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