Salman Rushdie: General Introduction: His life

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Salman Rushdie General Introduction His life

• 1947 born in Bombay, son of a Cambridge-educated
  merchant of Muslim background
• 1961 Studied in England
• 1964 moved with his family from Bombay to
  Pakistan

1989, Feb. "fatwa"
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Salman Rushdie General Introduction (2)

• 1975 Grimus 1987 The Jaguar Smile A
  Nicaraguan Journey 1990 Haroun and the Sea of
  Stories
• 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

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Salman Rushdie Major Themes

• Indias 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 Midnights Children

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Rushdie migrant identity

• 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. . . .

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Rushdie 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)

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Christopher Columbus Queen Isabella of
SpainConsummate Their Relationship

• History --
• 1. The Images of Columbus in history a
  visionary genius, a mystic, 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)

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Christopher Columbus Queen Isabella of Spain
Structure

• I. C I seen by the two speakers
• II. A third-person description of the Is
  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
• III. The twos description of I
• IV. Departure, A Dream and a dream of a dream

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Christopher Columbus Queen Isabella How is
the story a satire of colonialism?

• The image of Columbus
• coarse and flattering p. 107
• a drunkard 108-109
• adventure as his meaning of life 112
• 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

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Christopher Columbus Queen Isabella How is
the story a satire of colonialism?

• The two dreams
• Cs dream -- a vision p. 116 not be satisfied by
  the known
• savage dream -- 117 Are these dreams true of not?
  
• the ending
• The two speakers and their roles
• Their attitudes towards foreigners 108
• Their description of the queen
• Their function as messengers at the end

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Midnights Children

• 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.

Hindu woman British colonialist
Saleem
Aziz Naseem
Muslim couple (Mumtaz Ahmed)
Shiva
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Midnights 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 midnights children
• to the gradual
  fragmentation of Saleems body, the children, and
  the nation

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Midnights Children narrative methods

• 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)
• Mixing the personal and the historical/political
• Motifs -- e.g. hole in the nose, perforated
  sheet, p. 13 -

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Midnights Children Cultural Identity

• e.g. grandfather Aziz

Indian belief
Aziz
German knowledge
Boatman Tai
His mother
Ghanis house
His wife
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Midnights Children Kashmire