We discussed this briefly in class but I am still kind of flustered about this part of novel. As the four men escape the War Saleem seems to turn into this sort of half-man, half-god, and beast of a man. Of course we all know that he is to represent the country of India as a whole. So I’m wondering what everyone else thought was being implied at this part of the novel. I wasn’t really sure what to make of it at all. I felt like the author wanted us to be confused about the state of India itself at that moment in time. The country couldn’t find its’ identity until Saleem realized who he was again. But was the whole part-beast vs. part-man some sort of tongue in cheek reference to who was right in the conflict? Are we supposed to take away that the Pakistanis are brutish, or are the people of Bangledesh supposed to be viewed as the beasts? Also the idea that the venom helped him remember everything was very strange. The only part of the novel I could connect that with was of course the whole “snakes and ladders” theme. I understood most of the strange analogies that were made throughout the novel, just not the part where he becomes the “man-dog.” Any clarifications?
Thursday, October 20, 2011
Most frustrating part of Midnight's Children!
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Rather than trying to do such a literal interpretation, think more about the implication about humanity and war. Rushdie seems to be suggesting that the trauma of a horrific war causes the country as a collective body politic loses its humanity. For Rushdie, rather than being individuals who would never commit such heinous acts in their normal lives, they are animals who let their commanders make all the decisions.
ReplyDeleteAlso, in true Midnight's Children style, I think there's a play on the saying "let slip the dogs of war" from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar