Transcript    Salman Rushdie: General Introduction: His life 1947 born in 1989, Feb. "fatwa" Bombay, son of a Cambridge-educated merchant of Muslim background; 1961 Studied in England 1964 moved with his family from.

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Salman Rushdie:
General Introduction: His life
1947 born in
1989, Feb. "fatwa"
Bombay, son of a
Cambridge-educated
merchant of Muslim
background;
1961 Studied in
England
1964 moved with his
family from Bombay
to Pakistan
Salman Rushdie:
General Introduction (2)
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1975: Grimus; 1987: The Jaguar Smile: A Nicaraguan
Journey; 1990: Haroun and the Sea of Stories
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1980: Midnight's Children
1983: Shame
1989: The Satanic Verses
1991: Imaginary homelands
1994: East, West
1995: The Moor's Last Sigh
1999: The Ground Beneath her Feet
Salman Rushdie:
Major Themes
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India’s National Identity vs. British
colonization
Indian diaspora
His definition of migrant identity and the
themes of Indian diaspora
Colonialism and Gender/Power Struggle
General Introduction to Midnight’s Children
Rushdie: migrant identity
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What is the best thing about migrant
peoples and seceded nations? I think it is
their hopefulness... And what is the worst
thing? It is the emptiness of one's
luggage....We have floated upwards
from history, from memory, from
Time. (70-71)
“It maybe be argued that the past is a
country from which we have all
migrated, that its loss is part of our
common humanity. . . .”
Rushdie:
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Pakistan & migrant writer
Although I have known Pakistan for a long
time, I have never lived there for longer
than six months at a stretch...I have learned
Pakistan by slices...however I choose to
write about over-there, I am forced to reflect
that in fragments of broken mirrors...I must
reconcile myself to the inevitability of the
missing bits. ...
Immigrant writer: "the ability to see at
once from inside and out is a great thing, a
piece of good fortune which the indigenous
writer cannot enjoy." (4)
Christopher Columbus &
Queen Isabella of Spain
Consummate Their Relationship
History -1. The Images of Columbus in
history: a visionary genius, a mystic,
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a national hero, a failed administrator, a
naive entrepreneur, and a ruthless and
greedy imperialist.
2. East India and West Indies
3. King Ferdinand and Queen I (p. 110)
Christopher Columbus &
Queen Isabella of Spain: Structure
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I. C & I seen by the two speakers;
II. A third-person description of the I’s
treatment of C.
– 1. C as a secret lover and a sex toy; p. 109
– 2. C as a slave (in pigsty and body-washing)
– 3. Columbus’ reactions: possibilities 110-111
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III. The two’s description of I;
IV. Departure, A Dream and a dream of a
dream
Christopher Columbus & Queen Isabella:
How is the story a satire of colonialism?
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The image of Columbus:
– coarse and flattering p. 107;
– a drunkard 108-109
– adventure as his meaning of life 112
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Queen Isabella
– an absoluate monarch, a tyrant, p. 110-11
– gallops around. P. 111-12; her appetites
– the descriptions of her bodily parts p. 113
Christopher Columbus & Queen Isabella:
How is the story a satire of colonialism?
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The two dreams
– C’s dream -- a vision p. 116 not be satisfied by the
known
– savage dream -- 117 Are these dreams true of not?
– the ending
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The two speakers and their roles
– Their attitudes towards foreigners 108
– Their description of the queen
– Their function as messengers at the end
Midnight’s Children
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Plot: Exactly at midnight on Aug. 15, 1947, two
boys are born in a Bombay hospital, where they
are switched by a nurse. Around that time, a
thousand children were born and they are the
“midnight children.”
Aziz +
Naseem
Hindu woman+
British colonialist
Muslim couple
(Mumtaz+ Ahmed)
Saleem
Shiva
Midnight’s Children: Plot (2)
Midnight Children as a national allegory
from cultural conflicts and national
movements in the colonial period
to the “birth” of the nation
as well as its 3000 midnight’s children
to the gradual fragmentation
of Saleem’s body, the children, and the
nation
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Midnight’s Children: narrative
methods
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The narrator and narrative methods (p. 3)
• Digressive, foreboding and summarizing.
• Talking about his own writings.
• A mixture of tones: humorous, poetic, crude
and with ribald jokes (e.g. snot)
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Mixing the personal and the
historical/political
Motifs -- e.g. hole in the nose, perforated
sheet, p. 13 -
Midnight’s Children:
Cultural Identity
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e.g. grandfather Aziz
Indian
belief
Aziz
German
knowledge
Boatman Tai
Ghani’s house
His mother
His wife
Midnight’s Children: Kashmire