A postcolonial study of Salman Rushdie’s “Midnight’s children.”

Abstract

Critics deal with Midnight's Children on the personal level of Saleem's journey of self-discovery, and/or as a mirror of the collective journey of Indian populations looking for self-realization after India's independence. Gorra, for instance, considers the novel "an attempt to preserve the spirit of India's secular and democratic independence a process that Saleem describes as the chutnification of history". "Rushdie's Midnight's Children is a sort of comic epic genre, a form which is a fusion of Homeric, mythic and tragic connotations". Reddy maintains, the novelist ingeniously weaves the personal story of Saleem and his growth into the story of India and her development" To Mark Mossman, "the novel is ... a book about social India. a book where the individual subjectivities of the characters are merged with, and are representational of, the various societal issues of the national culture". He also considers it "an argument for individuality, a book about a character who feels the split between the public and the private".