Midnight's Children.

This blog, assigned by Dr. Dilip Sir Barad, is about Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie. In it, I discuss the narrative techniques used in the novel and provide a deconstructive reading of its characters. For further information Click here.

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Narrative Technique in Midnight’s Children: Blending Western and Eastern Storytelling Traditions :-

      Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children is not only a landmark in postcolonial literature but also a fascinating experiment in narrative technique. Before we watch the cinematic adaptation of the novel, it is important to understand that the film’s storytelling style is quite different from how the novel itself is written. The narrative pattern of the book is deeply tied to its themes, especially its postcolonial context.

        One of the most remarkable aspects of Midnight’s Children is its hybridization a merging of Western literary devices with Eastern, especially Indian, oral storytelling traditions. The novel adopts the Western genre of the novel and modernist/postmodernist devices, but enriches them with Indian “masala” the layered, vivid, and often nonlinear methods of storytelling from the subcontinent.

The Bollywood “Lost and Found” Formula:-

          If we think about the storyline, many readers recall the swapping of children at birth a plot device that feels very “Bollywood.” The “lost and found” formula has been a tried and tested success in Indian cinema, often involving lost siblings or switched identities, eventually leading to dramatic revelations. While Western narratives, following Aristotle’s Poetics, often rely on realism, cause and effect, and probability, Eastern traditions are more comfortable with coincidence, fate, and fantastical twists.

Western Framing Techniques: Russian Dolls and Chinese Boxes:-

          In Western literature, layered storytelling is often described through metaphors like Russian dolls (a doll within a doll within a doll) or Chinese boxes (stories within stories). This frame narrative structure allows for multiple perspectives and complex layering of plot. Examples include:

Plato’s Dialogues

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein

          In such works, each narrative is contained within another, offering depth and variety.

Eastern Oral Narrative Traditions :-

        Indian storytelling traditions, however, developed their own rich approaches to nested narratives.

Panchatantra

          At first glance, the Panchatantra seems to be simply a collection of animal fables. But these tales are framed within the story of King Amar Shakti (or King Sudarshana in other versions) and his three ignorant sons. The wise Brahmin Vishnu Sharma, unable to teach them through conventional means, uses interconnected stories to impart wisdom. The outer frame gives meaning to the inner stories.

Kathasaritsagara

           This 11th-century Sanskrit compilation by Somadeva contains countless layers of storytelling. It was written to entertain Queen Suryavati of Kashmir during a period of political and personal tragedy. Within its tales, there are stories within stories, each linked to the next like pearls on a string.

Vikram-Betal (Baital Pachisi)

        This famous set of 25 tales revolves around King Vikramaditya carrying the spirit Betal. Each time Vikram tries to take Betal away, the spirit tells a new story, ending with a riddle that forces Vikram to answer and return Betal to his tree. This recursive storytelling mirrors the layered nature of Midnight’s Children.

Thirty-Two Puppets of King Vikramaditya

            In another Indian tale cycle, each of the 32 statues in Vikramaditya’s throne narrates a story, creating multiple layers of narration within a larger frame.

Arabian Nights / Alif Laila

 

       Rushdie also draws on Middle Eastern storytelling traditions, particularly One Thousand and One Nights. The outer frame tells of Scheherazade, who spins endless stories to delay her execution. In Midnight’s Children, Saleem narrates to Padma much like Scheherazade narrates to the king keeping both the listener and the reader hooked.

Epic Frames: Ramayana and Mahabharata

         Even the great Indian epics are frame narratives.

Ramayana: Begins with Valmiki asking Narada if a perfect man exists. Narada tells him of Rama, and later Brahma instructs Valmiki to compose the epic. The tragic undertone is set early, foreshadowing the unhappy ending of Rama and Sita’s story.

Mahabharata: Told by Vyasa to Ganesha, but also narrated within the royal court, with multiple embedded tales.

Modern Indian Theatre Example: Girish Karnad’s Hayavadana

         Karnad’s play also uses “story within a story” structures. It combines performance, myth, and multiple narrators, showing that this technique is deeply ingrained in Indian creative traditions.

Rushdie’s Pickle Jar Structure :-

          In Midnight’s Children, Rushdie invents his own metaphor for layered storytelling—the pickle jars. Each of the 30 chapters is a jar containing memories and events, preserved and flavoured with the narrator’s own “spices.” The jars are:

Book One: from The Perforated Sheet to Tick Tock

Book Two: from The Fisherman’s Pointing Finger to The Buddha

Book Three: from A Wedding to Abracadabra

      At the end, one jar remains empty symbolizing the unfinished, open-ended nature of memory and history.

The Hybrid Narrative: Western and Eastern Elements

Rushdie fuses:

Western devices: unreliable narrator, social realism, historical detail, postmodernist historiographic metafiction

Eastern techniques: oral storytelling, magical realism, fantastical coincidence, multiple frames, mythic references

This results in:

1. Unreliable Narrator: Saleem admits his memory is imperfect.

2. Social Realism: Real historical events and figures (Indira Gandhi, Morarji Desai) are woven in.

3. Magical Realism: Saleem’s telepathic powers, the Midnight’s Children Conference.

4. Counter-History: Saleem’s version challenges the official “center” narrative.

5. Framed Narration: Saleem telling Padma his story, echoing Scheherazade.

Conclusion :-

         Midnight’s Children is a masterclass in hybrid narrative technique, blending the structural discipline of the Western novel with the imaginative abundance of Eastern oral traditions. Whether through Russian dolls or pickle jars, Panchatantra animals or Bollywood masala, Rushdie creates a layered, flavourful narrative that reflects both the complexity of India’s history and the richness of its storytelling heritage.

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Decoding the "Undecidable": A Post-Structuralist Reading of Symbols in Midnight's Children

Introduction: 

         Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children is not merely a historical novel; it is a profound meditation on the nature of history, memory, and identity itself. While traditional literary analysis might seek to assign singular, fixed meanings to the novel's symbols, this approach risks oversimplifying the text's rich complexity. To truly grasp Rushdie's vision, we must employ a post-structuralist lens, a framework that sees language and meaning not as stable but as fluid, contradictory, and constantly in motion. This blog post will explore how Derridean philosophy particularly the concepts of pharmakon, archi-writing, and the free play of meaning provides an indispensable key to unlocking the layered symbolism of the perforated sheet, the silver spittoon, pickles, and the binary relationship between Saleem and Shiva.

1. The "Pharmakon" of History and the Dilemma of Memory

      The foundation of our deconstructive reading begins with a concept from Plato’s Phaedrus, which Derrida masterfully reinterprets: the word "pharmakon." This Greek term holds a dual meaning, signifying both remedy and poison. Plato’s Socrates uses it to argue that writing is a poison that weakens internal memory, yet he acknowledges it can also serve as a remedy for preserving knowledge. Derrida challenges this clear-cut binary, arguing that the word itself is "undecidable" it can be both at the same time.

          In Midnight's Children, history functions as this very "pharmakon." For the nation, history is a remedy, a source of collective identity and a record of the past. But it is also a poison, a suffocating burden of memory that can lead to a kind of national amnesia. Saleem’s own amnesia, triggered by the very object that carries his family’s history, becomes a powerful allegory for a nation overwhelmed by its own narrative, forgetting itself under the sheer weight of what it has to remember.

2. Archi-Writing and the Deconstruction of Narrative

      Plato, in his dialogues, privileged speech over writing, viewing the latter as an inferior, external form of communication. Derrida, however, introduces the concept of "archi-writing" to turn this hierarchy upside down. He argues that even before a word is spoken, it is "written" in the mind a conceptual mark or trace. Speech itself is thus a form of writing. This idea destabilizes the notion of a pure, original form of communication.

            This philosophical insight is central to understanding the narrative technique of Midnight's Children. Saleem's storytelling is not presented as a simple, spoken account of events. It is a layered, mediated form of communication, blending memory, thought, and language. The novel itself is an act of deconstructive writing, a technique that intentionally blurs the lines between oral tradition and written history. Rushdie highlights that identity and national history are not derived from a single, unadulterated source but are constructed through these complex layers of mediation, where memories are constantly being "written" and "rewritten."

 The Perforated Sheet: A Metaphor for Narrative and Perception

        The perforated sheet is one of the novel's most iconic and evocative symbols. At first glance, it is a physical barrier that both conceals and reveals. It is through this sheet that Saleem’s grandfather, Adam Aziz, is forced to examine his future wife, Nasim, in fragments. He sees only a knee, a nose, a hand never the whole person. This experience shapes his fragmented view of the world and, by extension, the fragmented identity of the nation.

          On a deeper, post-structuralist level, the perforated sheet serves as a metaphor for the novel's entire narrative structure and the nature of memory itself. Saleem's storytelling is like the sheet: it offers us glimpses and close-ups, but it never provides a complete, panoramic view. We are "condemned by a perforated sheet to a life of fragments," as Saleem says. This narrative technique challenges the idea of a single, coherent historical truth. Instead, it presents history as a series of fragmented moments, a perforated memory where some things are seen, and many more are hidden.

4. The Silver Spittoon: The Weapon of Forgetting

           The silver spittoon is a symbol rich with contradictory meanings. It is an heirloom, a tangible link to the family’s past and thus a symbol of memory. However, when it falls and strikes Saleem, it becomes the direct cause of his amnesia. The object meant to preserve the past is the very thing that erases it. This paradox highlights a central theme of the novel: the tools of preservation can also be the instruments of destruction.

           This symbolic duality extends to the nation itself. The historical records and symbols we use to remember our past can be so heavy and overwhelming that they lead to collective forgetfulness. The spittoon's impact on Saleem is a personal trauma that doubles as a national allegory, showing how a nation's inability to reconcile with its vast, complex history makes it vulnerable to political forces that seek to manipulate that amnesia for power.

5. Pickles: Preserving and Destroying the Past

      Saleem's pickle factory is a powerful extension of this dualistic symbolism. The act of pickling is, by definition, one of preservation—it keeps food from spoiling. Saleem uses this process as a metaphor for his storytelling, "pickling" his memories and the nation's history into jars for posterity. He hopes his son, Aadam, will one day "know me... and India... and the pickles."

      Yet, pickling also involves destruction. Ingredients are chopped, crushed, and transformed in a brine that breaks them down. This duality suggests that preserving history is not a pristine act of conservation; it is a messy, transformative process that alters the original substance. The pickles, constantly "eroding something or destroying something," mirror Saleem's own body, which is "constantly cracking." He is both a preserver of stories and a man being destroyed by their weight.

6. Saleem and Shiva: Complementary Opposites

       The relationship between Saleem and his "shadow twin," Shiva, transcends a simple good-versus-evil binary. They are complementary opposites, akin to the yin-yang philosophy. Saleem is the thinker, the passive chronicler of events; Shiva is the man of action, the destroyer. This dynamic challenges the Western tradition of strict binary oppositions.

           Their relationship allegorizes the complex, often contradictory forces at play within India itself. Saleem represents the intellectual, historical consciousness of the nation, while Shiva embodies its raw, aggressive, and potentially destructive power. The novel suggests that one cannot exist without the other; they are interwoven forces that shape the nation's evolving story. Shiva’s forgetfulness makes him a perfect pawn for political power, contrasting with Saleem’s amnesia, which stems from the unbearable burden of his memory.

Conclusion: 

          Through this post-structuralist reading, Midnight's Children emerges as a novel that rejects definitive, fixed meanings. The symbols, characters, and narrative are not endpoints but starting points for a "free play of meaning." By embracing the dualities within each symbol remedy/poison, conceal/reveal, preserve/destroy—we understand that Rushdie's intent was to portray history and national identity not as static truths, but as fluid, contested terrains. The novel itself, through its use of deconstructive writing, is a testament to the power of storytelling to endlessly reinterpret and rewrite the past, emphasizing that our understanding of who we are is always in flux, constructed through layers of memory, language, and imagination.

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Erasure and Oppression: The Bulldozer in Midnight's Children

           In Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children, the bulldozer is a strong symbol of government oppression and misuse of power, especially during Indira Gandhi's Emergency period. It shows how the state used force to destroy homes, erase people’s identities, and push political plans while pretending it was for “beautification.” The word “bulldozer” in the novel also reflects its real meaning in real life – not just a machine, but a symbol of violent control by the authorities.

           Rushdie uses the bulldozer to show how unchecked political power can crush and dehumanize powerless people. This appears in several important moments in the novel:

Dehumanization: When the bulldozer works, it creates a dust storm that makes people look like “ghosts of ourselves” or “old, neglected furniture.” It takes away their human dignity and turns them into objects. The rich escape from its path, showing the gap between the powerful and the poor.

Suppression of Dissent: The narrator wonders if warnings against “treason” also included bulldozers, connecting rebellion with the government’s readiness to crush any resistance both physically and mentally.

Urban “Beautification”: The bulldozer plays a key role in Sanjay Gandhi’s city “beautification” projects. It is a cold, mechanical tool of the government that destroys poor neighborhoods under the excuse of improving the city. The machine’s loud noise even drowns out the narrator’s scream, showing how the poor have no voice.

Erasure of History and Identity: The bulldozer’s most personal attack is when it takes away Saleem’s silver spittoon – a treasured family item linking him to his past. Losing this “real, physical” object cuts his connection to his family and history, showing how authoritarian powers erase not just buildings but also the cultural and emotional things that connect people to their roots.

Emotional and Psychological Devastation: The narrator’s “nostalgia for my bulldozed silver spittoon” shows the deep emotional pain caused by the government’s actions. The bulldozer is not only a sign of physical destruction but also of the lasting sadness and sense of loss that survivors feel.

Conclusion:

       The bulldozer is a powerful metaphor in Midnight’s Children for the harsh control of the government. Rushdie criticizes the authoritarian tactics of the Emergency by showing the human suffering caused by such rule. Sadly, this symbol is still relevant today, as even now governments sometimes use their power to target the poor and erase their histories.

Thank you for reading...

Reference:-

• DoE-MKBU. “Deconstructive Reading of Symbols | Midnight’s Children | Sem 3 Online Classes | 2021 07 13.” YouTube, 13 July 2021, www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgJMf9BiI14.Accessed 13 August 2025.

• DoE-MKBU. “Narrative Technique | Midnight’s Children | Sem 3 Online Classes | 2021 07 12.” YouTube, 12 July 2021, www.youtube.com/watch?v=opu-zd4JNbo.Accessed 13 August 2025.

• Barad, Dilip. "Erasure and Oppression: The Bulldozer as a Tool of Authoritarianism in Midnight's Children." ResearchGate, August 2024, Https://www.researchgate.net/publication/383410297_Erasure_and_Oppression_The_Bulldozer_as_a_Toolof_Authoritarianism_in_Midnight's_Children. Accessed 13 August 2025.

• Barad, Dilip. Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie. Dilip Barad's Blog, 5 Aug. 2021, blog.dilipbarad.com/2021/08/midnights-children.html. Accessed 14 Aug. 2025.