Voices Of Reality And Imaginationdocx

=== Voices of reality and imagination ===

UNIVERSITATEA SPIRU HARET

FACULTATEA DE LITERE

SPECIALIZAREA: ENGLEZĂ – ITALIANĂ

FORMA DE ÎNVĂȚĂMÂNT: IF

LUCRARE DE LICENȚĂ

Coordonator științific:

Conf. univ. dr. Volceanov George

Absolventă:

Crudu Ana Maria București

2015

VOICES OF REALITY AND IMAGINATION

Content

Introduction……………………………………………………………………………………4

Chapter I The perspective of the story…………………………………………………………6

1.1. Presented story…………………………………………………………………6

1.2. History in the novel…………………………………………………………..11

Chapter II The coloured picture………………………………………………………………16

2.1. Postmodern novel…………………………………………………………….16

2.2. Reality, magic & Narrative art……………………………………………….20

Chapter III Knees and a nose………………………………………………………………..26

3.1. Myths and symbols……………………………………………………………26

3.2. Critics points of view…………………………………………………………31

Conclusions…………………………………………………………………………………..33

Bibliography………………………………………………………………………………….37

Introduction

This study was realized under the guidance of conf. univ. dr. George Volceanov. We elaborated together and brought new meanings to the fantastical novel "Midnight's children", written by the English Salman Rushdie (born in Bombay 1947, raised in England since the age of 13), being his second novel after "Grimus", "Midnight's Children" places him straight to the top winning his first career prize, "Booker Prize" in 1981, followed by a "The Best of the Bookers" twice in 1993 and 2008.

The theme of this project is entitled "Voices of reality and imagination", and it is the masterpiece born of the passion with which I studied this novel over the period of two semesters. The main aspect that deeply attracted me into the story is the curiosity I have towards India's mysteries.

The novel's reality is interpretable as the writer blends his own reality with the fantastical memories, which he prefers in his approach to history. The contrast of the two realities intensifies as we are beginning to decipher the meanings of the figures of speech used, predominating the metaphor.

Rushdie says:

“My novel, Midnight’s Children, was born in reality when I realized how much I wanted to revive the past for myself, not in the grey nuances as the pictures from an old family album, but, as a whole, lively colored.”

The objective we want to achieve is to analyze the perspective upon life which the writer proposes, passing from a gray picture of reality to a much animated image, and to emphasize the allegory of feelings transmitted by the writer. We collected information regarding on the opinion of the most important critics, showing different points of view.

The content of the accomplished document is structured in three chapters as it follows:

In the first chapter, entitled "The perspective of the story", we approach the reality of the novel through an incursion, the literary reality of the novel.

In the second chapter, named "The coloured picture", we decode the elements of imagination and magic starting from the writer's feelings and ideas.

In the third chapter, named “Knees and a nose", we emphasize the ambiguous faith presented in the novel.

The last part is dedicated to “Conclusions”, we review our personal point of view on the modern novel.

The content of the project has at its basis bibliographical reference sources attached at the end of the presented document.

Chapter I

The perspective of the story

1.1. Presented Story

Salman Rushdie is one of the most known and recognized writers of Indian nationality. The novel "Midnight's Children" is the work that has made him famous in Great Britain where he settled, and over the boarders.

In 1993 the novel won the prize Book of Bookers, being in the same time the only novel of Indian origin that shows up on the list of 100 best novels in the English language from The Times magazine, and also has been found on 13th place among the 50 best British authors since 1945 till the present.

"Midnight' Children" is a post colonialist novel from the genre point of view, in which the author, calling the magical realism technic, combines the traditional with the modern, the reality with the fantastic.

At the same time, the novel can be looked as an allegory of India before and after winning its independence. The way it is narrated the novel recalls the old Greek stories and the Arab stories like "1001 nights", the events that make up the novel being narrated similar to ones from the oral traditional Indian culture. The narrator is Saleem Sinai which tells his story oral to his future wife, Padma.

"Midnight's Children" is made up of three Books: The first covers the period from the Jallianwala Bagh incident in April 1919 until the protagonist's birth, which concur with the birth of independent India, the second book reaches out until September 1965 when the Indo-Pakistani war ends, and the third presents the period until 1977 which includes the end of Emergency period and the Bangladesh war.

The novel "Midnight's Children" presents the story of Saleem Sinai who as Rushdie, is born in the night that India wins its independence towards Great Britain. Political conflicts and the first 30 years of India's independence makes the frame in which the author weaves the history of the main character.

The important events of his life interpenetrate with the ones that marks the fundamental moments in India and Pakistan’s evolution.

The whole novel is a mixture of the real with the imaginary and Saleem's life, although almost similar with Rushdie's, is different through the fantastical aspect which the writer imprints it.

The main character is the novels voice. He presents his story to his wife, Padma who, although skeptical, listens interested to his history. His wish of sharing his life story is given by the feeling of an imminent death, by the idea that now, reaching at the age of 31 years old, his body will begin to deteriorate.

Saleem Sinai is born in Kashmir in 1915, exactly in the first moment of independency of India.

The narrator presents the story of his grandparents, Doctor Aadam Aziz, who treats his future wife Naseem for years. She is always covered with a white sheet with a hole in it through which Aziz administrates her the treatment, he sees her for the first time in the first day in which the First World War ends, in 1918.

Saleem's grandparents get married and move to Agra, they see the evolution of protests for independence as they're suppressed. They have five children, three girls: Mumtaz, Alia and Emerald, and two boys: Mustapha and Hanif. Mumtaz marries Nadir Khan, the activist's assistant Mian Abdullah who is assassinated being a supporter of the anti-partition movement.

After the assassination and despite his wife's opposition, Aziz hosts Khan in the basement of his house. Khan and Mumtaz fall in love and get married in secret, but after two years, Adam Aziz finds out that their marriage has never been consumed.

Emerald, Mumtaz's sister, was to be married to a Pakistani Army officer. She tells him that Nadir Khan is hidden inside their house. His life being threatened, Khan leaves his hiding place and, with it, his family. Thus, Mumtaz ends up getting married to a young merchant – Ahmed Sinai, who until that moment has been interested in her sister, Alia.

The two move to Delhi were Ahmed opens a factory and Mumtaz changes her name "Amina". When she was pregnant, a fortuneteller predicts her that her yet unborn baby will never be younger or older than his country and that he "sees" two heads, knee and a nose.

Ahmed and Amina move to Bombay after a terrorist group set on fire the factory Ahmed built. They buy a house from William Methwold, an English that had a property on the top of a hill. Here, they get acquainted with a poor couple, Wee Willie Winky and his wife Vanita who was also pregnant. The thing that Wee Willie didn’t know, was that this baby wasn't his, but the Englishman’s.

The two women, Amina and Vanita give birth together to two sons when the clock hits the midnight in the first moment of India's independence. Mary Pereira, the midwife who takes care of them, being influenced by the radical-socialist ideas of her boyfriend Joseph D'Costa, switches the newborn babies and so, each baby gets to live the life of the other, the one from the poor family to receive a privileged life and Amina and Ahmed's to live in poverty with Willie and Vanita. Comprised of guilt, Mary Pereira takes the job as Saleem's nanny.

As the prophecy said, Saleem has a big nose and blue eyes strongly resembling his grandfather, Adam Aziz, only in their opinion, but in fact he looked like his father, the Englishman.

Saleem's childhood is a difficult one, the other children ridicules him because of his nose and the prophecy's expectations seem to him overwhelming. So, he tries to find his peace hiding in a chest. One of the days, during his hiding, sees his mother in the bathroom. She punishes him and forbids talking an entire day. This way Saleem discovers that he has telepathic powers hearing voices in silence.

Like him, all the other 1001 children born in the first hour of independence have different supernatural powers depending on how close of midnight were born. But only through Saleem's power they all can come together. Shiva, with whom was switched at birth, had, according to the prophecy, very strong knees and a gift for fighting.

Losing a part of his finger. Salem is taken to the hospital, where his parents find out that considering blood type Saleem cannot be their biological child. The young man gets to be send to live with his aunt Emerald and his uncle.

After Saleem returns, his uncle Hanif commits suicide, and during the funeral, Mary admits changing the babies.

Ahmed becomes an alcoholic and sends Amina to Pakistan along with Salem and his younger sister Alama "the monkey". Amina moves to Pakistan also with her sister Emerald, where Saleem assists on the political games of her husband. This one plans a coup d’état against Pakistani government and establishes martial law.

Ahmed dies of heart attack four years later and Amina moves with Saleem and his sister back to Bombay. In the same time when India enters the war with China, Saleem loses his telepathic powers after a nose surgery. Nevertheless, he acquires the ability of sensing emotions through the sense of smell which had developed in an incredible way.

India loses to China and, so, Salem's entire family returns to Pakistan where they die in a single day, during the battles between India and Pakistan. Only Saleem and his sister who became the most famous singer, known as Jamila Singer, escape. Nevertheless Saleem loses his memory after a blow to the head during an air raid.

With the memory deleted, Saleem is reduced to a primitive state, in which only his sense of smell works. Because of this he is introduced in the military service and used to track the targets. Saleem doesn't remember how he got to be in the army, but suspects that his sister is punishing him this way after he fell in love with her.

After he takes part in stopping an independence movement in Bangladesh, Saleem retreats into the jungle along with three other soldiers. Here, he regains his memory but his name remains forgotten. Saleem leaves the jungle and finds Parvati the witch, another midnight born child like him. She reminds him his name and they both succeed to return to India.

Being in love with Saleem but disappointed because he didn’t what to marry her, Parvati has an adventure with Shiva who had become in all this time a great war hero.

Their adventure ends and Parvati comes back in the slum where she was living with Saleem, pregnant. The other slum members reject her but Saleem accepts to take her in marriage.

In this time, the prim-minister of India, Indira Gandhi, starts a sterilization campaign, and not long after Parvati's son is born, the slum is destroyed by the government in the state of Emergency declared by Indira Gandhi and her son Sanjay.

After Parvati's death, Shiva captures Saleem and closes him in a sterilization camp. There, Saleem reveals the name of the other midnight's children, which are going to be neutered of their supernatural powers which threatened the prime-minister's powers. Yet, Gandhi loses the first elections.

Thus, Saleem and the other midnight's "children" are released. Saleem leaves in searching for Parvati's son, Aadam, who was living with Picture Singh, a snake tamer in the former slum. The three are leaving in Bombay so that Picture Singh meets the one who was considered the greatest snake tamer.

In Bombay, Saleem eats a sauce which seemed similar with the one that his nanny, Mary, used to make for him, this way he finds the factory lead by Mary and meets Padma at the gate.

Thus, the story's two heads unite and Saleem marries Padma the day he turns 31 years and India celebrates 31 years of independence. He also makes a prophecy that he will die in the same day turning into dust.

1.2. History in the novel

The historical and fictional reports are considered by many critics as being related.

"Midnight's Children" is one of the important literary writings in postcolonial literature. In this novel, Salman Rushdie builds a new version of what India means before and after the British colonization.

In the novel, the historical report blends with the presentation of the identity of a nation and of a person, the author adding to all of these, fantastic notes characteristical to stories.

Rushdie's novel presents a continuous reporting to history being built around a semnificative date for India, which is presented as definitory in the evolution of the main character and, implicit, of the narration.

The narration doesn't follow the history totally, and Rushdie often modifies the events through Saleem's way of storytelling. Nevertheless, this phenomena is encountered naturally in historical writings.

"Historical writing is a 19th century creation and, as Paul Veyne is attesting, the presentation of the history is always incomplete, based on documents and testimonies."(Veyne 1971)

In the same manner, Saleem declares at the beginning of the novel that "no human being won't trust in the version of another more than in his own".(Rushdie 1981) Thus, Saleem says even from the start that the personal history which he presents stands under the subjectivism and is subjected to oblivion and errors.

"Midnight's Children" represents a hybrid between history and story, between reality and fiction. In the novel, the history blends with fictional narrative, the author introduces in the main character's story, multiple events in the history of India which in Saleem's opinion happen ironically at the same time with the important events in his family's life.

The novel presents the major events in the history of India like: Jallian Bagh tragedy, the Indian Movement, the riots that took place after winning the independence, organizing postcolonial India, the theft from Hazrathbal mosque, Indo-Pakistani war or Bangladesh winning its independence.

All this moments are found in Saleem’s autobiographical narration. The words used by Rushdie express best this feature of the novel, the life of the characters being "mysteriously handcuffed to history".

So Aadam Sinai is born in the same day which Indira Ghandhi enforces the Emergency state on 25th of June 1975, Saleem marries Parvati on Republic day, Saleem's birth is simultaneous with the birth of the independent India, 15th of August 1947. These are just a few example of the history closely linked to the epic.

Saleem becomes a symbol of India and its individuality. The thing that becomes the character "Saleem" is an allegory of India, the manner he builds his narrative is an allegory of the way India builds its history.

The novel doesn't have a direct flow and the events are not submitted chronologically. The narrator jumps from a period to another, recounts events from the past, returns to the present, and then back in the past, making difficult for the reader to follow the chronological succession of the events.

Rushdie sustains that his purpose was not to present a description in accordance with the historical reality and perhaps that is the reason he doesn't give importance to the chronology of events, the characters' perspective and the consequences which they feel are more important and they are shown in foreground by the narrator.(Rushdie, Imaginary Homelands: Essays and Criticism 1991)

Not just the events from India's history are presented in the novel but also the events in world’s history. Saleem overlaps events like the Two World Wars or the Suez Canal lock with events like Aziz's fight with his wife sickness.

"Far away the Great War moved from crisis to crisis (…) Doctor Aziz was also engaged in a total war against his (…) patient's inexhaustible complaints." (Rushdie, 1981)

"On the day the World War ended, Naseem developed the longed-for headache. Such historical coincidences have littered, and perhaps befouled, my family's existence in the world." (Rushdie, 1981)

Saleem mentions briefly about World War Two and the atomic bomb that hit Japan.

The narrator takes over these historical moments and compares them repeatedly with the ones that mark the existence of his family and his own.

"My sister the Brass Monkey developed the curious habit of setting fire to shoes. While Nasser sank ships at Suez, (…) my sister was also trying to impede our progress."

Most of the action happens in Bombay, a place that allows presenting the central role of this city in India's independence movement. Rushdie presents the city's traditional, religious variety, its multiplicity and this, way managing to illustrate the difficulty of a common action due to human differences.

Since the beginning of the novel we are introduced the difficulties born from the variety of Indian culture. Through the presentation which Saleem makes enumerating the multitude of names that were given to him like "Buddha" or "Piece of the Moon" is a parallel between the difficulty of determining his own identity. The identity and individual independence being well connected of the national one.

Saleem accepts all his names, admitting that the identification of an authentical identity is a difficult task.

Not just the identification of the identity is difficult. National and individual origins are all the same hard to locate. Saleem describes the colonization of Bombay, presenting the changes of power between colonizers, first the Kolis, then the Portuguese and eventually, the British colonizers. What Saleem doesn't describe is the existence of the indigenous inhabitants. This thing emphasizes the difficulty in establishment an origin, a starting point.

Authentical culture of a people is difficult to certify. Saleem presents a feature considered characteristic to Indian people as being Kolis, born from colonized India, thereby, pure authenticity doesn't exist, the culture being born only through the contact with other cultures. "Kolis (…) made fish-lovers of us all".

The changes that appeared through colonization are illustrated through modifications suffered by the name of the city in which the narrator is born. From the name associated with Goddess Mumbadevi, influence the Portuguese, the first colonizers name it Bom Bhai, then the British call it Bombay.

Another example of narration and history combination is Amritsar Massacre, that took place on April 1919, and it is submitted in the novel from Adam Aziz's perspective, Saleem's grandfather. The attack took place in Jallian Bagh, a garden in which a large number of civilians, men, women and children gathered to celebrate the Sikh religion's New Year. British officer Reginald Dyer orders the attack over the civilian which ends in killing over 1500 people.

The attack was a catalyzer for Indian independence movement. In the novel, the Adam Aziz's narration perspective blends with Dyer's descriptions and accounts. Thus, the historical reality is personalized by presenting the character's perspective. Furthermore, the author gives the chance to an Indian character to tell his story.

This way the whole novel is an opportunity of letting the Indian people to tell their history by their own perspective, one that Rushdie finds it more accurate and authentical.

The narration isn't just a way of giving voice to the Indian people and their perspective, but is presenting itself as a method in which Saleem can explain the past of his family.

The presentation of this story has in the same time the role of helping Saleem to explain his supernatural powers. His well-developed olfactive sense was inherited from his grandfather.

"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."

The story concentrates over the sneeze, which helps Saleem to understand his powers and his identity.

We can conclude that this pursuit of Indian history is at the same time also a pursuit of Saleem's personal past and, with understanding and solving conflicts in the struggle for independence, Saleem is trying to understand the conflicts and intrigues of his own family.

Chapter II

The colored picture

2.1. Postmodern Novel

The postmodernist concept is difficult to define, it covers various domains as art, music, film, architecture. (Klages, n.d.)

In literature postmodernism has its debut, as difficult to locate may be, in the 20th century, including literature after the Second World War.

The main features of postmodernism in literature approaches the modern literature ones with some exceptions.

Modernist literary works focus on a subjective writing, mainly derived from the use of some omniscience narrators and third person narration. Narrator's points of view and moral position are clearly established. (Klages, n.d.)

In a modern writing the genres mix and interchange features, making prose much more poetic. The narration is fragmented, discontinuous, unifying the different stories into a collage. Self-consciousness and reflection on the self and on the work are frequently found in modern creations, the creation defining its own production. (Klages, n.d.)

Modern works aesthetics focus on what is spontaneous and freshly discovered and presents a minimalist approach, which is opposite to the traditional.

Modernism and postmodernism are similar in many of these issues, however, while the modernism presents a tragical vision over fragmentation and incoherent relative, the latter almost celebrates it and doesn't try to make sense of the presented world but rather to discover the charm of this lack of sense. (Ibid)

In literature postmodernist current include literary movements like Theatre of the Absurd, Beat Generation or Magic Realism, containing prominent representatives like Samuel Becket, Gabriel Garcia Marquez or Salman Rushdie. (Sharma 2011)

There are some techniques used in postmodernist writings, techniques which Rushdie successfully uses and give the novel its postmodernist character.

Rushdie uses frequently in the work, through the narrator Saleem, black humor, irony and satire. These are used by the writer through the medium of the characters with a lot of craftsmanship to criticize, indirect, some attitudes or habits.

"You've looked in the bedrooms? No water near the pot. I never believed, but it's true, my God, they wipe their bottoms with paper only!" (Rushdie, Midnight's Children 1981)

Another postmodernist feature found in "Midnight's Children" is intertextuality, which is based on the concept that a literary work doesn't represent an isolated creation, but every style interpenetrate with another. (Sharma 2011)

This is easily noticed in "Midnight's Children", creation in which the epical narration combines with historical narration.

Closely linked to intertextuality in another technique named pastiche, which refers to combining elements characteristic to many narrative styles, in a single work.

As well as about other postmodernist novels, it can be said about "Midnight's Children" that it is a meta-fiction, in that the narrator systematically draws attention over the uncertainties of the presented narration and, thus, pose on the links between reality and fiction.

More, the novel is a historiography meta-fiction, by the fact that the history is fictionalized, real historical events are modified, giving the author a much greater freedom of expression.

Using the meta-fiction gives the possibility of a subjective interpretation of real events, historical, and gives characters the possibility to present its own version of events. Meta-fiction leads to a narrative that parallels the history, the boundaries between real and fantastic no longer being clear.

In "Midnight's Children" Saleem writes its autobiography, at the same time making a rewriting history. This redirection of history is not devoid of meaning and purpose, but finds its meaning and purpose in the main character's life, Saleem's, whose life combines with the one of its nation, and the events that marks him, represent turning points of India's history.

The fable is a way of rejecting the realism. The author doesn't bind the work of what is likely and is moving away from tradition. Thus, he includes in the novel fantastic elements and, frequently story telling techniques.

Another way of using the fable and the fantastic is as means of transcending and to offer another perspective over the real. This technique is used also by Rushdie who says that fantasy, for him, is a method of producing much more intense and strong images of reality, and is the manner in which the author succeeds to present multiple layers from Indian subconscious life. (Ray 2006)

Even the narrator, Saleem, states that history "ends in frenezy", the fantasy being the manner through which manages to unravel what is hidden in its own biography. (Rushdie, Midnight's Children 1981)

In "Imaginary Homelands", Rushdie expresses the link which he sees between the memory of a person and history. In his opinion, a creation like this novel represents a version of history the way it's perceived by one of the characters. This way the author creates fictions and "Imaginary Homelands" instead of real cities. (Rushdie, Imaginary Homelands: Essays and Criticism 1991)

At the same time the author regards the past resembling it to "broken mirrors" showing snippets from the whole of the past. (Rushdie, Imaginary Homelands: Essay and Criticism 1991)

Temporal distortion is another feature of postmodernist novels and implicitly of Rushdie's novel. The narration isn't linearly presented, but is fragmented, the narrator fluctuating between past, present and future.

Time distortion is connected to Rushdie's vision, in the novel the focus is not on continuity and natural chronology of events, but on relevance and its impact over each character. Thereby, the jumps between present and past are frequent.

There is not only a time fragmentation but also of events, the narrator presenting just the events relevant for him as individual

The novel's debut surprises Saleem's narcissism and the way he feels and believes he is the center of the universe. Through the novel, he discovers to be, in fact, only a victim of history and that he doesn't have the power to control its own life. For this reason, he resorts to fantastic to be able to find his roots. (Ray 2006)

In "Errata", Rushdie offers an explanation for this, namely, his desire to give the reader a clue that what he reads isn't a real history but one built from memories. The mistakes which the novel's reader can notice are meant to give power to the narrator, to Saleem, to build its own history, one that can reflect its own life. (Rushdie, Imaginary Homelands: Essays and Criticism 1991)

Magic realism is the inclusion of surreal, fantastic elements, distortions in the presentation time, intrigues built in a labyrinth manner, all combined with realistic presentation of events.

Fantasy elements contained in Saleem's narrative remember of ancient India's legends and traditions. This way, magic realism makes the connection between old India and the new, independent India, between India's unified culture and recent multiculturality.

As in other postmodern novels, in "Midnight's Children" magic is a means to bring light over the events of reality sometimes blurred, every significant moment of the presented history it is playing through a magic framework. Indian Quit Movement, from 1942, is an example of this, the narrator presenting it, with humor, like an "epidemic of optimism":

"It seems that in the 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 authorities to stamp it out, this virulent disease had been breaking out all over India that year". (Rushdie, Midnight's Children 1981)

All this features make from "Midnight's Children" a postmodern novel. Rushdie uses most of the techniques found in postmodernist works to illustrate its own perspective over India's history.

2.2. Reality, magic & Narrative art

We cannot speak of a single narrative genre in the novel "Midnight's Children". It can be regarded as a postcolonial novel and as a postmodern one, a fantasy novel or of a magic realism, also as a historical novel.

The epical genre combines autobiography, allegory and mythical stories, but at the same time being a romantic novel.

Although the novel is narrated in first person, the author manages to create an omniscient narrator giving the character telepathic powers. Thereby historical narration can blend with the autobiographical one.

The manner Saleem begins his narration it is one that belongs to fantastic genre "I was born in the city of Bombay…once upon a time". The novel can be regarded as appertaining to magic realism genre.

Magic realism is a term that is referring especially to literary creations that introduces fantastic elements in a realistic frame, presenting them as a natural and normal part of it. The term has been used for the first time by Franz Roh, German art critic, in 1925.

Magic realism combines lyrical elements with fantastic elements, many writers, especially post colonialists, resorting to this technique to best illustrate, by using the fantastic, the features of the society where they come from, events that marks it, and represents a means through which they can criticize the characters and events shown, especially the people in power.

This literary technique is frequently used by the post colonialist writers for having more liberty in presenting problems as multiculturalism, the identity crisis of the nations and their hopes for an independent nation. (Abu Shahid 2014)

The post colonialist writings that are associated with magic realism, this still can be regarded as a protest to Eurocentric approach of the world. Magic realism is characteristic to non-Western countries, precisely because these are the closest to myth and exotic magic. (Bowers 2004)

The magic realism is the method by which the post colonialist writers like Rushdie manage to give voice to marginalized characters, these, regaining their identity and having the chance to present his own version of events. (Abu Shahid 2014)

Rushdie's vision over using the fantastic is that it's allowing the writer to produce intensified images of the reality, but which has its roots in "observable and verifiable" facts. (Rushdie, Interview by John Haffenden 1983)

Rushdie believes that the first step in changing the reality is to modify it to an imaginary level. He thinks that literature isn't created only for art's purpose but to rebuild the outer world. (Rushdie, Interview by John Haffenden 1983)

The writer states on many occasions that he wanted to build his own India through the novel, different from the actual one. Using the magic realism allows him to do that, Rushdie can change the events, their dates, their results, so that the result is just a version as many other possible of what really happened:

"My India was just that, MY India, a version and no more than one version of all the hundreds of millions of possible versions." (Rushdie, Imaginary Homelands: Essays and Criticism 1991)

This reply comes as an answer to the criticism brought to the writer regarding the change of the significant dates from the novel like Mahatma Gandhi's date of death.

The inconsistency is not silenced in the novel. Instead, Saleem the narrator himself realizes the error. Further, Saleem, also as Rushdie, states that his narration is a story of his own India, in which the dates will always be different from reality.

"But I cannot say, now, what the actual sequence of events might have been; in my India, Gandhi will continue to die at the wrong time." (Rushdie, Midnight's Children 1981)

Also, this mixture of reality with fantasy tends to oppose western and eastern traditions. The realism is typical to west and the imaginary and fantasy finds their place more often in the eastern narrations.

Another example of using the fantastic realism Tai's character, which claims in the novel that he is so old that "I have watched the mountains being born: I have seen Emperors die".(Rushdie, Midnight's Children 1981) In the novel, Tai symbolizes the old India mixed with the postcolonial one.

By magic insertion, the reader can discover the reality, whereas the birth, the life and the destruction of Saleem are also India's. The midnight children's conference symbolizes the problems that will come in the new independent India's way and how the social, political and religion differences will affect the new nation. (Abu Shahid 2014)

Placing in the foreground Saleem's personal and family problems is a highlight of Indian identity to the British power, of independence in front of colonization and post colonialist people’s perspective. Through fantastic realism, the author can give voice to the characters and he can present, even indirectly, his own vision.

This mixture of realism with the fantastic allows the reader to better understand the post colonialism history and various issues that it raises. Through the midnight's children, Rushdie gives voice to the entire India and to every citizen. The way this children can communicate through telepathy, likewise through the power of magic realism, the postcolonial citizens can communicate their story.

Saleem's personal fight is also India's fight and his attempts of finding his identity are symbolical for the ones that appear in India that must reconcile the multitude of cultures that live on the same territory.

Saleem is an incarnation of many lives, and even says it himself "There are so many stories to tell, too many, such an excess of intertwined lives events miracle places rumors […]

I have been the swallower of lives; and to know me, just the one of me, you'll have to swallow the lot as well. Consumed multitudes are jostling and shoving inside me." (Rushdie, Midnight's Children 1981)

He finds himself in a continuous struggle for finding his own identity, for uniting all stories which he wants to tell, as India, which it has to unite all its cultures under the same nation.

The narrative is the mist used technique in "Midnight's Children". The narrative is presented in the first person by an omniscient narrator, Saleem.

Rushdie justifies this choice through allowing the existence of a single narrator, and that one omniscient, offers the reader a clue regarding the veracity of the events. The reader can easily become aware of the narrative's subjectivism, Saleem being the only source of knowledge in novel. The only guide the reader has in discovering the history. (Rushdie, Imaginary Homelands: Essays and Criticism 1991)

Rushdie highlights the subjectivism not only through this type narrative but through narrators speech which states that "text is a fabric" and "Does one error invalidate the entire fabric", later saying that history, unlike the individ "it sews" much more easily the events. (Rushdie, Midnight's Children 1981)

The reader's attention is drawn this way to the fact that the presented events are based only on Saleem's memory, and this makes them fallible.

The memory and the manner it influences the narrative it is an aspect that fascinates Rushdie, telling in "Errata", how, although he hadn't been present to some fights at India's borders, he had the memory of those events. (Rushdie, Imaginary Homelands: Essays and Criticism 1991)

This justifies the use of Saleem as main narrator and shows how history can modify through the individ's memory, thing that happens to the narrator of this novel. In the same time this is the explanation for which the fantastic is combined with the reality of this novel. The very lack of veracity of the facts is the one who gives the story its individuality and identity.

The novel is, thus, a history of Saleem and not the real India.

The memory plays an important role in the novel. Saleem regains its own mind through Parvati's memory, on which he is relying.

The narrative focus on the relevance of the events in the character's life. For this reason, the exact chronology loses its importance and what remains to be said isn't the exact moment, but what namely happened. This reason underlies the discordance between data and events existing through the novel and Gandhi will continue to die at the wrong moment in Saleem's India. (Rushdie, Midnight's Children 1981)

"Midnight's Children" narration remembers of oral stories like "Arabian Nights”. Oral narrative is, nevertheless, the only way the author can control the multiple intrigues and happenings, the memories and other episodic events. A chronological writing would have led to errors and omissions. (Cundy, 1996)

As he describes, Saleem is "handcuffed to history" and in this way his narrative is parallel to the history of India. The parallel alternate, however, between the present, past and future. He presents the past events, comes back to the present in which he recounts to Padma, and anticipates the future through the confidence which he has over the moment and manner in which he dies, shattered in thousands of pieces, the day of his birthday and independent India.

The narrate is the person to which is narrating, in some works he is explicitly described, in others are difficult to clearly identify, and in others can be even characters in the narrative.

In "Midnight's Children", Padma is the person to which Saleem narrate. Rushdie building a frame in which the character tells a story, a story which Padma can't read. (Raichandani 2014)

Padma, Saleem's girlfriend is the one who listens the story. However, she isn't a passive listener, but intervenes during the story to criticize the manner in which Saleem tells his story. In many instances she teases him about how ineffective he recounts.

On the other hand, Padma is part of the working class, different from Saleem, this difference between them is a way through which Rushdie makes an approximation of classes. Also the class is the one that gives Padma her unique and critical voice, proving a freedom in expression and honest criticism brought to Saleem.

In the same time Padma can be seen as embodying of the reader. Saleem adapts in many instances his story, modifying and altering it to keep Padma interested, to maintain the audience engaged.

Padma is a symbol of less educated Indian class and this is why, Saleem must adapt its story and to drift apart from the traditional novel style. The real history could not keep her engaged in the way this fantastic story inspired from reality does. (Raichandani 2014)

Chapter III

Knees and a nose

3.1 Myths and Symbols

As the reality blends with fantastic in this novel, it is only natural for it to contain a multitude of legends, myths and symbols that contribute to the genre of magic realism.

Since the beginning of the novel, the narrator alludes to the well-known stories of Scheherazade in "Arabian Nights".

Legends are common in this novel, by definition being narratives that are based on historical content. Throughout the novel is reminiscent of historical elements in the Indian culture.

In his narrative, Saleem frequently recalls historical figures like Indira Gandhi or Prophets of Islam like Muhammad and Ibn Sina.

Rushdie expressed many times its opinion on including the fantasy in the novel, saying that contemporary world must be showed through fantastic and that the traditional way of telling a certain reality is reductionist in the absence of some fantastic elements. (Rushdie, Imaginary Homelands: Essays and criticism 1991)

In multiple situations throughout the novel Saleem uses the expression "once upon a time". This is on the one hand a way to remember classical stories and parables and on the other hand, of drawing the reader's attention over the narration's fantastic feature.

Saleem doesn't remember only the classical Indian stories and legends, but other fantastic writings from the modern world like Batman or Superman comic books, putting these characters together with 'characters like Sinbad and Hatim Tai of Indian world. This is another way through which the author makes a connection between classical Indian world and contemporary and multicultural Indian one.

These fantastic characters are the ones that help Saleem to escape the problems that troubles him. Saleem imagines being Aladdin from "Aladdin and the magic lamp", in the situations which classmates from school ridicules him.

Thus, as for Saleem the fantastic becomes an escape, also for the reader the Indian reality presented in the novel represents the new perspective through which can look at the events in postcolonial India.

The novel doesn't comprise only myths and legends, Saleem entering is his narration various characters or places that are not just Indian. He recalls in the same sentence two places, one Greek, mount Olympus, and another Hindu, Kailash:

"(…) three-story homes of gods standing on a two-story Olympus, a stunned Kailash!" (Rushdie, Midnight's Children 1981)

Talking about Homi and Lila, two characters from the novel, the author uses many myths and multicultural stories couples like Romeo and Juliet, Majnu and Laila from Middle East, and even Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn belonging to Hollywood scene, so beloved in India.

Telling stories of the time he was a student, Saleem describe himself as being "mild-mannered Clark Kent protecting his secret identity". Clark Kent is Superman's alter-ego. In the same time the servants are dusting the vases and make him remember Ali Baba and the 40 thieves hiding in urns.

This combination of modern and traditional myths, Indian and other nationality, are elements that come together in the novel new and old, reality and fantasy.

Stories and fantasy are not presented just as being part of the reality. Narrated history is itself fantastic. Saleem's biography doesn't belong to the real through multiple features as magical powers which Saleem and the other midnight children possess.

On the other hand, the imaginary is built by some of the characters which reinvent its past or its powers. One such example is that of Aadam Sinai, Saleem's father, which, wanting to impress its interlocutor, he declares himself as part of a distinguished family and Mughal royal blood is flowing through its veins:

"Actually, old chap, ours is a pretty distinguished family, too" (Rushdie, Midnight's Children 1981)

The ritual of telling stories is presented as being very important in the novel. Saleem's father used to tell adventure fantastical stories to him. Along with Saleem's growing up and his father's decay, the stories become rare and even those lose and interesting for the reader or the listener, in Rushdie's vision. Saleem says that although his father stories hadn't lost their fantastic elements, their charm had vanished.

Thereby, not only fantastic elements make a story magical. In Rushdie's vision this happens when the fantastic becomes art.

"Their subject-matter was still the same, princes goblins flying horses and adventures in magic lands, but in his perfunctory voice we could hear the creaks and groans of a rustling, decayed imagination" (Rushdie, Midnight's Children 1981)

Mythology has an important role in the novel, the author combining various elements of Indian mythology, Greek or Islam reference being made frequently to characters like Shiva from Hindu mythology or Leander from Greek mythology.

There are many objects in the novel surrounded by symbolism. We will speak furthermore about a few of them.

The spittoon is a symbolic object that comes up in many instances in the novel. It is presented to us for the first time as being part of the dowry which Amina receives from Rani. Afterwards, this object hits Saleem in the head during an air raid and it is the cause of his memory loss.

Although Saleem can't remember the connection between this object and his family, he continues to appreciate it as being an important part of his past. Unfortunately the object is destroyed together with the ghetto sterilization.

It is no coincidence that the spittoon remains the only connection between Saleem and his past. In fact, these objects recall of the more distant past of India where the elders, while telling stories to the children on the street they spit betel juice in these objects.

This symbol is used by Rushdie for indirect connection of the past with the present, the history with the characters past, at the same time recalling the storytelling art.

The nose and the knees are also symbols that repeat in the novel. Firstly in the prediction before Saleem and Shiva's birth, the fortune teller says that he "sees", "knees and a nose". (Rushdie, Midnight's Children 1981) These were, of course, the magical powers that the boys were to be gifted.

Secondly, the nose and the knees show up also to link Saleem's personal history of his grandfather's Aadam, thus, contributing on shaping Saleem's identity. Aadam falls in love with his wife seeing her only through a hole in the sheet, maybe this is the reason why their love never gets to a unitary structure.

In the same manner, Amina, their daughter, tries to fall in love with her husband, but her love also is fragmented.

Both loves never touch their potential and both remain to fragmented love stage. The hole in the sheet represents a way of discovering a gateway to love, but at the same time, the rest of the sheet is the thing that keeps the love from following its natural course.

The sheet with the hole in it, also appears in Jamillia's story, Saleem's sister, who became a singer and in order to preserve her purity, she covers her whole body letting only her lips at sight.

This way, her person is reduced to her talent, but because of this, she can never become a complete person. The veil separates her from the rest of the world and doesn't allow her to accept the contact with others.

Through the novel there are many features, inspired from mythical rituals like the one of mortification, invigoration, jubilation, of death and return. (VISWANATHAN, 2007)

The mortification ritual is characteristic to Hindu tradition, from the nature that at the end of the year is in a state in which animation is missing and nobody knows if it will come back. (VISWANATHAN, 2007)

As in this ritual, Saleem and the other characters, are passing through the novel through states that recall this ritual, states that like the nature before rebirth are deteriorated, paused from evolution in which the characters lose their power.

Examples are, Saleem's lost power, Ahmed's diseases, the heart attack and senility from which he is suffering till the end of the novel, Saleem's loss management of Midnight's Children Conference.

This feature is not limited only to characters, but also to India which is in a political conflict that's destroying its powers, about which nobody knows when it will end.

The invigoration myth refers to the state that follows mortification, in which everything comes back to life, this being mentioned by Saleem who says that, when some things end, other start. (ibid)

"Something was fading in Saleem and something was being born", he says referring to the way anger arises from injustice to others.

The jubilation feature is found in multiple instances in which moments of celebration are presented, starting from celebrating Independence Day and Saleem's birthday, but other celebration reasons like Saleem's wedding or the reunion with his nanny Mary. (ibid)

Death and return represents commonly features found in any work. In "Midnight's Children", many characters like Parvati, Saleem's family, his colleagues, suffer violent deaths and do not get to die natural deaths. Even Saleem announces his end saying he will disintegrate in thousands of pieces.

Even the loss of Saleem's powers can be seen as a death, in this case being the death of his character's fantastic side.

The rebirth or return feature completes the novel, the entire work having a circular appearance. Saleem's return in Bombay, his birth town, the reunion with Mary; Aziz's return to Kashmir, everything being completed with Salem's marriage with Parvati, this last event being also a return to real life, the one outside the presented narration.

3.2. Critics point of view

Salman Rushdie’s “Midnight’s Children” is mostly viewed as a national allegory which puts in an imaginative form India, as a country and as history.

New York Times wrote about the book that became the Authors text in the Indian literature that it “sounds like a continent that found its voice”. (Blaise 1981)

At 19 April 1981, Clark Blaise, a well-known Canadian author, wrote an article in The New York Times where he speaks about the novel as a shift of India from childhood to maturity explaining all the states and imaginative evolution of a man until he reaches maturity,

The book is compared to other exceptional novels like: “Augie March”, “The Tin Drum” by Gunter Grass, “Tristram Shandy” by Lawrence Stern and Celine’s “Death on the instalment plan”.

However, the imaginative genius of Salman Rushdie is not let beside, the novel “Midnight’s Children” being a book that accepts all its terms and introduces an exceptional author to the entire world.

Blaise praises Rushdie appreciating the way he transposes his imagination and presents the reader with an implied fiction.

The writer of the article presents “Midnight’s Children” as a hope for the Hindu nation, which waits Saleem Sinai’s call in the “midnight parliament”.

The Canadian states that “the only thing that inhibits Saleem to embrace his political faith is his own fears, heir of all his privileges.” So, because of his own fears and the guilt of Saleem, the midnight’s children gifts will never be reunited. (Blaise 1981)

“The countless personalities of Saleem, imposed by time, place and birth circumstances, are reduced by the author to a single eloquent soul”. (Blaise 1981)

Blaise says that the happenings and different characters of Saleem are interposed by Salman Rushdie in his book as a whole, a special connection presented to the readers in a unique shape.

Rushdie’s book presents in its pages history, intact myths and a remarkable character brought to life.

Nadine Vladescu, writes in “Dilemateca” that “Rushdie’s language defines the world of its readers”.

His fundamental literary preoccupation always was to find new meeting points for the two worlds, east and west, “two worlds that dream of each other” and in which the writer negotiated intercultural exchanges for liberty purpose – as absolute prerogative of the human and the writer and as a space where "contradictions can speak" – and to understand the boundaries, limitations and ways individuals create their own identities.(Vladescu, 2009)

“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.” – Saleem Sinai said the protagonist of “Midnight’s Children” novel (1981). The book became canonical for the post-modern literature immediately after receiving the Booker Prize award in 1981, followed by the Booker of Bookers twelve years later, culminating in rewarding the prestigious award in 2008 for the best book in the 40 years history since the first award. (Vladescu, 2009)

Elena Crasovan sustains in her article entitled “Salman Rushdie, the canonical writer and the writers canons” that parts from the authors books are found in most of the current works of references, the writer being canonized as post-modern, post-colonial and magic-realist.(Crasovan, 2009)

So, here we have a Romanian critic that such as Clarck Blaise canonises Rushdie at the highest ranks in literature for his imagination and multiple awards wined during the years.

Conclusions

Over the time “Midnight’s Children” kept the position in the literary chart and benefited the attention of many ranked critics.

The article 1.1. is a short incursion in the novel's action and the major events presentation that define the work and at the same time the main characters life which attracted me as a reader.

The article 1.2. presents the role that the history has within this novel and the way the author includes the historical reality in the main character's life.

I consider that "Midnight's Children" is difficult to frame, but many critics agree that the novel is a meta-fiction historiography. The novel presents two planes that intersect often through the narration and which explain each other.

I observed that on one hand we can discuss the history presented in the novel, the history of post colonist India, the events and characters that lead to this moment, on the other hand Saleem's story it is presented to us, the narrator himself is born at the time India becomes independent.

Discovering the novel's historical plane, the reader also discovers Saleem's history and biography. At the same time, through the narrative which Saleem makes, he rediscovers his past and rebuilds its biography.

The relationship with historical identity allows the narrator, which is also the main character, to understand his identity. This identity can't be discovered only through a constant reporting to what is happening in the history of his birthplace.

Nevertheless, the history which Rushdie presents in "Midnight's Children" digresses from the real events. The author takes the permission to change dates and events.

The explanation for this is simple, presented by Rushdie in many interviews and essays, remoteness from the reality allows the author and the characters to present the history from their own perspective.

I noticed that the historical content presented in this manner allows the reader to have a wider understanding over the events and the way in which the characters or the author see those events.

The article 2.1. presents the novel's postmodernist features.

"Midnight's Children" is not just a post colonist novel. It fits the postmodern novels’ category and contains a variety of defining features of postmodern writings.

Furthermore, the entire novel, as other postmodern ones, can be seen as an allegory. Fable is a technique commonly used as part of magic realism. Elements and real events combine with the fantastic ones.

I also noticed that his combination does not necessarily exclude what is real, but gives the possibility of a better understanding of the real.

Humor and satire, also postmodernist features, are found throughout the entire novel.

Also, time distortion and narrative fragmentation, characteristic to postmodernist novels, are used by Rushdie through the whole novel. In the novel the focus is not on the time and chronological order of events but on what is happening and the impact that each event has over the main character and the other characters lives.

The article 2.2. presents the magic realism technique and the narrative technique, which I found common to postmodernist novels.

This way, introducing the fantastic elements in a real frame, the perspective becomes deeper, more intense than traditional creations.

At the same time, through magic realism, Saleem manages to offer Padma, the one whom he narrates to, but also to the reader, a personal and strong subjective version of the events which he presents.

Magic realism is a technique commonly found in post colonist epic creations like "Midnight's Children". I belive this is due to the fact that the magic and fantastic allow the authors like Rushdie to present another version of the history, their vision, other than the real history. This way the conquered persons will be given a voice and the ability to tell their story.

For the narrative, Rushdie calls on an omniscient narrator. Different from the majority of the novels with an omniscient narrator in "Midnight's Children" is the first person narration.

This is possible thanks to introduction of the fantastic in the novel. Saleem, main character and narrator, is gifted with supernatural powers, at the beginning of the novel thinking he is the center of the Universe and reading everybody's thoughts. Thus, the presented narrative contains elements hard to know by a single person.

Remoteness from traditional writing and the introduction of the fantastic and magic realism are the elements that allow the narrator to reach and know the entire variety of layers that make the presented story.

The third chapter, 3.1. article reviews the variety of fantastic elements, myths and symbols found in the work content.

As I mentioned before, being a meta-fiction, the novel includes a multitude of mythical and fantastic elements and refers to myths, symbols, places and characters that belong both Indian and other culture. Symbolism is important in Rushdie's work and this is easy to notice in "Midnight's Children".

In "Midnight's Children" Salman Rushdie tries to include a part, maybe the most important for him, of the entire Indian subcontinent history and, at the same time trying to highlight the identity of every culture and geographical diversity.

The novel represents a vast lecture that wishes to examine the culture and characteristics of independent, post colonist India.

Rushdie, original from India but educated in Great Britain, presents the novel from this perspective that tries to incorporate two visions, one of the original Indian, and another of the western Indian.

Precisely for this reason, the author calls to fantastic. The fantastic is the one that connects the two visions and allows the novelist to present his vision.

The article 3.2. presents the opinions of the critics, starting from 1981 from Clark Blaise till, in 2007, also presented in the articles written by Nadine Vladescu and Elena Crasovan, fans of Salman Rushdie’s works.

In my opinion, regardless the years or nationalities, since 1981 till 2014, the critics opinions are mainly the same, of appreciation both work and the author.

The comparison with other consecrated novels could only confirm that it is worth to give attention to an author whose imagination has no boundaries.

Bibliography

Works Quoted

Abu Shahid, Abdullah, “Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children: Connection between Magical Realism and Postcolonial Issues”, International Journal of English and Education, 2014.

Autcheon, Linda, “A poetics of post-modernism: history, theory, fiction”, New York, 1988.

Bowers, M. A., “Magic (al) Realism”, London and New York: Routledge, 2004.

Clark, Blaise, “A Novel on India’s Coming of Age”, The New York Times, 1981.

Crasovan, Elena, „Salman Rushdie, scriitorul canonic si canoanele scriitorului”, ,,Dilemateca”, 2009.

Cundy, Catherine, “Salman Rushdie”, Manchester University Press, 1996.

Durix, J., “Magic Realism in Midnight’s Children”, Commonwealth 57-63, 1985.

Fletcher, D.M., “Reading Rushdie: Perspectives on the fiction of Salman Rushdie”, Polirom, Amsterdam-Atalanta, 1994.

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Ariel: A Review of International English Literature, 1995.

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Salman, Rushdie, “Copiii din miez de noapte”, Polirom ediția a III-a, București, 2013.

Rushdie, Salman, “Imaginary Homelands: Essays and Criticism”, Granta and Penguin Books, London, 1991.

Sharma, Ramen, “Common Themes and Techniques of Postmodern”, International Journal of Educational Planning & Administration 189-198, 2011.

Veyne, Paul, “Comment on écrit l'histoire”, Paris: Seuil, 1971.

VISWANATHAN, Uma, “POLYPHONY IN MIDNIGHT’S CHILDREN”, PÓS-GRADUAÇÃO EM LETRAS/INGLÊS E LITERATURA, 2007.

Vladescu, Nadine, „Sub semnul dublului – Salman Rushdie: portretul unui vrăjitor”, Dilemateca, 2009.

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