Midnight's Children: Why or Why not is it a great book?
Historical Moment
Ideas, Questions and Themes
Theories and Movements
Post-Modernism
Post-Culturalism
Originality and Creativity
Language, Form and Structure
India's Independance 15/8/1947 #
Cultural Shifts
Characters
Saleem Sinai
Padam
Shiva
The Widow
Jamila Singer
the single and many
rep entirety of India within
relationship between individual life and collective life of nation
public and private influence each other
Saleem struggles to contain all of India and cram his personal story
Idea: representation of India
Indian Partition in 1947
Diverse population
Hinduism and Islam
Islamic nation of Pakistan
Saleem watching protests in Bombay
contrast to protesters
desire for singularity and purity (religion or culture) breeds intolerance, violence and repression
Telepathic powers that connects him with the public of India
Multitude of exp. and sensitivities
monotheism of Pakistan
Indira Gandhi expression of not fighting, love to all
Creation v. Destruction
Destruction and downfall of India to create a new India
Magical Realism
Allegory
Allegorical history of India's 1st 30 years (MR book)
strong connection with other babies in India (hope for the new future)
Babies loose their powers and loose their hope for a new future in New India
turning back time to tell the story - magical spell
the chosen one but doesn't understand why
what do i do?
fails continuous