Magical Realism in 'Midnight's Children' - Paper 202

Magical Realism in 'Midnight's Children' by Salman Rushdie

1. Magical Realism in ‘Midnight’s Children’ by Salman Rushdie Prepared by Gopi Dervaliya

2. Personal Information Name : Gopi Dervaliya Roll no. 08 Sem : 3 Paper Name : Indian English Literature-Post-Independence Paper no. : 202 Submitted to : S. B. Gardi Department of English-M.K.B.U Email : [email protected]

3. Road Map 1 2 3 4 5 About the Author About the Novel Magical Realism History & Fiction Conclusion

4. About the author Salman Rushdie, in full Sir Ahmed Salman Rushdie, born June 19, 1947, Bombay , India, Indian-born writer whose allegorical novels examine historical and philosophical issues by means of surreal characters, brooding humour, and an effusive and melodramatic prose style. His treatment of sensitive religious and political subjects made him a controversial figure. In August 2022 Rushdie was attacked and seriously injured while onstage in Chautauqua, New York . He had been scheduled to give a speech about the United States being a refuge for exiled artists. Rushdie faced a long recovery and ultimately lost one eye. Rushdie received the Booker Prize in 1981 for ‘Midnight’s Children’. The novel subsequently won the Booker of Bookers (1993) and the Best of the Booker (2008).

5. About the Novel ‘ Midnight's Children’ is a groundbreaking novel written by Salman Rushdie and published in 1981. It stands as a seminal work in contemporary literature and is known for its rich fusion of history, magic, and politics. The narrative revolves around the life of Saleem Sinai, who is born at the stroke of midnight on India's independence day in 1947, imbued with telepathic powers that connect him to 1,001 other children born at the same moment. As the story unfolds, Rushdie masterfully weaves together Saleem's personal journey with the tumultuous political and social changes in post-independence India, creating a mesmerizing tapestry of magical realism that offers a unique perspective on the country's history and identity. The novel has been celebrated for its intricate narrative structure, allegorical depth, and exploration of the complexities of a nation's birth and identity.

6. What is Magical Realism ? Magic realism, magical realism and marvellous realism are highly disputed terms, not only due to their complicated history but also because they encompass many variants. Their wide scope means that they often appear to encroach on other genres and terms. The term magic realism was coined by German art critic Franz Roh in 1925 to describe a tendency in German painting which demonstrated an altered reality (Bowers, 2004, p. 8). Some writers interweave, in an ever-shifting pattern, a sharply etched realism in representing ordinary events and descriptive details together with fantastic and dreamlike elements, as well as with materials derived from myth and fairy tales. For example, Gabriel García Márquez's ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude’ (Abrams #)

7. How does magic realism differ from other literary genres, such as fantasy and science fiction ? Any genre of fiction can get at truths. Some science fiction and fantasy do so, and are serious fiction. Some SF and fantasy are escapist. But magical realism is always serious, never escapist, because it is trying to convey the reality of one or several worldviews that actually exist, or have existed. Science fiction and fantasy are always speculative. They are always positing that some aspects of objective reality were different. Magical realism is not speculative and does not conduct thought experiments. Instead, it tells its stories from the perspective of people who live in our world and experience a different reality from the one we call objective. If there is a ghost in a story of magical realism, the ghost is not a fantasy element but a manifestation of the reality of people who believe in and have "real" experiences of ghosts. Magical realist fiction depicts the real world of people whose reality is different from ours. It's not a thought experiment. It's not speculation. Magical realism endeavors to show us the world through other eyes.

8. Magic Realism in ‘Midnight’s Children’ Rushdie adopts the device of Magic realism in ‘Midnight's children.’ Magic Realism is a term originally coined by German out Critic Frantz Roh in 1925 to describe the tendencies in the work of certain German painters in the early twenties. (Kumar #) Salman Rushdie has written critically acclaimed magical realist novels. His ‘Midnight's Children’, ‘Shame’ , and ‘The Satanic Verses’ incorporate the technique of magic realism. While reading the ‘Midnight's Children’ we find that the whole novel is a perfect combination of reality and imaginary between the real and the unreal. There are many places in ‘Midnight's Children’ where Rushdie used the device of magic realism for the framework of the novel. When we go through the novel, we find that Saleem Sinai, the protagonist, has the gift of having an incredible sense of smell which allows him to determine other's thoughts and emotions. This gift of Saleem is the same to that of his grandfather Adam Ajiz who also had the same large nose and magical gift. In the novel we see Adam's incredible sense of smell.

9. M agic Realism is a mythical movement connected with a style of writing or performance that incorporates magical or paranormal events into realistic narrative without questioning the questionability of the events. Magic realism is related to, but characteristic 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. Saleem's overtly unreliable narrative also calls into question readings of Midnight's Children as magic realism. A defining trait of magic realism is that it’s supernatural elements are "admitted, accepted and integrated into the rationality and materiality of literary realism" . (Barnaby #)

10. History and Fiction In Imaginary Homelands, Rushdie writes: “History is always ambiguous. Facts are hard to establish, and capable of being given many meanings. Reality is built on our prejudices, misconceptions and ignorance as well as on our perceptiveness and knowledge. The reading of Saleem’s unreliable”. (Parkash #) T he protagonist of Salman Rushdie’s novel ‘Midnight’s Children’ is Saleem Sinai and through him Rushdie tries to make the connection between historical and personal. This boundary between historical and personal, in the novel, is blurred in such a way that historical becomes personal and personal becomes historical and what is exactly personal and historical remains unclear for the reader. (Dr. N. H. KALLUR #)

11. Saleem Sinai’s life is connected to history in such a way that it cannot be separated. So, Rushdie in the very beginning of the novel tells us that Saleem Sinai is handcuffed to history. Beginning with Saleem’s birth on the day of India’s independence, Rushdie very beautifully connects Saleem’s personal life with history as if history is happening for him. His rewriting of Indian history is the part of subaltern historiography from the viewpoint of an individual. Salman Rushdie says that history is not only which is documented in historical archives or written in our history books but it is also which lives in the mind of people who saw it happening. Thus, there are alternative histories also that are based on memories. continue…

12. The pickle Saleem Sinai, the narrator of the novel, is born with a pickle jar on his head. The pickle jar is a symbol of Saleem's alienation and isolation. It also represents the burden of history that he carries as a midnight's child. The talking pickle also plays an important role in Saleem's development as a storyteller. The pickle tells Saleem stories about the history of India and the world, which helps Saleem to understand his own place in the world. The power of storytelling : Rushdie uses the pickle’s stories to explore the power of storytelling to shape our understanding of the world. The importance of memory : The pickle’s stories help Saleem to remember his past and to understand his own identity.

13. continue… Chutney is a cold sauce made from fragmented fruit, vinegar, sugar, and spices. It is sold in jars and Indians often eat it with meat or cheese. In Midnight's Children, Saleem Sinai learns the secret of pickling the best chutney from Mary, his erstwhile ayah. The secret is that “because she (Mary) puts her feelings inside them.” (1981; MC) The pickling process for the Indian chutney is the mixture of all sorts of fragmented sources. In Saleem’s mind, the chutney recalls his own feeling and memory of the past history, the ups and downs in his whole life.

14. conclusion I n conclusion, ‘Midnight's Children’ by Salman Rushdie is a masterful example of magical realism, skillfully weaving together magical elements with the ordinary, thereby creating a narrative that explores complex themes of identity, history, and the intertwining of the personal and the political. The magical abilities of the midnight's children and surreal elements like the talking pickle serve not merely as fantastical occurrences but as metaphors for the multifaceted nature of India's post-independence experience. Salman Rushdie's use of magical realism in this novel enhances its richness and depth, making it a thought-provoking and unique work that continues to captivate readers with its imaginative storytelling and allegorical depth.

15. Referances Abrams, Meyer Howard. A glossary of literary terms . Harcourt Brace College Publishers, 1999. WordPress.com , https://mthoyibi.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/a-glossary-of-literary-terms-7th-ed_m-h-abrams-1999.pdf . Accessed 16 October 2023. Barnaby, Edward. “Airbrushed History: Photography, Realism, and Rushdie's "Midnight's Children."” Mosaic: An Interdisciplinary Critical Journal , vol. 38, no. 1, 2005, pp. 1-16. JSTOR , https://www.jstor.org/stable/44030365 . Accessed 17 October 2023. Bowers, Maggie Ann. Magic(al) Realism . Taylor & Francis, 2004. London and New York: Routledge , https://bayanebartar.org/file-dl/library/Linguistic1/Magical-Realism.pdf. Accessed 16 October 2023. Dr. N. H. KALLUR, SRINIVASA G.N. “History and Fiction in Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children.” An International Open Access, Peer-reviewed, Refereed Journal , vol. 10, no. 10, 2022, pp. 181-185. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CREATIVE RESEARCH THOUGHTS , https://ijcrt.org/papers/IJCRT2210254.pdf . Accessed 17 October 2023.

16. Ku mar, Ashok. “Narrative Technique In Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children.” Journal of Advances and Scholarly Researches in Allied Education , vol. 9, no. 17, 2015, pp. 1-2. Ignited Minds Jounals , http://ipublisher.in/p/3314 . Accessed 17 October 2023. Liu, Yunou. “From Pickles of Chutney to National Identity: The Fragmentation in Midnight’s Children.” Academic Journal of Humanities & Social Sciences , vol. 3, no. 11, 2020, pp. 62-68. Francis Academic Press , https://francis-press.com/uploads/papers/Jw7cWTlyqIvc3xZ2bCjfd87BIDlNB21wtk91CWX1.pdf. Accessed 17 October 2023. Mani Mehta, Shabir Wani. “Magical Realism Reflected in the Salman Rushdie’s Novel Midnight’s Children.” International Journal on Arts, Management and Humanities , vol. 6, no. 2, 2017, pp. 186-188. Research Trend , https://www.researchtrend.net/ijamh/pdf/Magical%20Realism%20Reflected%20in%20the%20Salman%20Rushdie%E2%80%99s%20Novel%20Midnight%E2%80%99s%20Children%2033%20IJAMH-1084-SHABIR%20AHMAD.pdf. Parkash, Som. “Magical Realism, Narcissistic Narrative and Indian History in the Fiction of Salman Rushdie.” An Internationally Indexed Peer Reviewed & Refereed Journal , vol. 4, no. 1, 2013, pp. 383-385. International Research Journ al of Management Sociology & Humanities , http://www.irjmsh.com/article_pdf?id=327.pdf . Accessed 17 October 2023.

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