10. Midnight's Children (1980)- for TSPSC JL/DL

 10. Midnight's Children(1980)- for TSPSC JL/DL

Biography of Salman Rushdie

Anglo-Indian author Salman Rushdie is one of the leading novelists of the twentieth century. His style is often likened to magic realism, which mixes religion, fantasy, and mythology into one composite reality. He has been compared to authors such as Peter Carey, Emma Tennant, and Angela Carter. His somewhat flippant and familiar way of treating religion has provoked criticism, however, peaking in the Ayatollah of Iran's issue of a fatwa (a death order) in response to The Satanic Verses, his fourth novel.

Ahmed Salman Rushdie was born on June 19, 1947 in Bombay, India, to a middle class Muslim family. His father was a businessman, educated in Cambridge, and his grandfather was an Urdu poet. At fourteen, he was sent to England for schooling, attending the Rugby School in Warwickshire. In 1964, his family, responding to the growing hostilities between India and Pakistan, joined many emigrating Muslims by moving to Karachi, Pakistan.

These religious and political conflicts deeply affected Rushdie, although he stayed in England to attend the King's College in Cambridge, where he studied history. While in school, he also joined the Cambridge Footlights theatre company. Following his graduation in 1968, he began working in Pakistani television. Later, he also acted with the Oval House theatre group in Kennington, England, and until 1981, he wrote freelance copy for advertisers Ofilvy and Mather and Charles Barker.

In 1975, Rushdie published his first novel. Grimus, a science fiction story inspired by the twelfth century Sufi poem "The Conference of the Birds," was largely ignored by both critics and the public. Rushdie's literary fortunes changed in 1981, when the publication of his second novel, Midnight's Children, brought him international fame and acclaim. The story is a comic allegory of Indian history, and tells of the 1001 children born after India's Declaration of Independence, each of whom possesses a magical power. It won the Booker Prize for Fiction, the English-Speaking Union Award, the James Tait Black Memorial Prize (fiction), and an Arts Council Writers' Award. In 1993 and 2008, it was named the "Booker of Bookers," acknowledging it as the best recipient of the Booker Prize for Fiction in the award's history.

 His third novel, Shame (1983), was commonly regarded as a political allegory of Pakistani politics. It used a wealthy family as a metaphor for the country, and included characters based on former Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq. It won the Prix du Meilleur Livre Etranger, and made the short list for the Booker Prize. In 1987, Rushdie published a short travel narrative titled The Jaguar's Smile.

In 1988, Rushdie became the center of a controversy surrounding the publication of his fourth novel, The Satanic Verses, which revolves around two Indian actors who struggle with religion, spirituality, and nationality. Although the book won the Whitbread Award, Rushdie's free adaptation of Islamic history and theology caused the orthodox Muslim Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran to issue a fatwa, a call for all obedient Muslims to assassinate him. The book was banned and burned in many countries, and several people involved with its publication were injured and killed. After the death threat, Rushdie shunned publicity and went into hiding for many years, although he continued to write.

He published a children's book in 1990, titled Haroun and the Sea of Stories. It won the Writers' Guild Award (Best Children's Book). He next published a collection of essays, Imaginary Homelands: Essays and Criticism 1981-1991 (1991), and a collection of short stories, East, West (1994). Then came another novel, The Moor's Last Sigh (1995), which used a family's history to explore the activities of right-wing Hindu terrorists, and the cultural connections between India and the Iberian peninsula. The Ground Beneath Her Feet (1999) was Rushdie's sixth novel, re-imagining the birth of modern rock music. He also published the novel Fury in 2001, and Step Across This Line: Collected Non-fiction 1992-2002 in 2002. His latest novel Shalimar the Clown, published in 2005; it was a finalist for the Whitbread Book Awards. In 2012, he published a memoir of his days in hiding, Joseph Anton.

While many of Rushdie’s texts center on the interpretation and role of religion in society, Rushdie himself is an atheist. This upset many Muslims who previously regarded Rushdie as a strong figure in the Muslim community. Combined with the unpopularity and assassination attempts that followed the publication of The Satanic Verses, Rushdie issued a statement in 1990 claiming that he had renewed his Muslim faith. He denounced the blasphemous ideas that he wrote in The Satanic Verses and said that he was committed to better understanding the religion and how it fit into the larger world narrative. He also issued a request for the publisher to never again produce new copies of The Satanic Verses. However, in 1995, he admitted the tactic was only a survival mechanism and that he still does not subscribe to any religious beliefs. He considers the statement the biggest mistake of his life.

Rushdie ended his fourth marriage, which was to the American television star Padma Lakshmi, in 2007. He is an Honorary Professor in the Humanities at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a Distinguished Supporter of the British Humanist Association, a Distinguished Fellow in Literature at the University of Anglia, a recipient of the 1993 Austrian State Prize for European Literature, a recipient of the 1996 Aristeion Literary Prize, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and Commandeur de Arts et des Lettres. He was also President of PEN American Center from 2003-2005. In 2000, he moved from London to New York. In 2006, he became the Distinguished Writer in Residence at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia

Introduction: (gradesaver)

Published in 1980, Midnight’s Children follows the tumultuous transition into India's and, to a lesser extent, Pakistan’s independence after the partition of British India. The story itself is allegorical with the main events being about the life of Saleem Sinai, a boy who was born at the stroke of midnight on the same day that India gained its freedom from England.

Salman Rushdie, the novel’s author, created the book to be a fictional biography of the country from the point of view of someone who grew up alongside the nation. Rushdie himself was born in 1947, just two months before the country’s liberation in August. As such, he had a unique perspective on the country’s adolescent years as they coincided with his own. These same ideas are injected into Saleem’s story; the changes that befall Saleem in terms of wealth and identity are indicative of India’s growth.

Like Rushdie’s other novels, Midnight’s Children uses magical realism as a device to combine history with Rushdie’s fictional twist on history. Rushdie also employs postcolonial theory to show how imperialism handicapped countries like India trying to reestablish their culture and identity. Also subject to Rushdie’s critique is how social class and religion contributed to India’s uncertain beginnings.

Midnight’s Children won the 1981 Book Prize. Then in both 1993 and 2008, it won the Best of the Book prize on the prize’s respective 25th and 40th anniversary. It also won the English Speaking Union Literary Award as well as the James Tait Prize. The story was adapted to the stage in 2003 by the Royal Shakespeare Company. Later in 2012, a film version premiered at the Toronto Film Festival.

Midnight's Children Summary

Book One:                                        

1.The Perforated Sheet

Saleem Sinai begins by mentioning his date of birth: August 15th, 1947. This is the same day that India gained its independence from the British Empire. Even though this story is his autobiography, Saleem begins his tale in earnest nearly thirty years prior to his birth.

His grandfather Aadam Aziz just returned to India after becoming a doctor in Germany. He falls in love with a patient named Naseem.  He can only see one part of her body at a time due to her father's strict rules about preserving her modesty.

2. Mercurochrome

Aadam and Naseem fall in love and are soon married. They soon realize that they are a bad match, but they remain together. Aadam begins to wither away while Naseem, who now goes by Reverend Mother, gets more robust and powerful with each child she bears.

3. Hit-the-Spittoon

Reverend Mother continues to become more angry and resolved, and Aadam falls in line politically behind Mian Abdullah. He and his personal assistant Nadir are the victims of an assassination attack, though Nadir is able to get away. He is permitted to hide in Aadam's basement.

4. Under the Carpet

Aadam's second child, Mumtaz, falls in love with Nadir. Because Nadir is in hiding, though, he and Mumtaz have a secret marriage. They live together in the Aziz household's basement until Mumtaz becomes ill. Her father does a physical and discovers that she is still a virgin even after two years of marriage. Nadir runs away and divorces Mumtaz, but she soon becomes interested in Ahmed Sinai. The two get married, and Ahmed changes Mumtaz's name to "Amina."

5. A Public Announcement

Like her parents, Amina does not have a healthy marriage with Ahmed. Still, she tries to make herself fall in love with her husband. She soon becomes pregnant. One day, she saves a man from being killed by a Muslim-hating crowd, and he tells her that his cousin will tell her son's future.

6. Many-headed Monsters

Anima follows the man she saved to his cousin, and the mystic prophesies that Amina's son will be the same age as his homeland, and that noses and knees will be important. He also vaguely details different events in the child's life that will be significant.

7. Methwold

Amina and Ahmed move into a grand estate owned by William Methwold. He instructs that his Indian tenants use proper English manners and habits. Though the tenants are angry about having to use Western customs, things like kitchen appliances and cocktail hour become second nature to them.

8. Tick, Tock

Amina goes into labor and has her son at midnight on August 15th, 1947. In the next room, another woman has a child at the exact same moment. Mary Pereira, a midwife at the clinic, sees a chance to impress her revolutionary lover and switches the name tags on the two baskets. Amina and Ahmed leave the hospital with Saleem, the narrator, while their true biological child, Shiva, is raised in the slums by a poor singer.

Book Two:

9.The Fisherman's Pointed Finger

Mary, feeling bad about her sin, devotes herself to being Saleem's nanny for the rest of her life. She is like a mother to him. Ahmed, though, makes some bad investments, and the government freezes his assets. Saleem's sister, Brass Monkey, is conceived during this time before Ahmed becomes too cold and distant for Amina to reach.

 

10: Snakes and Ladders

Though Mary is devoted to raising Saleem, she is still in love with her revolutionary lover. However, he is murdered by the police while trying to blow up a nearby clock tower.

11: Accident in a Washing-chest

Saleem, feeling the pressure of being the first-born son, begins to hide in the washroom when he gets older. One day, he accidentally sees his mother undress while hiding. She catches him and punishes Saleem to one day of silence. It is during that day that Saleem begins to hear thousands of voices in his head. When he tells his family that the voices are divine, he is chastised for being sacrilegious.

12: All-India Radio

Saleem realizes that the voices belong to every person in India. When he focuses, Saleem can narrow in on the children who were born in the first hour of India's independence -- the children of midnight. They also have magical powers that vary in strength based on how close they were born to midnight. He also learns that Amina and Ahmed's biological son, Shiva, has powerful knees that are able to kill humans with their strength.

13: Love in Bombay

Saleem falls in love with an American girl, but she doesn't pay him any attention. He tries to impress her with his newly-found bicycle skills, but she is more interested in a riot that is occurring nearby. Saleem becomes angry, so he uses his mental powers to push into the girl's mind to try and find out why she doesn't like him. She can feel him intruding, and Saleem discovers that he can dig deep into people's minds.

14: My Tenth Birthday

Saleem laments his birthday. He knows that 1,001 children were born at midnight ten years earlier, but only 581 children lived to see their tenth birthday with him. Ahmed is becoming more despondent as he continues to lose money, regardless of how hard he tries.

15: At the Pioneer Cafe

Saleem uses his mental abilities to follow Amina around the town. He discovers that she is having an affair with Nadir. He also introduces himself to Shiva, the boy whose life he was supposed to have. Shiva is angry and aggressive, and he wants to rule the children of midnight with an iron fist, though Saleem wants to do otherwise.

16: Alpha and Omega

At a school dance, Saleem gets the tip of his finger cut off. His parents race him to the hospital for surgery. When the doctors ask for blood, Amina and Ahmed try to donate theirs. But the doctor informs them that Saleem is not a match for either parent.

 

17: The Kolynos Kid

Ahmed, angry with the revelation that Saleem is not his, sends Saleem away for a few months. He lives with his filmmaker uncle and movie-star aunt. He is attracted to his aunt, and he gropes her one day while she is crying. The two send Saleem back to his parents.

18: Commander Sabaarmati's Baton

When he comes back, Saleem's little sister, Brass Monkey, is the new favorite of the family. Saleem then learns that his neighbor's wife is having an affair. He feels betrayed since his mother was having an affair, so he arranges things such that the affair would be discovered. The neighbor shoots and kills his wife and her lover.

19: Revelations

Everything is fine until Mary, still grieving about her actions, admits to switching the children at birth. She runs away from the family and leaves their lives in ruins.

20: Movements Performed by Pepperpots

Amina, Saleem, and Brass Monkey move to Pakistan after Ahmed becomes a violent drunk. They live with Amina's sister Emerald, and they are the poor disgrace of the family. At Brass Monkey's fourteen birthday party, she sings for her guests. They are amazed at her voice, and everybody starts to call her "Jamila Singer," her real name.

21: Drainage and the Desert

Amina, Saleem, and Brass Monkey are called back to India four years later. Saleem then gets a serious sinus infection, and his parents make him undergo surgery to get them cleared. He realizes that he has lost his power of telepathy, but in its place is a powerful sense of smell.

22: Jamila Singer

All four family members move to Pakistan to start a new life. Jamila becomes famous as a singer, and Ahmed enjoys moderate success making bath linens.

23: How Saleem Achieved Purity

The Sinais' happiness in Pakistan is short-lived. India invades Pakistan and begins to bomb the city where the Sinais live. All of Saleem's family is killed except for Saleem and his sister during an air raid. A spittoon flies through the air and hits Saleem on the head, and he loses all of his memory.

Book Three

24.The Buddha

After a time jump, Saleem is in the Pakistani army. He memory and identity are still lost. The army uses his super sense of smell like they would a dog's, and Saleem becomes disillusioned with his orders to constantly kill Indians.

25: In the Sundarbans

Saleem leads a group of young soldiers to the jungle. The trip is harrowing as they nearly die and come into contact with ghostly spirits. However, Saleem finds his identity in the forest.  He tells his entire life story to his four young companions. Their attempt to escape the jungle leaves the other four members of his group dead.

26: Sam and the Tiger

Saleem returns to Pakistan and meets Parvati-the-witch, one of the children of midnight whom he knew when he was younger. Using her magic, Parvati smuggles Saleem back into India.

27: The Shadow of the Mosque

Once back in India, Saleem goes to live with his one remaining uncle. His uncle, who works for the Indian government, receives a folder that looks suspicious to Saleem. He is soon kicked out for not being devout enough, so he returns to the slums and lives with Parvati and her father figure, Picture Singh. Parvati urges Saleem to marry her, but he refuses constantly.

28: A Wedding

In retaliation to Saleem's rejection, Parvati uses her magic to summon Shiva, Saleem's midnight twin, and becomes pregnant with Shiva's child. Shiva, who is violent to begin with, becomes even more violent until Parvati breaks the curse she has over him. He leaves immediately, and Saleem marries Parvati so her child is not raised without a father.

29: Midnight

The prime minister of India, who believes in magic and mysticism, has heard about the children of midnight. She uses Shiva to capture and torture Saleem into telling the government the names of all the children of midnight. Once they are all compounded, the prime minister has all the young men and women sterilized. She knows surgery will cause them to lose their powers. She also doesn't want any of their children rising up and trying to take her down with their own powers.

30: Abracadabra

Because Parvati had died when Saleem was captured, he and Picture begin raising Parvati's son by themselves. They make a trip to Bombay and visit a nightclub so Picture can challenge a snake charmer to a match. Saleem finds out that the food he's eating is made locally, so he goes to the pickle factory. When he arrives, he is greeted by his nanny, Mary Pereira. She takes care of him and his son while the sickly Saleem writes his memoirs.

 

Midnight's Children Character List

Saleem Sinai

Saleem is the sickly narrator and protagonist of Midnight’s Children. He was born at the stroke of midnight on August 15, 1947, the same moment that India gained its independence from the British Empire. The time of his birth infused him with powers of telepathy, a gift he used to find the other children born near midnight on that same day. Later, he acquired a gift of smell that allowed him to discern emotions and personalities in people. In terms of his narration as a rhetorical device, he often forgets facts of his story. His assertion of magical powers and a supernatural connection with India in his narration also makes him unreliable storyteller. Combined with his narcissistic attitude and God complex, it is difficult for the reader to ascertain whether or not he is reading too deeply into his own existence. Overall, his story is an allegory for the birth and rise of India as an independent nation.

Padma

Padma is Saleem’s present-day caretaker. She is physically strong and brawny compared to Saleem’s frail, cracked body and therefore represents a more down-to-earth presence that keeps Saleem grounded. Rhetorically, her role is that of the audience as Saleem tells her about his growth in conjunction with India’s growth. Whereas Saleem will follow tangents and try to explain the significance of himself and his life, Padma is more interested in the action of the tale. It is her influence that balances out Saleem’s long-winded, prosaic story-telling. She also embodies the skepticism that the audience has for Saleem’s narration. Her disbelief of Saleem’s magic powers and metaphysical connection with India mirrors that of the reader.

Shiva

Shiva is Saleem’s “midnight twin” although they were born to different parents. Due to a switch-up at birth and uncanny physical similarities between the two babies, Saleem was given to Shiva’s parents while Shiva was given to Saleem’s parents. Other aspects of Shiva’s life are inverted characteristics of Saleem’s life. For example, Saleem is sickly and introverted, whereas Shiva is robust, healthy, and extremely violent. Shiva's attributes which coincide with those of the Hindu god Shiva. Two other aspects of the god Shiva are part of Shiva’s storyline: destruction and procreation. These manifest when Shiva puts an end to the Midnight’s Children Counsel, and in the fact that he fathered hundreds of children with women all across India during his 20’s.

Aadam Aziz

Aadam Aziz is Saleem’s grandfather. Saleem’s story begins with Aadam, an Indian doctor, returning to his homeland after obtaining his medical degree from Germany. He remains a wispy figure in Saleem’s life as Aadam became increasingly absent due to a “hole” that grew inside him after he lost his faith.

Naseem Ghani/”Reverend Mother”

Naseem is Saleem’s grandmother. While she and Aadam had a unique courtship, their marriage turned sour quickly due to Aadam’s disgust with Naseem’s religious fervor. She became known as “Reverend Mother” because of her religious devotion, and grew large and powerful in response to Aadam’s shriveling personhood.

Mumtaz Aziz/Amina Sinai

Amina Sinai is Saleem’s mother. Born as Mumtaz, the second daughter to Aadam and Naseem, she enters a marriage to refugee Nadir Khan. Once the family finds out that the two never consummated their marriage, Mumtaz is divorced and then marries Ahmed Sinai. It is Ahmed who changes her name to Amina to signify her new life as his husband. As a mother, she is devoted and loving and always puts her children first when Ahmed’s alcoholism threatens the family.

Ahmed Sinai

Ahmed is Saleem’s father. He tries to be a successful businessman, but his attempts at personal wealth fail -- according to him, because of a fake “family curse” he invents one night while drunk. He resents his wife and family and spends most of the story as an alcoholic.

“Brass Monkey”/Jamila Sinai/Jamila Singer

“Brass Monkey” is the nickname of Jamila Sinai, Saleem’s sister. She goes by Brass Monkey for the majority of her childhood because of the red color of her hair and her aloof, destructive personality. It isn’t until the Sinai family moves to Pakistan that her real name, Jamila, is revealed. Immediately, she becomes famous celebrity "Jamila Singer" because of her magical, pure voice. While she and Saleem are fond for each other during their childhood, she forever shuns him after he admits that he is in love with her.

Mary Pereira

Mary is Saleem’s nanny, known as an “ayah.” Saleem comes to see her as a second mother, even after he finds out that she was the person who switched Saleem and Shiva at birth. At the time, Mary wanted to do her part in an effort to impress her revolutionary lover, Joseph. After the switch, however, she felt guilty for her crime and dedicated her life to raising Saleem for free as compensation.

Parvati-the-witch/Leylah Sinai

Parvati-the-witch is Saleem’s loyal friend in the Midnight’s Children Counsel. As an adult, she takes the name Leylah when she and Saleem marry. Though she carries Shiva’s biological son, Parvati and Saleem raise him as their own child.

Indira Gandhi/"The Widow"

The Widow is the fictitious representation of Indira Ghandi, the fourth Prime Minister of India. Her father was the first Prime Minister, giving her a unique position as a child of India’s independence. During her first term, she realized that the Midnight’s Children Counsel represented a threat to her leadership. With the help of Shiva’s strength and Saleem, whom she took captive, she had all the surviving members of the Midnight’s Children Council captured and sterilized so that their magical powers could not be passed down, thus securing her claim as the only “legitimate” child of India.

 

Midnight's Children Themes

Naming as an Identity

Midnight’s Children has strong ties with the idea that naming creates identity. The majority of names in the novel allude to the archetype that the character resembles. Saleem’s grandfather Aadam, for example, alludes to the Biblical Adam who was the first man. Saleem’s grandmother takes on the name Reverend Mother after she becomes engulfed in her religious identity. The women in the novel change their name after getting married, essentially leaving their unmarried identity behind and becoming a new person in union with their husbands. For a while, Saleem even forgets his own name during a time when he is not particularly proud of his actions. He has lost his moral compass and has therefore lost the name which gives him meaning and direction.

Post-Colonialism

Before becoming an independent nation, India was under the rule of the British Empire. The British used their influence to erase the customs of India and impose their own culture and morality. The Indians, however, found it difficult to recall their own culture. Many cast aside the “old ways” of polytheistic religion and ornate ceremonies, and instead tried to veer the country to follow Western culture. Others tried to return to their customs but were caught identity crisis. The shadow of the British Empire still clouded India’s vision, making it difficult to move forward with their own identity. Characters like William Methwold and Evie Lilith Burns served as reminders of how white characters were able to make Indians feel subservient and out-of-place in their own country.

The Unreliability of Oral Storytelling

Midnight’s Children is told entirely through the voice of Saleem, who is recalling the mystical events of his life on his deathbed. He expects Padma, who represents the readers, to completely believe the series of events that comprise his life, which is difficult because his story is filled with supernatural occurrences set against a realistic world. Yet at the same time, there are moments in the novel when Saleem admits that he might have forgotten a date or mixed up a series of events due to his failing mental health. This puts the reader in a difficult position: they can either fully believe Saleem’s occultish story and forgive his slights of memory, or they can take everything Saleem says with a grain of salt. Either way, Saleem’s authority as a reliable narrator is undermined through both magical realism as well as his admission of mixing up dates and events.

Mythology and the Epic Story

Hindu, Christian, Greek, and other religious mythologies are Saleem’s props that lend credence to his elaborate tale of India’s creation. He sets his grandfather up as a progenitor by comparing him to the first man in Christian mythology, Adam. With respect to his “evil” counterpart, Shiva, he conjures the Hindu god to compare Shiva’s position as a major player in the story with the god’s own influence on people’s lives. The same goes for Parvati, who represents the caring and motherly form who has a strong control over Shiva as well as everyone else in India. Throughout his story, Saleem makes connections between himself and Scheherazade, the storyteller from One Thousand and One Nights. To set up his story as an epic adventure, he uses classic traditions from Homer’s The Odyssey as a way to draw further parallels to his own journey to find himself.

Boundaries and Borders

From the moment that England breaks ties with India, India is given autonomy and independence. In theory, this means that India should have finite, indisputable borders. Midnight’s Children takes a different approach, saying that boundaries and borders are often more blurred than one might think. This is seen in the characters time and again -- for example, the struggle for presence between Aadam and Reverend Mother. Saleem is able to surpass the boundaries of his body by telepathically shoving himself into someone else’s brain. In the national sense, the impermanence of borders is apparent even at the beginning of India’s independence when these countries decide to create new borders, separating Pakistan from India. The only problem with this is that these borders were unable to separate Hindus from Muslims as they were intended to do.

Racism and Sexism

Left over from colonialism is the idea that white skin is desirable and pure. While the Western characters exhibit these ideas more prominently, the ideas seep through to the Indian characters. Saleem’s father’s cousin relays these racist thoughts when she begins harping on other dark-skinned Indians. When Jamila Singer appears in public, she is covered in a white silk chadar to symbolize her purity. Sexism is also prevalent in the novel, with many male characters (even Saleem) ignoring women’s autonomy and identity. Both Amina and Parvati accept their new first names after becoming married, and neither Sonny nor Saleem respect Brass Monkey’s and Evelyn’s insistence that they don’t want to be in a relationship with boys who are pursuing them. Instead, the boys doggedly pursue the girls regardless of what the girls want.

Class and Social Structure

It is impossible to overlook Saleem’s journey through India’s different social structures. Saleem begins his life in an upper-middle class family, enjoying a beautiful home and having enough money to be comfortable. Their wealth is created from their capitalistic lifestyle, left over from British Imperialism. But as soon as Saleem’s parents split up, his social standing is significantly lowered to the point where he, his mother, and his sister are recognized as the needy relatives. Once India enters the war, Saleem loses all hopes of ever belonging to “respectable” society and instead lives in the slums, spreading the word about how a communist government would be more inclined to help the poor break free from their squalor. All these different parts in Saleem’s life are representative of the vast differences in class and social structures present in India.

 

 

 

Quotes and analysis

Now, returning, he saw through travelled eyes. Instead of the beauty of the tiny valley circled by giant teeth, he noticed the narrowness, the proximity of the horizon; and felt sad, to be at home and feel so utterly enclosed. He also felt – inexplicably – as though the old place resented his educated, stethoscoped return.---Saleem’s narration, page 5

Saleem’s narration about his grandfather’s return to Kashmir is a strong introduction to Aadam’s growing resentment of his homeland. Because he was educated in Europe, he returned to India with a feeling of superiority, beliving that Kashmir was both small in location as well as small-minded in its acceptance of Western culture. This will be an idea that permeates through the rest of Aadam’s story; he refuses to assimilate back into Indian culture and therefore begins to lose his identity.

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She has been weeping ever since he asked her, on their second night, to move a little. “Move where?” she asked. “Move how?” He became awkward and said, “Only move, I mean, like a woman…” She shrieked in horror. “My God, what have I married? I know you Europe-returned men. You find terrible women and then you try to make us girls be like them! Listen, Doctor Sahib, husband or no husband, I am not any…bad word woman.”   ----Reverend Mother, page 31

Naseem and Aadam's marriage soon turns sour after a relatively pleasant beginning. This exchange in their marriage bed makes it difficult for the two to ever trust each other again. Because Aadam went away to college in Europe, he developed certain notions about how women should behave towards men. Yet according to Naseem’s traditions, she was not supposed to act out in sex. By requesting that Naseem abandon her beliefs in order to serve him shows how the West has begun to permeate into the East in the smallest, most innocuous ways. In the West, women are supposed to work to please men sexually, and Aadam wants to continue this tradition back in his homeland.

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A son, Sahiba, who will never be older than his motherland – neither older nor younger,

There will be too heads—but you will see only one—there will be knees and a nose, a nose and knees,

Newspapers praise him, two mothers raise him! Bicyclists love him—but, crowds will shove him! Sisters will seep, cobras will creep.

Washing will hide him—voices will guide him! Friends mutilate him—blood will betray him!

Spittoons will brain him—doctors will drain him—jungle will claim him—wizards reclaim him! Soldiers will try him—tyrants will fry him.

He will have sons without having sons! HE will be old before he is old! And he will die…before he is dead!    -------Ramram Seth, page 96

Ramram’s prophesy about Saleem’s life came as a shock to Amina. When she hears these words, she is terrified at the words because she is unable to see how these events will play out for her child. Also, with Saleem’s insistence of mysticism combined with his unreliability as a narrator, it is important to note that some of these events may have been tweaked or altered slightly to fit this prophesy. Saleem is a self-important character who truly believes he is the embodiment of India; readers must decide whether or not his story is truthful or if he made events up to make his life seem more significant than it actually was.

 

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But now there are twenty days to go, things are settling down, the sharp edges of things are getting blurred, so they have all failed to notice what is happening: the Estate, Methwold’s Estate, is changing them. Every evening at six they are out in their gardens, celebrating the cocktail hour, and when William Methwold comes to call they slip effortlessly into their imitation Oxford drawls; and they are learning, about ceiling-fans and gas cookers and the correct diet for budgeringars, and Methwold, supervising their transformation, is mumbling under his breath. Listen carefully: what’s he saying? Yes, that’s it. “Sabkuch ticktock hai,” mumbles William Methwold. All is well. -----Saleem’s narration, page 109

This quote is a prime example of how the culture of an imperialistic nation permeates into a colonized society. Methwold insisted that the tenants join him for cocktail hour as part of their rental agreement. They protested at first, but it soon became second-nature to try and imitate their colonizer. They wanted to impress him with their poise. Soon, all Methwold has to do is sit back and watch the Indians carry on like there are Englishmen, complete with imitation accents.

 

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“You don’t know nothing, Mary, the air comes from the north now, and it’s full of dying. This independence is for the rich only; the poor are being made to kill each other like flies. In Punjab, in Bengal. Riots riots, poor against poor. It’s in the wind."   ------Joe D’Costa, page 116

Joe D’Costa, Mary’s revolutionary love interest, knows that the country’s independence is a farce and that it won’t do anything for the real people of India. Though he himself is a radical, his words are nonetheless extremely wise and intuitive about the nature of how the world works. Up until this point, we have only seen how revolution would benefit those of financial means. However, Joe realizes that India being free from the British Empire won’t do anything to change the inequality and class warfare for anyone below the poverty line.

The moment I was old enough to play board games, I fell in love with Snakes and Ladders. Oh perfect balance of rewards and penalties! O seemingly random choices made by tumbling dice! Clambering up ladders, slithering down snakes, I spent some of the happiest days of my life.

         ----Saleem’s narration, page 160

Snakes and ladders are repeated motifs in Midnight’s Children. In the game Snakes and Ladders, snakes always represent a descent while ladders represent a way to climb to the top. The novel subverts this motif in a number of ways. Saleem’s interactions with snakes prove to be more positive than negative; on one occasion, a snake saved his life.

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Does one error invalidate the entire fabric? Am I so far gone, in my desperate need for meaning, that I’m prepared to distort everything—to re-write the whole history of my times purely in order to place myself in a central role? Today, in my confusion. I can’t judge. I’ll hate to leave it to others.

                              --------Saleem’s narration, page 190

In this quote, Saleem addresses the issue of his dependability after realizing that he made a mistake concerning Gandhi’s death. One of the difficulties of reading Midnight’s Children is that Saleem is an unreliable narrator. The reader can never tell if Saleem is fabricating events to make his life seem more interesting, or if the magical realism is truly a part of the story. He realizes that what he is saying sounds incredulous, but he fully believes his exploits are true. Whether or not these exploits are true, however, is up for debate.

 

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Even if Shaheed had been able to hear me, I could not then have told him what I later became convinced was the truth: that the purpose of that entire war had been to reunite me with an old life.

                 -------Saleem’s narration, page 429

This quote comes after the 1971 conflict over Bangladeshi independence ends and Saleem has emerged from the Sundarbans into India. Because of Saleem’s unreliability, this quote can be taken two different ways. The first assumes that Saleem’s story is accurate. If this is true, then Saleem’s life has truly been dictated by fate. He is the “twin” of India, and therefore fate is always going to bring the two together. On the other hand, if Saleem has invented a mystical connection between himself and India, then this conclusion is one of his delusions. He wrongly believes every event in India’s history since its independence has influenced his own life.

 

And at last the Buddha spoke, knowing Shaheed could not hear: “O, Shaheeda,” he said, revealing the depths of his fastidiousness, “a person must sometimes choose what he will see and what he will not; look away, look away from there now.” But Shaheed was staring at a maidan in which lady doctors were being bayoneted before they were raped, and raped again before they were shot. Above them and behind them, the cool white minaret of a mosque stared blindly down upon the scene.

      --------Saleem’s narration, page 432

After the conflict over Bangladeshi independence, while Saleem and Shaheed are walking through Dacca and watching the Pakistani soldiers torture and rape female doctors. Standing above this scene and watching it unfold is a minaret of a Muslim mosque. This is an example of how certain groups and cultures harbor sexist and misogynistic attitudes towards women, while the church stands by and does nothing about these atrocities. Coming from an atheistic author, this scene could be a critique of how religion does not protect, defend, or support women in their struggle for equality. Even during these countries’ independence, women are still treated as commodities and aren’t given the same respect as their male counterparts.

 

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…something was ending, something was being born, and at the precise instant of the birth of the new India and the beginning of a continuous midnight which would not end for two long years, my son, the child of the renewed ticktock, came out into the world.    ----Saleem’s narration, page 481-2

The cycle of creation and destruction appears at the same moment that Parvati births her son. At midnight on June 25th, the prime minister declares a State of Emergency, meaning that she is allowed to use excessive military force and censor the press in order to “protect” India; Saleem, however, is skeptical of her motives. This Emergency would prove to be the end of the Midnight Children’s Conference. But, at the stroke of midnight, Saleem’s son is born. It is a joyous occasion, an occasion that allows the children of midnight to live on.

Midnight's Children Summary and Analysis of Book One: The Perforated Sheet; Mercurochrome; Hit-the-Spittoon

 

 

 

Midnight's Children Summary and Analysis of Book One:

1. "The Perforated Sheet"

Midnight’s Children begins with the narrator Saleem Sinai introducing himself as the child born at the same time as India gained its independence from the British Empire. He says that, even though he is nearly thirty-one years old, he can feel his skin cracking and peeling as he gets closer to his death. Saleem believes it is important that he tells the story of his life and how it coincides with India’s own history.

Saleem’s story begins in 1915 with his grandfather, Aadam Aziz, returning to the Kashmir region after obtaining his medical degree in Germany. While praying on his mat upon reaching Kashmir, he hits his nose on the ground. Three drops of blood fall from his nose onto his mat. Saleem also mentions that Aadam has a large, cucumber-sized nose, which is the most prominent feature of his face. After the accident, he vows never to follow any religion. This causes a “hole” to open inside him.

He is waiting for Tai the boatman to take him to his village when he reminisces about how Tai once told him that his nose would always guide him in the right direction for his life. Tai yells out that the daughter of prominent landowner Ghani is sick and needs his assistance. Once Saleem arrives at the house, the blind Ghani has his daughter hidden behind a large white sheet with a seven-inch hole cut in the center of the sheet. Ghani informs Aadam that, because of his daughter’s purity, Aadam can only perform the check-up through the sheet.

As Aadam is called countless times to Ghani’s house to treat “illnesses”, he begins to fall in love piece by piece with Naseem, the girl behind the sheet. However, he has never seen her face, only the part of the body that she claims is in pain. Finally, on the day that World War I ends, Naseem says she has a migraine and needs Aadam to treat her head. When Aadam sees Naseem’s face for the first time, he is completely smitten with her. When both his parents die, he decides to ask for Naseem’s hand in marriage. The two are married and move to Amritsar.

2. "Mercurochrome"

On August 7th, Mahatma Gandhi called for Hartal, a day of mourning in protest of British imperialism. Riots break out, however, and Aadam tries to help the wounded by using Mercurochrome. Days later, the people hold a peaceful protest and are rounded up and put into a compound. Aadam is there by accident. His nose begins to itch violently, causing him to sneeze. He falls to the ground right before the troops fire on all the people. The bullets miss Aadam.

3. "Hit-the-Spittoon"

Immediately after their marriage, Aadam and Naseem (who now goes by Reverend Mother) are having difficulties. Aadam despises Naseem for her religious fervor, and Naseem hates that Aadam acts like he is more intelligent than he is. Regardless of their feelings toward one another, they have five children: three daughters and five sons.

In 1942, Aadam begins to politically align himself with Mian Abdullah, who is known as the Hummingbird because he is always humming. He is the leader of the Free Islam Convocation, a group that does not want a Muslim state separate from India. He and his assistant Nadir Khan are attacked by political assassins. Abdullah begins to hum, which causes the killers’ eyes and the windows to shatter. His voice also calls the local dogs to the scene, and the dogs begin to kill the assassins. Abdullah is killed, but Nadir manages to make it out. Aadam and his family take him into hiding, letting him live in the house’s basement.

Throughout these chapters, present-day Saleem is telling this story to Padma, a woman who has been tasked with taking care of the decrepit Saleem. He is critical of her sturdy stature and hairy body, and he constantly makes fun of her name, which means “dung.” She takes offense at his jabs at her, but she still tries to have sex with him. Unfortunately, he is unable to perform regardless of how hard she tries. Saleem’s body keeps deteriorating and cracking, which makes him want to tell his story faster.

Analysis

From the beginning of the novel, there is an immediate connection with religion and folklore. Aadam Aziz is the embodiment of Adam from the Old Testament, the first man who lives in Eden. Kashmir is described as being beautiful and lush, so the parallels are apparent. This gives Saleem a way to create his own mythological backstory. If he can make comparisons between religious texts and his own life, he will have a stronger case for his mystical connection with India.

The same type of parallelism occurs in the first chapter when Saleem compares himself to Scheherazade, the narrator and protagonist of One Thousand and One Nights. Like Saleem, she is trying to tell fantastic stories in order to stay alive. She and Saleem both have a death sentence, and telling compelling and magical tales to the audience might help to stave off their death.

It is Saleem’s allusion to famous tales and characters that makes him difficult to believe. He has a God complex, one that makes him see himself as an epic hero with a significant origin story. Saleem needs to feel like his life has held meaning beyond the mere mortal plane. Because he was born at the same moment India gained independence from the British Empire, he sees himself as superior to others. He shows his haughty side when he talks about Padma, his constant companion and caretaker. He dismisses her attempts to make him well. He pokes fun at her name and lightly criticizes her burly appearance.

 

The role that Padma plays, though, is an important one. Saleem has a few foils in Midnight’s Children, and Padma is one of them. While the sickly and frail Saleem waxes poetic about his life and its meaning, Padma is urging him to stop thinking about himself and instead continue with the story. She performs the same function as the audience, which also wants Saleem to keep his exposition to a minimum and instead focus on the action. Like the audience, she is critical of Saleem’s supernatural powers, but she enjoys both him and his stories because they are captivating and entertaining.

 

Once Saleem jumps back into his stories, it is apparent that there is a struggle between the East and the West. Aadam’s tale takes place before India’s independence, and he represents one way that imperialism slithered into Indian culture. People like Tai were critical of Aadam’s Western medicine. They believed it to be foreign and unnatural, and they constantly fought against it. However, others like Ghani came to embrace Western medicine because they believed that it was superior to what Indian doctors could provide. Ghani’s blindness symbolizes his blind faith and acceptance of Western culture.

The perforated sheet is a constant motif in Midnight’s Children. Its beginnings start with Aadam falling in love with Naseem one body part at a time. However, it largely symbolizes the disconnect that the two have even after the sheet is dropped and they marry. Because Aadam fell in love with Naseem piece by piece, he never learned to love her as a full woman.

This fractured foundation immediately causes problems in their marriage, namely on their second night of marriage when Aadam urges Naseem to move “like a woman” (31). This can be attributed also to his acceptance of Western culture. He doesn’t see Naseem as a woman because she does not have sex in a way that is pleasing to him. This shows he does not see Naseem as a woman, nor as his equal. Because of her traditional religious ways and her modesty, he never learns to love or respect her in the way that husbands and wives should.

To make up for his lost interest in his wife, Aadam throws himself into politics. Mian Abdullah, Patient Zero of the epidemic Saleem calls the disease of optimism, is Aadam’s new obsession. In the British-controlled India, there were talks of splitting the country in two to make both a Hindu and a Muslim state. Mian Abdullah and his followers believed that India should be free to people of both religions. His optimism towards this cause was infectious, causing others to flock to him and support the cause. Unfortunately, his death marked the end of the epidemic, leaving everyone to feel the heavy weight of England controlling their lives.

4. "Under the Carpet"

After Mian Abdullah is assassinated, the optimism disease has ended. Things go back to normal for the Aziz family, with the exception of political refugee Nadir Khan hiding in the basement of the family’s home. This upsets Naseem, who now fully goes by Reverend Mother. She vows a silent treatment to protest Nadir living in their home and possibly corrupting their daughters’ purity. Regardless of her fears, Nadir and the middle daughter Mumtaz fall in love even though they never speak a word. Nadir asks for Mumtaz’s hand, prompting Mumtaz to have a secret marriage in order to protect Nadir from the government.

Two years later, Mumtaz becomes extremely ill. Aadam performs a physical on her when he notices that, even though she is married, Mumtaz is still a virgin. This scandal is too much for Reverend Mother, and she unleashes a fury of words on Aadam for letting their daughter marry Nadir. Emerald, the youngest daughter, runs out of the house and grabs her beau, Major Zulfikar of the Pakistani army. When the two return, Nadir has fled and left a note for Mumtaz that reads, “I divorce you.” Coincidentally, this event occurs on the same day the United States drops the atomic bomb on Japan.

Later, at Emerald and Major Zulfikar’s wedding, Mumtaz begins talking with a man named Ahmed Sinai. He had previously been courting the eldest daughter Alia. The two are attracted to each other, and they marry. For their new life, Ahmed decides that his new wife should take the name Amina.

5. "A Public Announcement"

While both were initially interested in the other, Amina finds it difficult to love Ahmed when she is still in love with Nadir. She tries to focus on one aspect of her new husband and fall in love with it in the hopes that, over time, she can love all of him. Yet, month-by-month, their house begins to look like a dark basement, and Ahmed takes on the appearance of the pudgy and balding Nadir Khan.

One day, Ahmed receives a visit from two business partners. Apparently, an anti-Muslim organization named Ravana is trying to destroy Muslim businesses if they don’t pay a one-time lump sum of protection money. The three men leave to see the damage while Amina stays at home. Outside her door, a man named Lifafa is showing off his peepshow box that contains postcards from around the world. One snobbish girl accuses Lifafa of being a rapist and a Muslim, and a mob descends on the innocent man. Amina pulls the man in and announces that anyone who tries to harm Lifafa will have to go through her, a newly pregnant woman. Lifafa is grateful for her assistance. He tells her to come see his cousin who is a prophet and a seer to look into her child’s future.

6. "Many-headed Monsters"

Days later, while Ahmed and his friends are trying to unsuccessfully pay of Ravana, Amina takes a trip through the slums to see RamRam Seth, the seer. He touches her pregnant belly and falls into a trance. He begins by saying that her son will be the same age as his motherland and that two heads, knees, and a nose will accompany him into the world. After a full prophecy, he falls to the floor just as Ravana burns the men’s’ warehouses to the ground. Ahmed is in financial ruins, so he decides to move to Bombay because land is cheaper. As Amina and Ahmed board the train, it is announced that the nation of India will be separated into two different countries.

Throughout these chapters, present-day Saleem complains that nobody takes his ailments seriously, as a doctor dismissed his claims that his skin was cracking. Padma takes the same stance as the doctor and insists that Saleem continue with his story and hold back his complaints. Saleem can’t help but wonder, though, whether or not his mother’s intentions were pure in her adventure to see Ramram. He begins to fall into a tangent about time and whether or not it is a perfect measure of accuracy and truth.

Analysis

Neither Nadir nor Mumtaz ever speak to each other, but they feel a strong connection to one another. They don’t consummate their marriage either, though this doesn’t deter their affections from one another. Yet it is through Mumtaz that her parents’ relationship plays out again. In her marriage to Ahmed, she forces herself to fall in love piece by piece, to make herself love him a little more every day. Yet, as Aadam and Reverend Mother prove, falling in love one piece at a time makes it nearly impossible for a lasting, worthwhile relationship to blossom.

Ahmed’s decision to rename his wife shows how many men believe they are able to reinvent a woman’s identity. By calling her by a new name, he wants Amina to rebuke her former life with Nadir and be completely his, like he is claiming her for himself. It is this sense of ownership that does not mesh with the idea of independence. As the country of India is headed toward freedom from the British, Amina must take the name and identity that Ahmed makes for her.

However, one of the themes of Midnight’s Children is the mutability of borders and boundaries. Ahmed has a strong idea of what he wants his wife to be. However, through Amina’s patient nurturing, Ahmed is taking on the physical and personal characteristics of Nadir. He is slowly losing himself, and Amina is able to grow in her identity as a mother instead of the identity Ahmed wants her to take.

Ahmed’s fear of Ravana isn’t altogether unfounded. In the Hindu epic Ramayana, Ravana is the multi-headed vengeful antagonist. He is dangerous, ruthless, and powerful. These men would know the folklore behind Ravana and how dangerous he is. This inclusion of Ravana helps to create a stronger bond between the story and India. It infuses the story with the local culture and helps to create a tale that is all about India. Salman Rushdie wanted a novel that was for India from an Indian’s point of view. Using Ravana allows Rushdie to bring in an influence that is innate to Indian culture.

What makes this book interesting, though, is that it also positions India against the rest of the world. The character of Lifafa presents almost a glimpse of the outside world onto India, a world that is completely different than the Hindu and Muslim country can imagine. With his peepshow box, he is trying to spread this holistic view of the Earth to everyone so they might see the world in a more global way. When the girl calls him a Muslim and a rapist, though, represents how narrow-minded some people are when they are presented with worldviews other than their own.

Even using the Muslim religion as a slur shows how divided and cracked India already is between the Muslims and the Hindus. These are the same metaphorical cracks that appear on Saleem’s body. After all, he is the embedment of India. Because the country is so divided on religion, it makes sense that the fault lines on his skin come from the gaps in understanding and tolerance.

At the same time, Rushdie makes an inverted correlation between Ravana and the poor in the slums. Amina is weaving in and out of the poor people; she has an image that poor people are a many-headed monster, which is where imagery of Ravana comes in. At first, Amina compares the group of poor to Ravana the god, a great and terrible beast. But in doing so, she forgets their humanity. They aren’t crippled by their limited amount of wealth, and they certainly aren’t “decayed” like she initially thinks of them (89).

As for Saleem, his prophesy sounds strange to Anima. She believes that her son will be born with two heads and warped knees, and she can’t imagine what the other parts of the prophesy mean. But it was at that time that the countdown to India’s independence began, thus solidifying Saleem’s belief that his entire existence was fated.

7. "Methwold"

As soon as Amina and Ahmed get to Bombay, they find a house that is owned by an Englishman named William Methwold. Methwold owns a villa that contains four houses that are each different embodiments of European palaces. Because India is becoming independent, Methwold is leaving the country that he has made his home. However, before he leaves, he has conditions for the new tenants. Until August 15th, when India becomes free, they must keep everything in the house exactly the way it is. The tenants must also attend nightly cocktail, a European tradition, with him in the garden.

The tenants, all Indians, despise Methwold’s conditions. They don’t want to live amongst his European paintings and use his Western appliances. Most of all, they don’t understand why cocktail hour and why it is important. Yet each tenant slowly begins to get used to their surroundings as well as Methwold’s continued presence. They even adopt fake British accents and mimic Methwold’s habits.

Amina reads in the newspaper that any child who is born at the exact moment of India’s independence will win a prize. She remembers Ramram’s words, and she knows that her son will be the winning child. Wee Willie Winkie, a poor clown and bard who performs nightly at Methwold Estate, also announces that his wife Vanita is set to give birth on August 15th at midnight as well. Methwold becomes noticeably stiff, though, and Saleem informs Padma that he slept with Winkie’s wife months ago. The child that Winkie believes is his is actually the biological son of the very British-looking Methwold.

The narration takes a detour to a young midwife named Mary Pereira. She is sitting in a confessional booth and confessing that her boyfriend Joseph D’Costa is trying to provoke a revolution against the British with violence. She seems concerned about his actions, but she also wants to impress him. Saleem mentions that Mary will be an important figure in the near future.

8. "Tick, Tock"

August 14th sees the day of Pakistan’s liberation from India. Also on that day, the events of Saleem’s birth are set in motion. At Methwold Estate, cocktail hour is going smoothly until Amina goes into labor. Vanita’s labor has already started. As the sun sets on August 15th, Methwold stands in the center courtyard of his estate and salutes the landscape and the setting sun. Hours later, both women go into labor at midnight and have healthy baby boys that look strangely similar: both have clear blue eyes and noses that overpower their face.

Mary Pereira, wanting to make her boyfriend Joseph proud, takes the two midnight children and switches their nametags. Now, the Sinai family will raise the child that is biologically Vanita’s and William’s. Because Vanita dies and William is leaving the country, the destitute Winkie is left to unknowingly raise Amina and Ahmed’s child. Later, when Amina claims her prize for having a child at midnight, she is given the paltry sum of one hundred rupees and has an article written about her son’s symbolic importance.

Analysis

Methwold Estate serves as a petri dish of how British imperialism took over India. Methwold came into the country and built property that he then sold back to the Indians. He refused to let them decorate with their own belongings, and they had to adopt many of his customs for the last few months that he was in the country. As the Indians slowly argue less and less with his customs and then begin to imitate and adopt them as their own, the transfer of culture is complete. Methwold even stands back and looks at his creation, smiling at how cultured the Indians are acting.

There is an interesting scene with Methwold at the onset of night on August 15th where he salutes the setting sun on the last day of Britain’s rule. It is a smart play on the phrase “The sun never sets on the British Empire.” The phrase plainly means that Britain’s rule was so vast that the sun was always shining on land that belonged to Britain. Yet at the close of August 15th, the sun shines its light on British India for the last time.

Up until this point in the novel, Saleem has insisted that everything that has happened in his story has been alluding to his birth. He believes he has been fated to be India’s twin, that everything in his life will has significant ties to India’s own infancy. But when Mary switches the nametags, the readers discover that this backstory doesn’t even belong to Saleem. This family history is Shiva’s, who was raised by Winkie in an unfortunate twist. This detail pokes holes in Saleem’s narration and ultimately makes his authority as a narrator even shakier. He claims that he belongs to the people and the land, that he is a pure child of India’s independence. However, he’s the son of a poor woman and a British man.

Yet, oddly enough, Saleem’s biological lineage allows him to be a product of India, just not in the way that he claims. While the Sinais belong to a middle class family, there are other social groups that have created India. Even though Methwold isn’t Indian, his ancestors have certainly carved their influence into India’s history. And Vanita, a poor woman, is also representative of a vast poverty-stricken group. It stands to reason that Saleem is a product of India in a more imperialistic and nontraditional way.

Mary’s actions were motivated by her affections for Joseph. At first glance, there is nothing political about them. However, her act is significant in that it shows the fluid border between classes, how all it takes is mistaken identity to make someone rich and another person poor. At the same time, Mary becomes somewhat of a mother to both these boys because she has ultimately created who they are and who they grow up to be. The Christian mythology behind this decision was a deliberate one on Rushdie’s part. As Mary is the mother of god, a woman who made life without being pregnant herself, her story mimics that of Mary Pereira.

It is important to note that not only India was born on August 15th, but also that Pakistan was born on August 14th due to the same ruling that allowed India to be independent. Two nations were created from the same legislation, much as how two children were born at the stroke of midnight. The prophesy of Saleem’s birth has as much in common with Pakistan and India as it does with Saleem and Shiva. Pakistan and India are the inverse of one another, but have similar experiences due to the sudden withdrawal of British presence.

Much of the novel can be explained by the rhetorical device chiasmus. It is a Greek term that signifies the mirroring effect much like the letter X. Two things are similar in structure, but their polarized differences are used to make a larger point. In the case of Shiva and Saleem, their temperament and social standing is used to show how circumstance often shapes people differently, no matter how similar they started out. The same can go for Pakistan and India who differ with their religious affiliations.

Midnight's Children Summary and Analysis of Book Two:

9. "The Fisherman’s Pointing Finger"

Ahmed and Amina bring Saleem back to Methwold Estate not knowing that Saleem is not their biological child. Winkie sticks around and brings Shiva with him during the routine cocktail hours. As Shiva grows, the most pronounced feature of his body are his large knobby knees, a characteristic that Saleem reports will be important later on in the story. New mother Amina dotes on Saleem as do the other residents of the villa.

Ahmed is jealous that his wife no longer pays attention to him, so he begins having affairs with his secretaries. He also embarks on a scheme to create tetrapods with his neighbor Dr. Narlikar, a man who despises women and children -- despite his profession as a gynecologist. This business venture is conducted in secret, though, and the government finds out and freezes Ahmed’s assets. Amina tries to comfort him which results in the conception of Saleem’s sister, the Brass Monkey.

10. "Snakes and Ladders"

To make ends meet, the family rents the top floor of their house to Dr. Schaapsteker, a herpetologist with a large collection of snakes. Aadam and Reverend Mother also move in with the family to help Amina and Ahmed. Amina then secretly steals away to the racetracks and bets on horses at random. Saleem attributes her luck to his magical powers, and Amina is able to pay for Ahmed’s legal counsel.

It is at this time that Saleem mentions that his favorite game as a child was Snakes and Ladders. He mentions that the game was simple, that ladders brought you victory and snakes were bad luck. He adds that life, however, is not as simple as the game. For example, Saleem’s Muslim uncle became a successful filmmaker in the Hindu nation of India. Yet on the night of his premiere, Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated. The family worries that the assassin will be Muslim and make life difficult for all Indian Muslims, but luckily the killer turned out to be Hindu.

Mary, who has taken a permanent position as Saleem’s ayah to atone for her crime of switching the babies, notices a man walking across the rooftops. When the police arrive, they shoot the perpetrator on site. Unfortunately, the shadowy figure was Mary’s lover Joseph who was planning on blowing up the area as an act of terrorism. Baby Saleem turns violently ill during this turmoil and is given a death sentence, but Dr. Schaapsteker appears and gives Saleem and homemade typhoid medicine made from snake’s venom. The medicine works, teaching Saleem that snakes are not always as evil as they might appear.

11. "Accident in a Washing-chest"

When Saleem gets older, he feels the pressure from his parents’ expectations. He finds comfort hiding in a washing room closet. One day, though, his mother goes into the room where he is hiding and begins to cry while repeating the name “Nadir.” Saleem watches silently but then begins to get worried when his mother takes off her sari to use the bathroom. At that moment, Saleem’s nose begins to bother him, and he sniffs. Discovering her son has seen her naked, Anima punishes Saleem to one day of not talking. Yet during that day, Saleem begins to hear voices in his head. He announces to his family that he believes he is divinely graced like Mohammed and Moses, but his parents are ashamed by the blasphemous statements.

12. "All-India Radio"

Saleem realizes that the voices in his head aren’t divine beings, though. He realizes they are the voices of everyone in India. He spends his days in solitude of the clock tower listening to various people around the country. While he is busy with his gift, the country is ripe with language marches. Dr. Narlikar offends a group of protestors, and they throw him into the ocean along with his concrete tetrapod. His distant female relatives, known collectively as Narlikar’s women, take over his business. They nudge Ahmed out of the tetrapod company, making Ahmed sink deeper into an alcoholic depression.

Throughout these chapters, present-day Saleem accuses Padma of being in love with him, and she takes offense to his brazen and insensitive approach to her feelings. Yet when Saleem compares his story to the Ramayana written by the Hindu elephant god Ganesh, Padma storms out. It doesn’t take long for Saleem to realize that he too has become fond of Padma and begins to miss her. He also acknowledges that, in his weakened state, he has mixed up the date of Gandhi’s death. He also offhandedly remarks that Winkie died most likely during these first few years of his life, leaving Shiva an orphan of the streets.

Analysis

Ahmed and Narlikar’s tetrapod business plays directly into the theme of borders and boundaries. Narlikar was inspired by how the ocean constantly overtakes land with the tide, and he believed he could harness the power to make a firm boundary between land and sea. Ahmed clung to Narlikar’s concept because it allowed him to create a firm border while he was still slowly losing his personality. His alcoholism was making him slowly fade away. He thought that the tetrapods would help him put up a barrier and give him purpose again. Unfortunately when he lost his part of the business after Narlikar’s death, it was a destructive blow to his identity and drive.

The idea of a chiasmus comes up again, this time in the form of Snakes and Ladders. Saleem points out that, in the game, the rules are finite: ladders bring you up, and snakes bring you down. Even in the Old Testament, snakes are seen as evil as they tempted Adam and Eve into sinning. Yet things aren’t that clear in real life. Dr. Schaapsteker’s snake venom medicine saves Saleem’s life.

Even outside of the snakes versus ladders metaphor, the story of his uncle’s premier shows how life is unexpected, that life will take unexpected turns. With this example, he points out that every victory brings a downfall and every downfall brings a victory. His uncle, a Muslim man living in a Hindu country, was given the change to be a lauded filmmaker. Yet his religion is thrown back in his face when the family worries about whether or not Gandhi’s murderer was Muslim or Hindu. They realized that their lives could come to a tragic halt if a Muslim killed the most famous Hindu man in the world. Rushdie is also trying to show that dividing India and Pakistan into two countries based on religion wasn’t successful. Tension still hung between the two religions.

Religious imagery comes to play when young Saleem believes himself to be divinely graced like Mohammed and Moses. He also compares himself and his story to the Ramayana and Ganesh. With the comparison to the Ramayana, Saleem is trying to say that he represents the ideal India because he and India are one. This notion of an ideal archetype is the sole concern of the Ramayana. Also, the comparison between himself and Ganesh is more tongue-in-cheek, as Saleem’s own nose resembles the elephant god’s snout.

Saleem had grown up with the belief that he and India were intertwined. This gift just gave him another reason to believe that he was more significant than others. While it turns out that he wasn’t given religious authority because he could hear everyone in India, the magical realism of Rushdie’s texts gives readers the impression that being born at midnight infused Saleem with mystical properties. If he can hear every voice in India, then it is almost as if every voice in India is inside of him; after all, every voice is inside of India.

However, there is still the problem of Saleem’s narrative reliability. He openly admits that he got the date of Gandhi’s death wrong and asks the reader if one factual error compromises the entire story. But because of Saleem’s unreliability, he doesn’t mention that none of the events in Book One attest to his family history and his biological lineage. It is still up to the reader to decide whether or not Saleem’s claims are true or if his version of reality is merely a way for him to uphold his God complex.

Rushdie does not fully explain the significance of the language marches in Midnight’s Children. After India’s independence, the government wanted to expel English from the country and instead return to speaking on Hindi. The issue was hotly debated with many wanting a centralized, unified language. The only problem was that the British tried to eradicate all native languages from India. Many did not understand Hindi and were apprehensive about having to learn a new language at such a late age in their life. Narlikar’s death is not the first time that the language marchers will play a significant role in Midnight’s Children. They will continue to be a fixture for the next few years of Saleem’s life.

13. "Love in Bombay"

Saleem, like most adolescent boys, begins to develop a crush on a girl in his neighborhood. This girl is an American named Evelyn Lillith Burns, a plastic gun toting, bicycle-riding whirlwind of a child. Unfortunately for Saleem, Evelyn likes his friend Sonny instead. Yet Sonny likes Saleem’s sister Brass Monkey. Both women spurn the boys’ advances. Brass Monkey and her friends beat up Sonny, and Saleem tries to get Sonny to talk to Evelyn for him, but Evelyn instead falls for Sonny. Saleem tries to impress her by learning how to ride a bike, but she still ignores him.

Enraged at her rejection, Saleem uses his powers to force himself into her mind. He drives deeper until he sees an image of Evelyn holding a blood-soaked knife near her dead mother. Evelyn, feeling that Saleem is inside her mind, tries to mentally force him out. Finally, she pushes him down the hill where he lands in the middle of a language march. He enrages the crowd by accidentally mocking their language. This incites the protestors to take to the streets and become violent. This causes the state of Bombay to be partitioned.

14. "My Tenth Birthday"

Saleem now knows that he has the ability to go deep into peoples’ minds. He uses this power to find the other children born at the hours of midnight on August 15,1947. All of them have magical powers, so he holds a mental conference called the Midnight Children’s Conference. Shiva wants himself and Saleem to be the leaders because they are the “oldest” and most powerful, with Shiva’s ability being his massive knees that can kill men. Saleem wants it to be a democracy and has a few allies on his side, namely Parvati-the-witch. There is one child, Soumitra, who has the ability to time travel. He warns that the Midnight Children’s Conference is pointless and will do no good, but the children ignore him and proceed discussing how they should use their powers.

15."At the Pioneer Café"

Amina begins receiving strange phone calls, and Saleem notices how she becomes nervous every time the phone rings. Using his powers, he follows her around the city one day. Amina stops at the Pioneer Cafe, a restaurant where many actors try to find work from the nearby film studio executives. Once Amina goes inside, she sees that Amina is being affectionate with Nadir Khan, her first husband. Now, however, he goes by Qasim Khan, the official candidate of the Communist party. Saleem becomes incredibly upset that his mother is having an affair, but he keeps his emotions in check at this time.

16. "Alpha and Omega"

Though Saleem is the unofficial leader of the Midnight Children’s Conference, his importance in his daily life is lacking. A geography teacher makes fun of Saleem’s face, noting how his nose sticks out like India’s peninsula. He then rips out a chunk of Saleem’s hair when Saleem’s nose drips on his hand. He then loses part of a finger at a school dance. When his parents take him to the hospital, they are asked to donate blood. However, their blood types, A and O, do not match his. It is at this time that Ahmed and Amina discover they are not Saleem’s biological family. Ahmed takes this out on Amina and accuses her of an affair.

Throughout these chapters in the present day, Padma returns begrudgingly to attend to Saleem. However, Saleem’s frailty is getting to him. He becomes extremely ill and asks to see his son. An unnamed woman brings the young child to Saleem’s bedside. In his delirium, he becomes terrified at “the Widow” and how she destroyed all the children by ripping them apart.

Analysis

Evelyn Lillith Burns is a character full of symbolic complexities. Her name has religious connotations, with “Evelyn” being a play on “Eve,” who is commonly known as the mother of mankind. Yet Evelyn’s middle name Lillith is an allusion to a figure in Jewish mythology. In the tales, Lilith was Adam’s first wife. She was created from the same earth as Adam (as opposed to Eve being created from Adam’s rib), so she saw herself as his equal. Lilith refused to be submissive to Adam, and therefore she was cast out and demonized.

Evelyn’s role as a Lilith character is fitting, considering that she refuses to be Saleem’s girlfriend. She didn’t want him and vocally stated numerous times that she had no interest in him. Yet Saleem still pursued her and then punished her by pushing himself into her mind. A feminist interpretation of the text sees this scene as a rape: Evelyn is forcibly trying to get Saleem to leave her mind, yet he ignores her protests and uses his power to punish her for not being interested in him.

However, Evelyn’s role is more difficult that just that of a typical man/woman dichotomy. Because Evelyn is an American, and therefore white, she has racial privilege working for her. She is compared to a Western John Wayne archetype with her pellet guns and riding her bicycle like it’s a horse. She sees the Indians as beneath her, and she says, “From now on, there’s a new big chief around here. Okay, Indians” which is a play on the racist trope of cowboys and Indians (209).

Regardless, Evelyn holds up to her Eve archetype because Saleem’s encounter with her shows him that his magical abilities are more powerful than merely listening to people talk. He can enter minds and find out secrets, although the target can feel this gift. With this gift, Saleem is able to find the other midnight children and start the Midnight Children’s Conference. In a way, Evelyn is the “mother” of these children because it was her conflict with Saleem that brought the group together.

Rushdie uses another famous character from history as an allusion in Midnight’s Children. Cyrano de Bergerac is a man with a large nose who falls in love with a beautiful woman. Because his nose embarrasses him, he tells a more handsome man to woo the woman with his words. However, the woman falls in love with the handsome man instead. This story is mimicked with Saleem asking Sonny to talk to Evelyn for him. This same tactic will show up later in the novel, but not after Saleem has tweaked the plan to work out more in his favor. Because this plan backfired, he will fix the problems in order to try to make a more favorable outcome for himself.

The children of midnight are a mixed bunch. They come from all racial, religious, and social backgrounds, and their powers are as vast as the group itself. In a way, they represent India better than Saleem all by himself. And even within their group they have a hierarchy; Saleem and Shiva’s status as the children born exactly at the stroke of midnight gives them a slight advantage. Their powers are stronger, and the children look up to them. The children that were born mere minutes or seconds after midnight also have strong powers, though not as strong as Saleem and Shiva. The powers gradually fade in strength as the children were born farther away from midnight.

Shiva, ever one to take advantage of a situation, sees the Midnight Children’s Conference as a way to control not only the children themselves, but by using a mystical group to control all of India. It is indicative of his association with the god Shiva, a master of destruction. However, the more placid Saleem wants the group to work democratically. It is apparent that his role in juxtaposition of Shiva is as the god Brahma, the god of creation. Their viewpoints are just another of the many ways that the two boys are inversions of the other.

17. "The Kolynos Kid"

Saleem doesn’t return to his home after leaving the hospital. Instead, he and Mary are sent to live with his Uncle Hanif, the filmmaker, and Hanif’s beautiful actress wife Pia. Pia is upset that Hanif only wants to make realistic movies that show the dire side of India. As such, nobody will commission his scripts. She begins to coddle Saleem which causes the boy to develop sexual feelings towards her. One night, a film studio executive hands Saleem a break-up note to give to Pia. The next day, Pia flies into a rage then crumbles onto her bed in tears due to her affair ending. Saleem tries to comfort Pia, but his hormones and curiosity take over, and he fondles Pia’s body. She slaps him and calls him a pervert. Soon after, Amina comes to pick up Saleem to take him back home.

18. "Commander Sabarmati’s Baton"

At Methwold Estate, Saleem sees that his place as the favorite child is no longer his. His father prefers to spend his time with the Brass Monkey, who loathes the attention. She even converts to Christianity to upset her parents, but they ignore the girl’s attempts to anger them. Saleem finds out that his neighbor, Commander Sabarmati, is the victim of a cheating wife. With his mother's own affair still fresh in his mind, he masterminds a plot to get revenge on this woman who is cheating on this man. He leaves a note for Commander Sabarmati, and Commander Sabarmati finds his wife and her lover. He shoots them both until they're dead. After this happens, Saleem is happy the cheaters are dead because it showed his mother what happens to women who are unfaithful to men.

19. "Revelations"

Saleem has even lost his influence over the Midnight Children’s Conference. Many of the children begin developing prejudices against the others due to their social class or religion, and the group slowly disbands. Saleem tries to keep them together, but Shiva scoffs at Saleem and mocks him for his naïve notions.

Later, Pia calls the family and lets them know that Hanif has committed suicide. During the forty-day mourning period, Reverend Mother is angry at Pia for not showing grief at Hanif’s death. She promises to go on a hunger strike until Pia shows her son respect. Halfway through the mourning period, Saleem apologizes to Pia, who then admits to Saleem that she is trying to stay strong in memory of Hanif, who hated melodrama in films. Once she begins talking, though, the tears and grief come out. Reverend Mother then takes Pia under her wing and lets the new widow move to Pakistan with her.

Aadam Aziz, who has become more lost and aloof in his later years, begins to say that he has seen God. Nobody believes him until Mary starts seeing the ghost of her dead lover Joseph, who she believes has made supernatural appearances to her before. She confesses her crime about switching the children at birth. She takes her leave and lives with her mother. However, both Aadam and Mary saw an old servant who once worked for Ahmed. His decrepit and haunted appearance is explained by his recent bout of leprosy.

20. "Movements Performed by Pepperpots"

Even though Ahmed now knows that Saleem is not the product of an affair, he still berates and belittles her. To get her children away from the increasingly violent and drunk Ahmed, Amina takes her two children to Pakistan to live with her sister Emerald and General Zulfikar. The family is treated with little respect because of their poor status, but Zulfikar takes a liking to Saleem as he believes Saleem is more manly than his own son Zafar. One night at a dinner party, General Ayub declares that the military is going to run a coup on the government. Zulfikar asks Saleem to assist him on the plans. The boy then moves pepperpots and other condiments around the table to help visualize strategy.

During the next four years that Saleem and his family stay in Pakistan, Brass Monkey becomes an extremely devout Muslim. On her fourteenth birthday, she is asked to sing for her guests. She produces a beautiful clear voice, and everyone calls her Jamila Singer. All the while, India and Pakistan grow more hostile towards each other, and the border between India and China become riddled with conflicts.

Analysis

Rushdie used Hanif to show how India perceived itself. The country was obsessed with excess and exuberance, melodrama and music, and moviegoers made the Bollywood genre popular. They wanted to celebrate their nation and its culture. Movies and books are a reflection of society, and India wanted to see itself on screen as a rich and happy country. However, Hanif’s inability to produce a Bollywood-themed script shows that there was very little happiness in the country. Hanif needed to create movies with realistic stories. He wanted to hold up a mirror to India to show the populace that the country has significant problems.

Reverend Mother always detested Pia for marrying Hanif. She believed that Pia was merely an actress who latched onto her son for his meteoric rise to fame. She didn’t think Pia was good enough for him, and these feelings became clear when she chastised Pia for not mourning Hanif after his suicide. What is interesting about Pia and Hanif’s relationship, though, is that Pia had a greater understanding of Hanif that Reverend Mother has with Aadam. The old married couple is practically estranged. Even with Pia’s affair, Reverend Mother and Aadam never had the type of respect for each other that Pia shows when she chooses to mourn Hanif in the way that he would have respected.

The divide between Amina and Ahmed is growing wider, especially with the news that the entire birth mix-up is Mary’s fault. Ahmed does not know how to deal with his feelings, so it is easier for him to blame Amina for the entire situation. And just like when Amina took to the racetrack to pay for her husband’s legal fees, Amina shows that she has the inner strength to handle adversity. Rather than staying with a man who verbally abuses her and cheats on her, she takes her children away from the toxic environment.

With a story that is so obsessed with mystical and religious origins, it is strange to see Mary’s confession come from a realistic and deadpan moment. She believes that the figure is Joseph, the man who has haunted her side since his death. He is a constant reminder of her sin. When she sees the sickly figure in the shadows, she can’t help but think that his soul is getting more torn apart the longer she keeps her secret. She never learns, though, that the figure was just a living man. Her fears were exaggerated, which unfortunately caused a whirlwind of drama in the Sinai family.

The novel has briefly touched on naming and how it creates identity. Up until this point in the novel, Saleem’s sister has been exclusively called Brass Monkey. Now that she has turned into what Pakistan considers to be a devout and pure young woman, the novel deems her worthy of using her given name, Jamila. Automatically there is a sense of adulthood in using Jamila’s real name, like she is shedding off the last vestiges of her stubborn childhood. She grows into her own with her voice and even beings to accept the Muslim faith.

Saleem is maturing, also. His adolescent phase where he was sexually obsessed with his attractive aunt came to a close once he took responsibility for his actions and apologized for touching her inappropriately. Followed by the events in Pakistan where Zulfikar took Saleem in and treated him like a son, Saleem is starting to put aside the past and instead focus on improving himself.

21. "Drainage and the Desert"

Amina receives a telegram saying that Ahmed has had a heart attack. She still loves her husband, so the family moves back to India so she can help with Ahmed’s recovery. Saleem reconvenes the Midnight Children’s Conference while India prepares for war with China. Yet once China begins attacking India, the children become upset with Saleem for not including Shiva in the Conference. One by one, each of the children leave him while China wins the skirmishes. Yet India still remains optimistic. This conflict causes Saleem’s sinuses to remain congested. The pressure builds with the war, but China ultimately wins the war.

 

The day after India’s defeat, Saleem’s parents take him to the hospital for a sinus operation. After the surgery, he realizes that his magic ability to connect with others is gone. However, he realizes that he now has a magical smelling ability. He is able to smell the tiniest of scents, but he can also detect emotions through his nose. The family moves back to Pakistan together, and Saleem leaves a number of childhood items buried on the property.

22. "Jamila Singer"

In Pakistan, the family buries an umbilical cord from Amina’s birth under the foundation of their new house, though Saleem isn’t sure if it is his umbilical cord or Shiva’s. Jamila becomes a popular singer, but she wears a white burka to cover herself. Also, when she is onstage, she sings behind a white curtain with a hole cut out for her lips.

With Jamila’s rising popularity, Saleem begins to feel romantic feelings towards her. He even asks a prostitute to try and smell like Jamila but runs away when he realizes that the scent which arouses him is his sister’s. A prince’s son has also fallen for Jamila and asks Saleem to convey his feelings to Jamila. Instead, Saleem uses the charm and words that the boy gives him and instead uses them for his own feelings. Jamila is horror-stricken, and the two remain distant towards each other afterward.

23."How Saleem Achieved Purity"

Unfortunately, relations are tense between Pakistan and India. During an air raid, a number of bombs kill every one of Saleem’s relatives who live in Pakistan, save for Jamila. Saleem is almost hit himself, but he is just out of the way. Nonetheless, a silver spittoon, which was given to his mother as a dowry present, hits him on the head. He is knocked unconscious and wakes up with no memory of his past or even his identity. The present-day Saleem tells Padma that the war between India and Pakistan was a Jehad against him in order to destroy his family and his life.

Analysis

Because each event in India’s history coincides with an event in Saleem’s life, the war between India and China is directly related to his magical abilities. The small skirmishes peck away at the Midnight Children’s Conference, their arguments and accusations tearing away at Saleem like China does at the Indian border. Then, as the pressure between countries builds, the pressure in his sinuses becomes unbearable. Just as the end of the war drains India of its happiness and quells the second optimism epidemic, Saleem’s nose is drained of its congestion.

It is important to note the effect that surgery has on Saleem. He completely loses his mystical powers that allowed him to connect mentally with any person in India. This can be seen as a conflict between Eastern culture and Western progression; the East is very much influenced by its history, myths, and culture. Saleem’s powers can be seen as an extension of those myths. However, with the abrupt introduction to Western progression and medicine, the histories and myths of a culture are eradicated and destroyed.

Burying belongings under the earth has long been used in all cultures to create a tie between that person and their land. Saleem’s childhood belongings – the letter from the prime minister congratulating his fortuitous birth, his photo from the newspaper, and an old tin globe – keep Saleem emotionally tied to Bombay.

When Ahmed buries the umbilical cord under the foundation of their home in Pakistan, it is meant to symbolize the family’s devotion to their new home and new beginning. The confusion of the umbilical cord creates a unique twist on the situation. Not knowing whether or not the cord belongs to Saleem creates a foundation of uncertainty in the family. Without a strong and clear cornerstone, the family will fall apart.

Saleem’s confession of love to his sister is the second time that Rushdie has used the story of Cyrano de Bergerac as an influence on the tale. Last time, the situation did not work out like he planned and was more in line with the roles that the original story prescribed. This time, though, Saleem inverts the trope in order to be more favorable for him. He uses the attractive boy’s words and charm to woo his sister rather than having the attractive boy do the speaking for him. The trope still does not play out for him and instead causes embarrassment for both parties.

The “purity” that Saleem achieves is not purity at all. Traditionally, purity requires an act of contrition and repentance. In Saleem’s case, he was hit on the head so hard that he forgot everything about his identity. In many stories, trying to find this purity and redemption is an important plot point that the protagonist must experience in order to have a complete tale. Because Saleem insists that he is the protagonist of this story, he must construe aspects of his life to fit the traditional hero arch. The attempts seem insincere, though, due to Saleem also insisting that he is a victim. He sees the war as a personal attack and refuses to acknowledge the social, political, and unreligious unrest that plagues the two nations.

Midnight's Children Summary and Analysis of Book Three:

24. "The Buddha"

The Pakistani army has found their new secret weapon: the man-dog. Three young boys named Ayooba, Farooq, and Shaheed are assigned to work with this mysterious figure that can smell out and track down rebels using only his nose. Saleem, or the old man “buddha” as the boys call him, has lost his memory and can’t confirm or deny and of the rumors that everyone is saying about him. After the four soldiers train for months together, they are sent to Dacca where they witness the troops raping, pillaging, and murdering everyone in the city. The four then go on a secret mission to find an unnamed enemy. They get farther and farther from the city until they reach the Sundarbans, forest.

25."In the Sundarbans"

Once they reach the forest, Saleem tells the boys that there is no enemy. He couldn’t stand taking orders and instead decided to defect and take the young boys with him. Unfortunately, the group gets lost in the thick maze of a jungle. They are also extremely ill and begin to see the ghosts of people who they have killed and wronged in the past. Saleem sees nothing until a venomous snake bites him. On the verge of death, his entire life story rushes back. His story rushes out of him to the boys, but in the end he still cannot remember his name.

 

Days later, the group finds a grand temple with four beautiful women who promise to serve them. Soon Saleem notices that the four are turning translucent. Their vision clears, and they can see that the temple is falling apart, and four skeletons are lying in dust on the side of the room. The run away and back to their boat when an enormous tidal wave rips through the river and delivers them back to civilization. Present-day Saleem then admits that there is no record of a tidal wave in 1971, the year that he was lost in the forest.

The group reaches a deserted village where they discover that snipers are taking out members of the Pakistani army. Moments later, a bullet zooms by and hits Ayooba. Months later, while the remaining three are still on the move, another bullet kills Farooq. Saleem runs and away and stumbles through a field and notices a pyramid of living men, all of whom are his childhood friends. Saleem then mentions that he believes the war was fated to happen so he and his friends could be together again.

26. "Sam and the Tiger"

Once Pakistan surrenders to India, Saleem and Shaheed return to Dacca. Unfortunately, the soldiers still rape and kill people in the city. A grenade is lobbed through the air, and the debris from the blast kills Shaheed. Moments later, the Indian army marches through the city preceded by magicians. Parvati-the-witch is among them, and she calls out to Saleem, which restores the memory of his name. She then helps Saleem escape Pakistan by letting him travel in her magic basket.

27. "The Shadow of the Mosque"

Saleem does not stay with Parvati and the other magicians in the slums, though, and returns to his last uncle, Mustapha Aziz. He learns that Jamila began to openly criticize the Pakistani government after her brother went missing. She then is never seen again, though Saleem dreams that she went to a Catholic convent. Later, his civil servant uncle receives a top-secret folder labeled “Project M.C.C.” from Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s son.

The next day, Parvati visits Saleem and the two fall asleep together. Mustapha’s wife finds them, and she throws Saleem out of the house. He moves in with Parvati and Picture Singh, a famous snake charmer who also holds public gatherings about socialism and communism. Parvati tries to make Saleem fall in love with her, but Saleem still cannot get over his sister. He says that he is impotent and cannot have sex.

Analysis

After Saleem lost his memory, he became the embodiment of a mythical figure. Using the name “buddha” is a play on words. In this case, the boys mean it to signify Saleem’s seeming age, but it carries religious connotations of the wise and peaceful leader of Buddhism. This is one of many times that Saleem has compared himself to famous religious figures. This time, Saleem sits under a tree, which is a popular image in Buddhism as Buddha gained enlightenment after sitting lotus-style under a tree.

This religious imagery is contrasted with his army nickname as “the man-dog” (399). Though it is meant to be derogatory in nature, there is still the connotation of half-man, half-beast divinities in most major religions; this allows Saleem to continue with his insistence on being compared to a religious figure.

 

Reaching the Sundarbarns, magic is infused into the story in a heavy-handed way, and this time even non-magical people are affected by it. While the group is being entertained in the enchanted temple, Saleem notices that all the men are slowly waning in presence. This transference of energy correlates with the boundaries theme in that the men are losing themselves without even knowing it. The longer they stay in this evil temple, the faster they will disintegrate.

Snakes return to the story in an ambiguous way, much like they did at the beginning of the novel. The snake at the heel motif is played out multiple times in many culture. Traditionally, a snake’s bite will cause a person to die. They represent evil, and in the mythological snake at the heel stories, the person crushes the snake’s head in order to conquer evil. All the men are in danger of dying from sickness, but it is a snake’s bite to the heel that brought Saleem his memory. Rushdie, like he does with so many other stories, inverts the snake at the heel motif and allows Saleem to have a variation of the myth. This keeps with the novel’s assertion that snakes do not bring evil or harm, that their presence is ambiguous.

As for Saleem’s reliability, he seems to be flipping on his stance of the war between India and Pakistan. In the last book, he asserted that the war was attacking him personally. He believed that the war was only there to destroy his family and cause him harm. Yet at the end of the war, he has been reunited with his friends. He then asserts that the war was a good thing and that the only reason the countries went to war was so Saleem could be reunited with his homeland. It is inconsistencies like these that make it difficult to trust Saleem’s words. His motives for telling the story are unclear, and his facts become muddier as he gets farther into the tale.

The man that Saleem believes to be Indira Gandhi’s son is Sanjay Gandhi. During a time in India’s history, many people in the slums were rounded up and sterilized. Saleem claims that the family found a way to “replicate” themselves, which allowed the Gandhi family to be so influential in politics. While there was no mystical replication for the family, the Gandhis were a powerful political family from India’s inception even until today.

28."A Wedding"

Because Saleem refuses to marry her, Parvati casts a spell that summons Shiva to her. Saleem then begins describing Shiva’s meteoric rise in the military. He was known for his prowess in battle, especially his powerful legs, and he also became more sophisticated and refined as more and more elites requested his company. He made a name for himself by sleeping with the wives of his contemporaries. Once they became pregnant with his child, though, he dropped them and moved onto another affair. One particularly bitter woman approached him and said that he was the laughingstock of the elite women. She said that the women used him for their own gain and suffered his attempts at appearing refined. This caused Shiva to grow extremely bitter and cruel towards the elite.

With Parvati’s spell upon him, the two began sleeping together until Parvati became pregnant with Shiva’s child. He constantly beats her and then sleeps with dozens of prostitutes to match the number of slum children to the number of rich children that he has fathered. Parvati then releases Shiva from her spell once the child is nearly born and returns to Picture and Saleem, who have been trying to spread the word of communism. Picture convinces Saleem to marry Parvati, saying that she can’t have a fatherless child.

29. "Midnight"

On June 25th, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi declares Emergency at the same time that Saleem’s son is being born. The boy has elephant-sized ears, which makes Saleem laugh at the irony. He then briefly mentions that Indira Gandhi has been a widow for fifteen years.

For months, things were difficult for Saleem’s new family, as he and Parvati were married and she took the name Leylah that Saleem gave to her. Yet one morning, a group of bulldozers appeared, claiming to be a part of a beautification program. Soldiers then appeared and dragged everyone out of the ghetto before dozing the entire area down. Shiva shows up and takes down Saleem, and then Saleem is locked in prison. He forgets this part of the story; he only knows that somehow the soldiers got him to give the names of the Midnight Children’s Conference.

Slowly, the prison fills up with his midnight siblings; then one by one they are taken into operating rooms and sterilized. This causes them to lose their magical abilities, and the woman in charge of the operation tells Saleem that Indira Gandhi does not want any mystics competing for supremacy over India. Saleem also finds out that Shiva had undergone voluntary sterilization before heading the movement to gather the rest of midnight’s children.

Months later, the prisoners are released.

30. "Abracadabra"

Saleem, knowing that bulldozers killed Parvati, seeks to find Picture and his son. He mentions that the bitter woman who laughed at his attempts at seduction killed Shiva; afterwards, however, he announces that he lied, that he was too afraid of Shiva to think about where he was and what he was doing.

The two men take to raising Saleem’s son together, but their child rearing is interrupted when Picture hears of a man who claims that he is the greatest snake charmer in India. He, along with Saleem and the child, travel to Bombay to have a snake-charming match in a dingy, underground club. Picture wins the battle but loses his strength. As Saleem eats chutney, he asks the blind waitress where the food is made. He then leaves to find the Braganze Pickle Factory, which was once Methwold Estate, and discovers that Mary Pereira runs the company. She takes Saleem and his son in, and the story returns to the present. Though Padma insists that Saleem marry her, Saleem knows that this will not happen. He claims that, on his thirty-first birthday, he will break apart and float away in 600 million specks of dust.

Analysis

Shiva’s aptitude for battle isn’t surprising, considering that he is the embodiment of destruction. And because the god Shiva is also known for reproduction, Shiva sleeping with hundreds of women and fathering hoards of children is an apt role. What makes Shiva even more dangerous, though, is his volatile temper and hatred towards women.

Shiva believes that he should be in charge and have the upper hand; when he is sleeping with the upper-class women, he loves being able to take advantage of their wealth and undermine the men. Yet as soon as he hears that the women are sleeping with him out of boredom and that they see through his cheap ploys, he grows self-conscious. Feeling this way makes Shiva angry, and he feels the need to get back in control.

When he and Parvati are together, he sees beating her as a way to gain his masculinity back. He also takes his anger out by fathering hundreds of poor children who might one day overtake the rich people as vengeance. That way, when Shiva elects to have voluntary sterilization, he knows that there are hundreds and hundreds of his children in India who all have a bit of his magical strength in them. It is mainly because of his philandering that Indira’s plan to quell magic in India is in vain. While none of the other children can produce offspring, Shiva has created enough to make up for everyone else.

Indira Gandhi, the Widow that Saleem refers to in passing, historically created the State of Emergency in order to stop and rumors that she was abusing her political power. In Midnight’s Children, though, she uses the Emergency to stop the spread of midnight’s children. She sees India as hers to claim, and she does not want these children to come and take power away from her. With this act, Rushdie shows that Indira finally killed the rest of India’s spirit while it was still young and growing.

Saleem and Picture’s journey to the nightclub is an allusion to Odysseus’ trip to the underworld. Saleem is in a strange new place, a place where the debauchery is so great that people are ashamed to admit that they frequent the nightclub. It resembles the underworld, as it is dark and gloomy; Saleem even refers to it as “Stygian” (522). People appeared as shadowy vapors, their acts apparently so heinous that they rival the sins of the people in Hell.

Yet it is here that Saleem finds the blind waitress who is able to guide the rest of his journey home. She is the Indian embodiment of Tiresias, the blind prophet who helped Odysseus figure out the rest of the way back to Ithica. The waitress tells Saleem where the chutney is made, giving him the opportunity to find the woman who raised him as a child. Now that the hero has made his journey full-circle, he is right back where he started: at Methwold’s Estate being cared for by Mary.

 

Midnight's Children The Beginnings of a British India

India will forever be influenced by England's long-term occupation of the country. The atrocities committed against Indians and the way that the British tried to erase the country's culture will take decades to overcome. However, England's first introduction to India was not through sheer violence. Instead, the British East India Company worked with the Mughal Empire to provide a mutually beneficial relationship with the country during the 1600s.

One hundred years later, the Mughal Empire began to crumble. Provinces pulled their support of the royal family and began squabbling about power and land titles. Because the Mughal Empire was losing its footing, it could do nothing to stop the skirmishes in India.

The Company, which was currently losing money due to the fighting, decided that it would take matters into its own hands. They banded together with the French and conquered the feuding country in 1757. The British East India Company remained in power for just over one hundred years. They also amassed a great deal of land during that time, ultimately taking over the whole country.

To keep the Indians under control, the British employed the use of sepoys, or Indian soldiers, to keep the peace. This lead to a divide among the Indians; there were many who believe that India should be free, but Britain's supporters were trained and heavily armed by Britain. Peaceful marches became massacres, revolutionaries were murdered; it was impossible for India to break free from English control.

Setting up a British economy was a shrewd move on England's part. Forcing Indians to buy British-made goods and suffocating local businesses kept money flowing through England. It also made the Indians reliant on England for all their supplies. If they protested, they would lose their ability to purchase food and supplies for their homes.

By forcing Indians to adapt to British rules and then making other Indians enforce these customs, the British Empire was able to create a culture of self-sustaining imperialism. There was no way for Indians to break free from the cycle without harm coming to them and their family; so instead, they adjusted to life under British rule.