Giving Voice to Multiple Realities: Polyphony and Magic Realism in Midnight's Children
Journal Title: Ankara Üniversitesi Dil ve Tarih-Coğrafya Fakültesi Dergisi - Year 2017, Vol 57, Issue 1
Abstract
Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children (1981) presents the autobiographical account of its unreliable narrator that forms a parallel to the history of India. To give an account of his past, the narrator reimagines historical events with a combination of his memories and recorded facts. This paper will discuss the role of polyphony and magic realism in establishing various realities and in undermining the conceptions of the totalising power founded on monologic view of the world. In the novel, cultural diversity of the Indian subcontinent is threatened by the totalising power of the state. Through the magical elements and the polyphonic narrative, which reflects the consciousness of the others, the novel presents subjective versions of reality suggesting that reality is a matter of perception. Thus it takes polyphony one step further by the use of magical elements in giving voice to various possibilities. In this study it is argued that through its polyphonic narrative and magical realist elements, Midnight's Children not only undermines official accounts of history and essentialist conceptions of identity and nation but also provides a critique of realism. By encompassing cultural diversity of the multicultural Indian community, the novel demonstrates the multiplicity of reality and undermines systems of authority replacing the totalising version of reality with a multitude of perspectives.
Authors and Affiliations
Deniz KIRPIKLI
Keywords
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