Skip to main content

What was Salman Rushdie's purpose in writing Midnight's Children?

One purpose in writing Midnight's Children was to demonstrate the impossibility of a perfectly accurate retelling of history.  


When we normally think of "history," our mind drifts to an undisputed account. There is a belief that history has to be an objective and absolutely correct retelling of how factual events took place.  When we believe in this single notion of history, we tend to silence other voices or perceptions. Embracing this retelling of history lends power to people who lay claim to the "truth" in the retelling of historical narratives.


One of Rushdie's purposes in writing Midnight's Children was to challenge this view of history.  Rushdie wants to address the history of modern India and Pakistan through the embrace of different stories.  There is no singular "authority" in Rushdie's version.  Saleem is the narrator, and claims to be infallible. However, he makes many errors in retelling the narrative of India, Pakistan, and the division that created both nations.  As a result, the view of history we get is not entirely accurate.  This underscores how any account that professes to be totalizing must be questioned.  


Through Saleem, Rushdie presents an imperfect account of history.  That is his purpose in writing Midnight's Children.   Rushdie believes that history is a collection of individuals, not infallible accounts:  "History is always ambiguous. Facts are hard to establish, and capable of being given many meanings. Reality is built on our prejudices, misconceptions and ignorance as well as on our perceptiveness and knowledge."  Rushdie wants to develop a history of India and of Partition that reflects the limitations intrinsic to human identity.   In doing so, his presentation of history in Midnight's Children causes the reader to wonder about what constitutes truth. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Is there a word/phrase for "unperformant"?

As a software engineer, I need to sometimes describe a piece of code as something that lacks performance or was not written with performance in mind. Example: This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. Based on my Google searches, this isn't a real word. What is the correct way to describe this? EDIT My usage of "performance" here is in regard to speed and efficiency. For example, the better the performance of code the faster the application runs. My question and example target the negative definition, which is in reference to preventing inefficient coding practices. Answer This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. In my opinion, reads more easily as: This coding style leads to unmaintainable and poorly performing code. The key to well-written documentation and reports lies in ease of understanding. Adding poorly understood words such as performant decreases that ease. In addressing the use of such a poorly ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Is 'efficate' a word in English?

I routinely hear the word "efficate" being used. For example, "The most powerful way to efficate a change in the system is to participate." I do not find entries for this word in common English dictionaries, but I do not have an unabridged dictionary. I have checked the OED (I'm not sure if it is considered unabridged), and it has no entry for "efficate". It does have an entry for "efficiate", which is used in the same way. Wordnik has an entry for "efficate" with over 1800 hits, thus providing some evidence for the frequency of use. I personally like the word and find the meaning very clear and obvious when others use it. If it's not currently an "officially documented" word, perhaps its continued use will result in it being better documented.
Post a Comment
Read more