Saleem‟s

narrative, and hence, allows new postcolonial narratives to become prominent, while

marginalizing colonial narratives.

 Several moments within the novel, either the novel itself, demonstrates how Saleem and

the other midnight‟s children remain vital to India‟s future. Not only are these children

necessary for India‟s new future, but they remain a „mirror‟ for India‟s future, illuminating the

strengths and weaknesses of an independent India. The midnight‟s children, therefore represent

the multiplicity and diversity within postcolonial India.

 CONCLUSION

Published in 1981, Salman Rushdie‟s Midnight's Children significantly shaped the course

of Indian writing in English. This great work of art gave Rushdie a prominent position in the

literary canon. He got a definite place in the readers‟ heart. Critics accepted Rushdie as a story-

teller who returned English 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 example 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 Indian subcontinent and thereby making it a

postcolonial work. By synchronizing the national history and the personal history, Rushdie

narrates India‟s colonial past and postcolonial present. His narration of the nation is subjective

and therefore history in the text is fragmented and, at times, erroneous.

Rushdie‟s use of magic realism makes Midnight's Children the more appealing. It gives a

fantastical element to the text. Fantasy is deliberately used so as to transcend the reality. Magic

realism helped the author to speak the unspeakable. Various themes and elements of magic

realism like the themes of multiplicity, displacement, migration, fragmentation and disintegration

are metaphorically used in various incidents in the text. 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

postcolonialism. So, by connecting and combining historical events, mythological stories and

fictional narratives, Rushdie tries to create and convey a true picture of Indian postcolonialism.
While the colonizers categorized India and Indians as a monolithic place and people, the novel

illustrates India‟s multiplicity and diversity, in an attempt to overturn the colonial image of India.

Midnight's Children is therefore an attempt to recapture India. All these attempts would have

been impossible without the inclusion of magic realism.

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