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Near the beginning of the novel, he informs us that he is falling apart--literally: I mean quite simply that I have begun to crack all over like an old jug--that my poor body, singular, unlovely, buffeted by too much history, subjected to drainage above and drainage below, mutilated by doors, brained by spittoons, has started coming apart at the seams. In short, I am literally disintegrating, slowly for the moment, although there are signs of an acceleration. - In light of this unfortunate physical degeneration, Saleem has decided to write his life story, and, incidentally, that of India's, before he crumbles into "(approximately) six hundred and thirty million particles of anonymous, and necessarily oblivious, dust." - It seems that within one hour of midnight on India's independence day, 1,001 children were born. All of those children were endowed with special powers: some can travel through time, for example; one can change gender. - Saleem's gift is telepathy, and it is via this power that he discovers the truth of his birth: that he is, in fact, the product of the illicit coupling of an Indian mother and an English father, and has usurped another's place. His gift also reveals the identities of all the other children and the fact that it is in his power to gather them for a "midnight parliament" to save the nation. To do so, however, would lay him open to that other child, christened Shiva, who has grown up to be a brutish killer. Saleem's dilemma plays out against the backdrop of the first years of independence: the partition of India and Pakistan, the ascendancy of "The Widow" Indira Gandhi, war, and, eventually, the imposition of martial law. 2. What is the most important theme of the work? - Spittoons appear through out Midnight's Children. The motif of the spittoon allows the narrative to circle back on itself without losing its forward momentum; by reintroducing it in different contexts, Rushdie builds meaning into the image and provides the reader with a reference point and familiar angle of insight into the meaning of his tale. One particular spittoon, and extraordinary silver spittoon inlaid with lapis lazuli, appears at the beginning of the story at the house of the Rani of Cooch Naheen, and follows the course of the narrative almost until the end, where it is eventually buried under the rubble of civic reconstruction by a bulldozer. Rushdie's character Saleem comments on the significance of the spittoon at several junctures in the novel, though spittoons and betel-nut chewing (the Indian version of BeechNut chewing) take on wider and vaguer significance in other sections. The silver spittoon becomes a link to reality for Saleem. The following quotation occurs when Parvati-the-Witch has dematerialized Saleem: "What I held on to in that ghostly time-and-space: a silver spittoon. Which, transformed like myself by Parvati-whispered words, was nevertheless a reminder of the outside . . . clutching finely-wrought silver, which glittered even in that nameless dark, I survived. Despite head-to-toe numbness, I was saved, perhaps, by the glints of my precious souvenir." (p. 456) The following quotation occurs near the end of the book, at the event of the spittoon's loss: I lost something else that day, besides my freedom: bulldozers swallowed a silver spittoon. Deprived of the last object connecting me to my more tangible, historically verifiable past, I was taken to Benares to face the consequences of my inner, midnight-given life. (p. 515) These two quotations illustrate that the spittoon represents the same thing for Saleem that it does for the reader. It is a point of return, a lovely but mundane (after all, it is for spitting in!) reminder of reality in a world that threatens to overwhelm with the sheer volume and variety of its voices and experiences. Saleem is subjected to the voices of the thousand and one Midnight's Children, that threaten to drown out his sense of himself as an individual human, as well as to the manifold physical and psychological beatings rained upon him through the course of his life; the reader is similarly assaulted by the overwhelming density and pace of Rushdie's novel. Without points of return we would be falling with the landslide rush of the story without hope of gaining an interpretive foothold. Spittoons, and betel-chewing, are endowed with other significance through the course of the novel, though never so explicitly as in the quotations above. Memory, truth, and storytelling are entwined into the motif of the spittoon. The group of old betel-chewers that make their appearance in several places in the novel serve as a kind of repository of common memory, and their stories are wrapped up in the game of "hit-the-spittoon," in which the spittoon is placed a distance away from the chewers and they attempt to direct their streams of red spittle into its waiting mouth. Rushdie warms up to the topics of memory and spit at the beginning of the chapter entitled, appropriately enough, "Hit-the-Spittoon:" Please believe that I am falling apart . . . . This is why I have resolved to confide in paper, before I forget. (We are a nation of forgetters.) There are moments of terror, but they go away. Panic like a bubbling sea-beast comes up for air, boils of the surface, but eventually returns tro the deep. It is important for me to remain calm. I chew betel-nut and expectorate in the direction of a cheap brassy bowl, playing the ancient game of hit-the-spittoon: Nadir Khan's game, which he learned from the old men in Agra. Another reference to the same game comes later in the same chapter: And now the old men place the spittoon in the street, further and further from their squatting place, and aim longer and longer jets at it. Still the fluid flies true. "Oh, too good, yara!" The street urchins make a game of dodging in and out between the red streams, super-imposing the game of chicken upon this art of hit-the-spittoon . . . But here is an army staff car, scattering urchins as it comes . . . here, Brigadier Dodson, the town's military commander, stifling with heat . . and here, his A.D.C., Major Zulfikar, passing him a towel. Dodson mops his face; urchins scatter; the car knocks over the spittoon. A dark red fluid with clots in it like blood congeals like a red hand in the dust of the street and points accusingly at the retreating power of the Raj. In both quotations the act of chewing or the juice itself is associated with truth and memory; in the first, Saleem collects himself by chewing, calming himself so that he can record history accurately. In the second, the juice takes on the memory of the old men; it is as if they have spit their collected knowledge and injury into the brass bowl, and the spit of memory acts on its own. The shifting tone of the second paragraph quoted above illustrates Rushdie's dense and delicate style, which complicates analysis; moments of humor turn serious in an instant. Opposites are contained in a single image, and tropes fall over one another, as in the betel-juice looking like blood, which is another substance laden with more than its natural weight in meaning over the course of the novel. - Saleem Sinai’s face represented a map of India. Rushdie used this central theme as a tool to explore the different aspects of India. India was going through a time of transition and conflict. Throughout his book, Rushdie examined the social structure of India, the political strife in India, and the earlier influences on India. - Salman Rushdie entwined universal themes of India within his novel. Midnight’s Children made references to the social structure in India, the crucial conflicts of the time, and the influences Britain had on India. As the novel progressed, Saleem Sinai grew both physically and mentally to deal with the changing face of India. His growth coincided with the maturing of India as an independent nation. We first see India as an infant through the eyes of a child followed by an adult look at the mature state of India twenty-one years later. 3. What does the novel show about Indian (or Pakistani) social structure and customs? About family life? Are the male or female characters more fully/better drawn? Are women described as active or passive participants? What about conflicts between men and women and conflicts between generations? - Throughout his book, Rushdie examined the social structure of India, the political strife in India, and the earlier influences on India. - Saleem Sinai was a human map of India. His face resembled distinct areas of India and its neighbors. He described himself stating, "Fair skin curved across my features – but birthmarks disfigured it; dark stains spread down my western hairline, a dark patch coloured my eastern ear"(Rushdie 144). Saleem’s face represented the map of India directly after partition. Saleem was born exactly one day after the independence of Pakistan. The dark stains down his western hairline represented newly formed Western Pakistan while the dark patch over his eye represented Eastern Pakistan. - In addition to his face corresponding to the political map of India, Saleem’s face also demonstrated the physical features of the country: Baby-snaps reveal that my large moon face was too large; too perfectly round. Something lacking in the region of the chin. . . . And my temples: too prominent: bulbous Byzantine domes. . . . Baby Saleem’s nose: it was monstrous; and it ran(Rushdie 144-145). - The shape of his face including his narrow chin resembled the peninsula of India. His temples described the Himalayan Mountains to the north while his nose was associated with the Deccan Plateau, a centrally located elevated area on the peninsula(Oxford University Press 2). 4. Comment on the author’s use of humor, myth, and fantasy. What about his use of language? - Rushdie uses humor and hope to lighten the feel of the story’s grave subject matter. - The style of the novel is mythical and magical. - What sets Rushdie apart is his mad prose pyrotechnics, the exuberant acrobatics of rhyme and alliteration, pun, wordplay, proper and "Babu" English chasing each other across the page in a dizzying, exhilarating cataract of words. Rushdie can be laugh-out-loud funny, but make no mistake--this is an angry book, and its author's outrage lends his language wings. Midnight's Children is Salman Rushdie's irate, affectionate love song to his native land--not so different from a Bombay talkie, after all. 5. How does the author deal with political matters? Comment on his probably political views, religious views, class sympathies – if these seem relevant. 6. What are the author’s views , if any on the conflict between tradition and family solidarity on the one hand, and the urge for individualism and modernity, on the other? Does he portray “westernized” and “traditional” Indian characters, and with which type does he seem to sympathize more? - Some of the philosophies the children presented include collectivism, individualism, filial duty, infant revolution, capitalism, altruism, science, religion, and so on. In short, as Saleem explains, "Nowhere, in the thoughts of the Conference, could I find anything as new as ourselves . . . but then I was on the wrong track, too; I could not see any more clearly than anyone else" (273-4). 7. What is the value of studying works of creative literature for an understanding of another society and its history? Your own by comparison? The story of Midnight’s Children parallels the real history of India from 1910 to the declaration of the emergency in 1976. The reader experiences the story through the eyes of the main character, Saleem Sinai, who was born auspiciously at midnight of India’s Independence. Although Midnight's Children is a story with political overtones, its well-written multi-dimensional characters go on an even more riveting personal journey that sucks the readers into the story without thinking about the political context of the story. Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children is both the history of a sub-continent and the struggle of the Indian people for Independence, as well as a story of a boy's coming to age and a family’s saga. Midnight’s Children spans 63 years of Saleem’s and India’s history beginning in 32 years before Saleem’s birth and ending when Saleem is about to 32. Bibliography: midnight's children by salman rushdie Word Count: 2105
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