A TALE OF AMBIVALENCE: SALMAN RUSHDIE'S " TWO YEARS, EIGHT MONTHS AND TWENTY-EIGHT NIGHTS " (original) (raw)
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Salman Rushdie's memoirs, essays and novels contribute to the appreciation of the contradictions in his outlook on life. His experiences in his family enable Rushdie to make efforts for objective and tolerant judgement of British lifestyle and culture. However, his isolation from the society in Britain despite his struggle for adaptation to British cultural values cause contradictions in his cultural identity. While Rushdie expresses his allegiance to India and its culture in The Ground Beneath Her Feet (1999), he reflects his alienation from his homeland in this novel as well. Similarly, in his Imaginary Homelands (1981)(1982)(1983)(1984)(1985)(1986)(1987)(1988)(1989)(1990)(1991) whereas Rushdie questions the injustice and inequality caused by imperialism in The New Empire within Britain (1982), he justifies the colonialist discourse in Kipling (1990). He elaborates on the contradictions in his outlook on life in terms of his cultural ambivalence in his fictions such as Midnight 's Children (1981) and Shame (1983). However, in his latest novel, Two Years, Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights (2015), Rushdie reflects his cultural identity conflict in terms of rationalism-mysticism dichotomy. With the use of allegory as well as the lack of linearity in time and space, Rushdie justifies his cultural ambivalence in relation to the dynamism of contemporary world. Thus, Rushdie's latest novel invites reading for its representation of the oppositions in his approach to life.
MODERN PHILOLOGY: PROMISING AND PRIORITY AREAS FOR SCIENTIFIC RESEARCHES
INTRODUCTION Salman Rushdie has always managed to astonish and to enchant his readers. Creative work according to the canons of magical realism gives the author the opportunities to invite his readers, at first sight, to the usual people's world, which otherwise appears to be characterized by supernatural features, inhabited with usual and unusual creatures, in which next to the ordinary life, absolutely supernatural events are happening. The occurrence of magic phenomenon or the appearances of supernatural creatures and even worlds in various literary works have their place at different stages of events development. In the novel "Two Years, Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights", since the first its line, it becomes clear that the story will be told about jinns and their nature, the devil is mentioned there as well. Further the author compares jinns and people, points at certain similar and different features. Besides, since the very beginning, Rushdie questions the future of the human realm depending on the triumph of the good or the evil: "…we have lived another thousand years since those days, but we are all forever changed by that time. Whether for better or for worse, that is for our future to decide" 1. It should be mentioned that there is a feature common for all Rushdie's literary works; it is the close link of the depicted in the novel events to the human history as well as the condemnation of the universal human drawbacks and sins. The novel by Salman Rushdie "Two Years, Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights" dives the reader into the whirligig of events so that then to throw him or her out 'rather worn, bewildered and wholly happy 2 Yusefovich, Galyna (2016)Yest li zhizn posle non-fiction? Da! S romanami Salmana Rushdie i Davida Mitchella [Is there a life after Non-fiction? Yes! With novels by Salman Rushdie and David Mitchell]. Meduza [Jellyfish] (electronic journal). 10 Dec.
Salman Rushdie as a Progressive Writer: A Study of Midnight's Children
Midnight " s Children is a turning point for Indian English novel writing. This novel brought Indian English novel a world recognition in an unprecedented way. No other novel by an Indian novelist has had such an impact as this novel. It also made Rushdie, at the very young age, into a major literary figure. His exuberant humor, brilliant wit, imaginative boldness, enormous talent and prodigious powers of storytelling became a part of the vocabulary of critical acclaim that greeted Midnight " s Children. The success of this novel led to a flood of novels by Indian English novelists and, like this novel, they too won numerous national and international awards. This novel has all the characteristics of " defamiliarization ". It conveys familiar through the unfamiliar. It defies comprehension. It has innovated daringly. Its highly imaginative quality, its unconventional word-play, the disarranged syntax and spirited metaphors, its stunning fusion of oral narrative, fiction and non-fiction, history, journalism, realism, Hindi film songs, fantasy, and the stream-of-conscious narrative style make it, certainly, not an easy book to read.
A Transnational Approach to Salman Rushdie's "Midnight's Children
International Journal of Social, Political and Economic Research
Colonialism and post-colonialism have led to the development of transnationalism that is the interconnectivity between people and the economic and social significance of boundaries among nation states. When transnational approach is applied to Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children (1981), it allows researchers to analyse how transnationalism impacts on gender, class, culture and race both in host and home countries. The traditional cultural heritage of India and British imperialism’s impact on Indian society are told through dual identities of the narrator Saleem Sinai who has double parents. Saleem’s grandfather, Aadam Aziz, a Western-trained physician, scorns his wife Naseem who could not notice the difference between mercurochrome and blood stains. As a traditional Indian wife Naseem’s response to the immoral sexual desires of her husband who has adopted the Western culture is a reaction to British cultural environment in India. Saleem’s mother Amina’s cultural conflict caused by ...
In Search of Self: the Pangs of Identity in Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children
Though the contemporary world is being looked at as a post-racial, post-national, and post-colonial world, there are moments from the history of the Indian subcontinent that are coming back to haunt us. Memory is no more an individual's psychic visit to the past; rather, it is from a collective memory that the nation is made out of a geographical space. In India, as in many other countries of the world, the rise of the fascist, fundamentalist, and rightist forces are creating major upheavals in the contemporary society. On the contrary, the advocates of globalization and multiculturalism are hailing the contemporary world as the best human history has witnessed yet. In such a bi-polar world, the " self " is suffering from a continuous pang of identity or the lack of it. Identities, like maps of the day, are becoming more and more elastic and lucid. How does such a perspective impact the literature of the age, especially literature that deals with a collective trauma from the past and is yet burdened with revealing the contemporary self's dilemma of belonging? Salman Rushdie, brought up with the memories of a fractured nation, deals with this search of the self in his fictional art. This paper is an attempt to look at Rushdie's fiction in general and his masterpiece Midnight's Children in particular to analyze the pangs of identity in a post-partition scenario. Towards the said purpose, this paper would make use of a postcolonial, postmodernist approach. As the all-pervading postcolonial narrator of the text, Saleem the " swallower of lives " (MNC 9) warns us that " Midnight's children can be made to represent many things, according to your point of view: " (MNC 200). The phrase " midnight's children " in the aforementioned sentence refers both to the children of midnight Salim is talking about as well as the author's conscious concern with the text itself. Drawing from the postmodern tradition of " disjunction, simultaneity, irrationalism, anti-illusionism and self-reflexiveness " (Woods 67) Rushdie concocts a heady mix of history and narrative technique to bring on the table a plethora of issues concerning the postcolonial identity of the Indian born after partition. By challenging the conservative comprehension of post-British India and simultaneously mocking at the utopian dreams of absolute freedom, the author creates an India in the text that resonates with alternative versions of history and narrative. As Saleem, confused with the intent of his presence in a particularly fragile point in the history of the nation, would ask himself in the self-reflexive pattern of a postmodern narrator:
THE PAST IS THE PRESENT IN SALMAN RUSHDIE’S MIDNIGHT’S CHILDREN
The present paper entitled ‘The Past is the Present in Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children’ is an attempt to revisit the past through Salman Rushdie’s fictional autobiography and to link it with the present upheavals in the Indian subcontinent. The analysis has been made with the help of some of the very important post-colonial key terms. Salman’s Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children is celebrated as the best post-colonial material by many post-colonial critics. The present paper tries to apply some of the parameters of post-colonial theory on the selected text in the light of the scars of the past that are not completely healed in the present. The selected post-colonial parameters are orientalism, subaltern, nationalism, hybridity, mimicry, neocolonialism and globalism. Some other terms can also be applicable to the selected text but due to words limit the author has decided to go with the selected terms. The paper ends on an optimistic note that the past has taught us not to divide in the name of class, caste, religion and race. Salman Rushdie tries to give voice to the voiceless. He has made a successful attempt to bring the margins to the center and to raise their voices on international fronts. He has given dignity to the migrants who are living as foreigners by setting his own example of not to compromise with one’s thoughts and principles. The past or the history has always played a crucial role of a hard task master who tries to warn us of the pitfalls in the present. Let us learn from the past experiences and make the present a happy living.
Ankara Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Dergisi
Doğa ve kültür arasında süregelen bir ikilik olmasına rağmen edebiyat eserlerinde insanlık durumunun belli bazı yönlerini betimlemek ve bilinçaltında nelerin olduğunu göstermek için doğadan yararlanıldığını görürüz. Bu kaçınılmazdır çünkü insan da doğanın bir parçasıdır. Bu insan durumlarından bir tanesi de savaş ve onun sebep olduğu travmadır. Savaşın yol açtığı travma ve tutarsızlık insanın kimliğini sorgulamasına ve hatta kaybetmesine kadar gidebilir ki bu noktada insan bu travmayı atlatma ve kimliğini bulma çabası içinde tekrar doğanın sağladığı sakinliğe dönebilir. Bu fiziki çevre bir orman ya da çöl olabilir. Bu makale Salman Rushdie'nin Geceyarısı Çocukları adlı romanının Sundarbans bölümünü eko eleştirel açıdan bir okumasını yaparak romanın baş karakteri Saleem Sınai'nin kimliğini dünyanın en güzel ve aynı zamanda en tehlikeli ormanlarından bir tanesinde bulmasını tartışmayı amaçlamaktadır. Saleem'in 1965 Hindistan-Pakistan savaşında bir asker olarak kimlik arayı...
the same time the look holds on for some dynamic quality which blazes inside them. In his books, Rushdie tries his best to express the character emergency and focuses on the submerged inside universe of a person. A sharp perception of the lost character of people in the public eye conveys to the fore, the pitiful state of their being, which at the focal point of every single person has unfortunately been victimized of from their own personality. Rushdie's own experience and history may have imparted in him values and a world view that can never be called conventional, religious, or even good with religion, in any case, the one quality his characters gangs that seems, by all accounts, to be as limitless as their distance and dream is their ceaseless positive thinking and unlimited trust. In Rushdie's books, many characters confront the issues of personality. The books Midnight's Children and Shame have been examined for this study.