Essay on Salman Rushdies Midnight Children - 1459 Words

Salman Rushdies Midnight Children Salman Rushdie is one of the greatest writers India has ever produced. Amongst the premier works of Rushdie, Midnight’s Children continues to be one of the best meta-fictional works of the postmodern era. Rushdie’s attempt to break the binary by using a different kind of narrative and play of words put him in the likes of American prodigies like Thomas Pynchon. Rushdie has marinated each line of his story with a web of words, abundance of allusions and a chutney of twists and turns. Midnight’s Children is a story that refers to the children born within an hour of midnight on August 15th, 1947, when Independent India was born. The novel itself describes the history of Saleem Sinai’s life and†¦show more content†¦The idea of making a chutney or pickle also coincides with the idea of giving immortality. The fish, fruits and vegetables are hung embalmed in spice and vinegar after making them â€Å"dead† and changing its taste to an intensive degree. Thus, the metaphor of chutney also amalgamates the political as well as the domestic lifestyle of Indian people during the post-colonial India. In the story, Mary’s chutney ring familiar to grown up Saleem and thus brings him back to her after years of separation – where in becomes â€Å"pickler-in-chief.† The â€Å"grasshopper-green† chutney or the â€Å"guilty chutney† describes the intensity of â€Å"realms of life lost into time† (Towers 5). Thus, Chutney becomes a spicy mixture, mixed with emotions of the stirrer, and pickled food is preserved as the stories, remaining sluggish within the characters who tell their stories. In the beginning of Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children, doctor Adam Aziz’s nose releases a stream of metaphors -â€Å"plantain,† â€Å"vegetable,† â€Å"proboscissimus† whose bridge could cross a river. Later in the story, Saleem’s large and long nose is seen as repulsive, snot-ridden and nuisance, yet as his power giving tool to help him converse telepathically with hundreds of other children in his mind. Saleem’s grandfather could smell when danger was approaching and this attribute, at least symbolically, has been inherited by Saleem in his later youth. Saleem’s nose also â€Å"sniffs out† theShow MoreRelatedThemes of Midnights Children Essay1463 Words   |  6 PagesSalman Rushdie’s novel Midnight’s Children tells the story of Saleem Sinai and takes place throughout the history of India during the year 1915-1978. As Saleem is approaching his 31st birthday, he tells his life story to his confidant Padma, since he prophetically foresees his impending death. The retelling of his life begins with his Grandfather, Adaam Aziz, and the events leading to Saleem’s birth. Saleem’s character is interesting because of events and qualities that have set him apart. He wasRead More Analysis of Salman Rushdies Midnights Children Essay1060 Words   |  5 PagesAnalysis of Salman Rushdies Midnights Children Salman Rushdie’s novel Midnight’s Children employs strategies which engage in an exploration of History, Nationalism and Hybridity. This essay will examine three passages from the novel which demonstrate these issues. Furthermore, it will explore why each passage is a good demonstration of these issues, how these issues apply to India in the novel, and how the novel critiques these concepts. The passage from pages 37-38 effectively demonstratesRead More Arranged Marriage In Midnights Children Essays720 Words   |  3 PagesArranged Marriage In Midnights Children â€Å"Arranged Marriages in Midnight’s Children† An element of Midnight’s Children, by Salman Rushdie that I particularly enjoyed was the recurring theme of loving someone in pieces. There are two instances where this is prevalent, one being the interaction between Aadam Aziz and Naseem Ghani. It is stated that: â€Å"In short: my grandfather had fallen in love, and had come to think of the perforated sheet as something sacred and magical, because throughRead MoreENG2602 ASS011982 Words   |  8 Pages Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie. Born at the stroke of midnight on August 15, 1947, the day of India’s independence from British rule, Saleem’s life is a microcosm of post-Independent India. The Title of this text, Midnight’s Children, gives the reader a broad idea of what the text is about: It gives the time and where the setting may play off. This text dominates the theme of identity that breaks down colonial constructs of Western dominance over Eastern culture, hence Salman Rushdie positionRead MoreMidnights Children Salman Rushdie Essays1868 Words   |  8 PagesMidnight’s Children Awarded the Booker Prize in 1981, Midnight’s Children is Salman Rushdie’s most highly regarded work of fiction. Rushdie was born on June 19, 1947, and his birth occurred simultaneously with a particularly meaningful moment in Indian history. After almost one hundred years of colonial rule, the British occupation of India was coming to an end. Almost exactly three months after Rushdie’s birth, India gained its long-awaited independence at the stroke of midnight on August 15Read MoreInterpretation In Midnights Children By Salman Rushdie949 Words   |  4 PagesAchebe’s confining techniques, Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children relies entirely on narration to guide the audience. Throughout the novel, Saleem is transcending past and present to retell his life story, or more specifically, the past and present of India. By directly speaking to the audience in between his recounts, Rushdie urges the audience to capture the bias within his narration . Although Sadeem and Rushdie are implicitly portrayed as the same individual, Rushdie’s ability to manipulate SadeemRead MoreThe Satanic Verses By Salman Rushdie973 Words   |  4 PagesSalman Rushdie is a passionate novelist and essayist known for his magical realism, who expresses his beliefs and influences through his works. Rushdie has frequently described himself as a â€Å"historian of ideas,† and many of his novels are â€Å"novels of ideas† rather than narrations centered on a plot or character. 1 Furthermore, Rushdie’s pessimistic views of religion are seen in his writings, from The Satanic Verses to recent essays like, Out of Kansas. I will also discuss the fatwa’ calling for hisRead MoreAnalysis of Salman Rushdies Midnights Children and Virginia Woolfe’s Mrs. Dalloway1595 Words   |  7 PagesTransitions of place, time, and character are key to the storytelling in Salman Rushdies â€Å"Midnights Children† and Virginia W oolfe’s â€Å"Mrs. Dalloway†. Rushdie explores the History, Nationalism and Hybridism of the nation of India after they became independent of Great Britain. Woolfe comments heavily on English society more through her description of her characters, and the weaving of time and place is an effective way to telling the stories of her characters as we follow them through a single dayRead MoreEssay about Marginalization of Women by Salman Ahmed Rushdie2706 Words   |  11 PagesSalman Ahmed Rushdie is an eminent postcolonial diasporic writer of Indian origin. He was born in a Muslim family in 1947, the year India became free from the clutches of the colonial rule. The novelist and essayist of international repute, Rushdie, started his writing with the fictional work Grimus (1975). His second novel Midnights’ Children (1981) won the Booker’s Prize. The text focuses on the simultaneous independence and partition of the two nations. He came into thick of contro versies becauseRead MoreMidnights Children Essay2493 Words   |  10 PagesMidnights Children essay Salman Rushdies creation, Saleem Sinai, has a self-proclaimed overpowering desire for form (363). In writing his own autobiography Saleem seems to be after what Frank Kermode says every writer is a after: concordance. Concordance would allow Saleem to bring meaning to moments in the middest by elucidating (or creating) their coherence with moments in the past and future. While Kermode talks about providing this order primarily through an imaginatively predicted