Postcolonial Environments in Midnights Children

To understand just one life, you have to swallow the world, says Saleem Sinai, the

autobiographical protagonist of Rushdies Midnights Children. In order to make meaning out of

his life, Saleem first swallows the world: he tries to understand his countrys colonial past;

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

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 Rushdies

decision to write Midnights Children the novel was born when Rushdie realized how much he

wanted to restore his past identity to himself. Midnights 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 Saleems generation of midnights 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 a new in rebuilding her identity in the wake of
colonialism. Saleems story represents the plural identities of India and the fragmented search for

self through memory.

Saleems attempt to reconcile his various multiple identities reflects Indias struggle to

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

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.

Saleems struggle with self-identity parallels Rushdies analogy of multiple rooting. One

example of this is the role of multiple parentages in Saleems 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 parents neighbors and assumes

different roles when visiting each of them. He says:

Even a baby is faced with the problem of defining itself; and Im 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 Midnights 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 Indias independence.

He speaks of his newfound telepathic powers thus:

I am nine years old and lost in the confusion of other peoples lives which are

blurring together in the heat (237).

Through Saleems 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 Indias

diverse plurality. The diversity of their powers and backgrounds parallels Rushdies 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 Naseems appearance. The perforated sheet is repeatedly mentioned throughout the

text and represents the fragmented identities that the novels 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 [Saleems 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

behavioralin 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 husbands 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 Gods 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 jugI 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.

Magic Realism and Postcolonialism

Rushdies Midnights 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 readers attention. In Midnights Children, through fantasy, realism makes its

voice heard. The narrative framework of Midnights 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 Rushdies 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 Azizs blood solidifies

and turns into rubies and his tears too turn into diamonds. Mian Abdullahs humming without a

pause causes the window of the room to fall and causes one his enemys eyes to crack and fall

out. Later in the novel we see Amina, who is Saleems 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, Saleems grandfather is on his knees after a

mighty sneeze when Brigadier Dyers fifty machine-gunners open fire in the Amritsar massacre

of 1919; it is Saleems father who buys one of Methwolds 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

midnights 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 Saleems 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 literalized 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.

Midnights Children is regarded as a postcolonial text and if postcolonial literature is

understood in the binary model of colonizer vs. colonized, then Rushdies narrative fits in that

model. Since post-colonialism 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 midnights children

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

colonized countries a decolonized identity.

Rushdies 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. Rushdies 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 Saleems 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. Midnights Children can be considered as one such attempt of Rushdie to

recapture India. From this perspective, it can be concluded that Salman Rushdies Midnights

Children successfully links magical realism with post-colonialism.

 CONCLUSION

Published in 1981, Salman Rushdies 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 authors 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 Indias colonial past and postcolonial present. His narration of the nation is subjective

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

Rushdies 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 post-

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

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

illustrates Indias 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.

REFERENCES

Barry, Peter. Beginning Theory: An Introduction to Literary and Cultural Theory.

Second edition. Manchester: Manchester UP, 2002. Print.

Chanady, Amaryll Beatrice. Magical Realism and the Fantastic. New York:Garland
Publishing, 1985. Print.
Gray, Martin. A Dictionary of Literary Terms. Second edition. Essex: Longman,
1992. Print.

Hawthorn, Jeremy. A Glossary of Contemporary Literary Theory. Fourth edition.

New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2000. Print.

Rushdie, Salman. Midnights Children. London: Vintage Books, 2006. Print.

Waugh, Patricia. Literary Theory and Criticism. Cambridge: Oxford UP, 2000. Print.

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