Hi!
I've been thinking a bit about ways to beef up this site as I find my footing, so I've decided I'm going to add some of the essays I did over my time in college as examples of my more academic works. I will admit, not all of them are going to be incredible (a lot of the time, i was just aiming for a pass) but they're still essays I'm happy with and works I put time into. The following one is on Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie. I've also included the essay question, just so you can see what I was trying to answer.
Explore the portrayal of violence in Midnight’s Children. Your answer should elaborate on how the novel engages with TWO or MORE of the following contexts: Kashmir, partition, Joseph D’Costa’s militancy, Shiva’s militarism, the language marches in Bombay, the India-Pakistan wars, and/or the 1975-77 Emergency in India.
Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children is built around the end of colonial India and the fallout of it gaining independence. The story is told from the perspective of a dying Saleem after the events have occurred, which gives us a unique perspective of the violence that occurs throughout the novel, surrounding both Saleem and his grandparents, thirty years before India’s independence. From this, we can see how violence is portrayed in both a colonial and post-colonial setting, the effects it has on the characters and nation and how it is used to further political or personal goals. Violence in Midnight’s Children is connected to three themes of the novel, Identity, Nationality and, to a lesser degree for the purposes of this essay, Religion. The above contexts each overlap one another, Kashmir and the India/Pakistan Wars and partition all being as intertwined in violence as the above themes are. In this essay, each of these contexts and how violence is portrayed will be examined and explored.
Kashmir is the subject of numerous conflicts throughout the novel, as both India and Pakistan claim ownership of the region after independence from the British Empire is achieved. The early chapters of the book are spent there, as Saleem’s grandfather Aadam, the embodiment of the coming new, independent India, interacts with Tai the boatman, the personification of Old India, representative of Kashmir as untouched by western influence or British rule. While as a child, Tai was glad to tell Aadam stories of mountains being born and Emperors dying, once Aadam returns from Germany as a doctor, Tai looks at him as another outsider, representative of the western world finally reaching Kashmir. Tai goes so far as to take Ilse to a spot of the lake to where foreign woman commit suicide, where Ilse subsequently drowns herself. The scene Tai describes is quiet and solemn, Ilse not speaking a word until she simply vanishes from the boat. Tai, once her body is recovered, shrugs off blame and is incredulous at Aadam laying it on his shoulders, “Brings his loose European women here and tells me its my fault when they jump into the lake!” However, he later comes down with a skin disease Saleem describes as “similar to that European curse called the King’s Evil”. The clear metaphor here of an European curse afflicting Tai, a fiercely anti-western man who brought an European woman to her death is obvious, but Tai’s later death is another portrayal of violence that ties back to both Identity and Kashmir. Saleem closes chapter two of book one with the ‘rumour’ of Tai’s death, surviving until 1947 and becoming infuriated at India’s and Pakistan’s claim to his state. He marched to Chhamb to stand between the opposing armies, “Kashmir for the Kashmiris: that was his line. Naturally, they shot him”. Tai’s death is portrayed as natural, as the accepted response to the last cries of Old India, barely a footnote in the novel or the conflict. The voice of Kashmir is also drowned out, as the two larger, warring nations claim the valley for themselves, regardless of the choice the Kashmiri make. There’s also a connection that can be made between Aadam as the personification of modernity coming to Kashmir and Tai’s death at the hands of soldiers working for a modern India, so soon after Aadam’s return in the text.
Partition is a huge part of the novel and a question that hangs over the heads of all characters. Similar to how Indian Independence is a big question for Aadam, especially in regards to what sort of India he’d be a part of, partition is important to Saleem, especially given how much of his life is dominated by the wars and partitioning of land post-independence. In book two, chapter twelve, when Mr Commander-In-Chief, or General Khan, insists on Saleem and Zafar to be present for talks of the upcoming coup, he says “It is there future, after all”. He, and the rest of the coup-members, believe that violence is the only way for Pakistan to establish itself as a new country, a belief they wish to pass onto the two children. He dismisses his own son once Zafar realizes their plan and wets himself, Khan calling him both a woman and a Hindu, showing his own belief in the superiority of the Muslim man, a patriarchal belief he’ll hold onto for the rest of his life. With this, he places Saleem at his side at the table, letting him move pepperpots and cutlery to match with the orders the General is giving. Already, Saleem is involved in planning acts of violence, on behalf of Pakistan. He later ends up a soldier in the Pakistani army, as a “man-dog” tracking people for the CUITA. He’s without any memory of his previous life, after losing his family and memory during an air raid. He explains how “everything ended, everything began again, when the spittoon hit my head”. Saleem’s morality was lost and his innocence restored when he lost his memory, his previous aversion to violence now gone. He’s lost his identity and without it, is much more comfortable with violence. Here, violence is portrayed as a part of someone’s identity, their morality, and their aversion to it both parts of a person. Saleem, the personification of India, ends up fighting against his nation and against his old identity. Rushdie uses this, as well as the larger India-Pakistan War to make a statement on violence and identity, as both nations, Muslim and Hindu, were once one in the same less then three decades ago. Saleem’s amnesia and subsequent work with the CUITA is a small example of the in-fighting and identity crisis that India and Pakistan were going through at the time.
To continue with the focus on the India/Pakistan war, Saleem thinks throughout the third book that the war is being fought entirely for his benefit, that all the violence is solely to reunite him with his past life. Not only is it an example of his self-confidence and belief of his natural superiority as a child of midnight, it’s an example of how violence is portrayed through magic realism. Similar to Saleem moving pepper pots and thus groups of soldiers during Khan’s coup and his abilities, the air raid that kills his family and gives him amnesia is framed as India itself striking Saleem in revenge for his betrayal of the country in his move to Pakistan, with his amnesia perfect at making him a more model Pakistani citizen. Saleem is repeatedly at the centre of violence during the war, almost the victim of a sniper shot twice, meeting his childhood friends when he returns to Dacca and learning that Shiva was his mirror on the Indian side of the war. It’s a series of coincidences that appear as violence being used to draw Saleem back into his old life, violence as a staple of Saleem’s story in India. It is a trend that continues into the Emergency, as the midnight’s children are taken and forcefully sterilized by the Widow, a final act of violence that kills any hope of the children being the ones to unite India. Violence is repeatedly portrayed throughout the final act of Midnight’s Children as revolving around Saleem, his actions bringing it upon the two nations and his loved ones. Shiva is the only midnight’s child who escapes sterilization at the cost of the rest of the children, but he disappears after Saleem is released. With no more reason for violence, Shiva, named after a god of war, simply leaves the story, his purpose fulfilled.
Midnight’s Children portrays violence in different contexts to different people. For the nations of India and Pakistan, it is a show of strength needed to establish themselves on the world stage after independence and partition. For General Khan, it’s to be used as a show of dominance to assert the Muslim man at the top of society. In the case of the India/Pakistan war it’s a punishment for Saleem’s betrayal of India and during the emergency, it’s to snuff out the Midnight’s Children Conference for good. Each portrayal discussed in this essay all share the same undertone of asserting power and dividing people for easier control.
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