Ambiguity Of History In Midnight's Children

The History of Saleem Sinai

Inseparably linked to the moment of India’s independence, Saleem Sinai, born at the exact moment of that independence, has to live with the several consequences of this coincidence. Children such as Saleem are called Midnight’s Children and are endowed with unusual gifts and telepathic powers. While following Saleem’s life story, Salman Rushdie gives not only every personal event in the life of Saleem but also a historical overview of an independent India. Therefore history plays an important role in Midnights Children and is worth examining more closely. This essay will specifically focus on the ambiguity of history and in which way this ambiguity comes forward in Salman Rushdie’s novel. As Rushdie says in his essay Imaginary Homelands “reality is built on our prejudices, misconceptions and ignorance as well as on our perceptiveness and knowledge” (25), this suggests that the history in Midnight’s Children is not only a matter of facts but also a matter of personal

In this autobiography Saleem is critical, especially critical on history. Nietzsche explains the use of this criticism as followed: "It is an attempt to give oneself, as it were a posteriori, a past in which one would like to originate in opposition to that in which one did originate" (Price 100). Saleem creates his own preferred past, the past that he would like to be part of. His criticisms are often the opposite of the past he originated from and therefore criticise this history. The factual date of the death of Ghandi does not fit into Saleem’s preferred history and can therefore not be changed by Saleem. The story of Saleem is in this way served as a way to let the history of India fit in with his own history, to blend them together. By creating this new history only important events to Saleem are chosen to be part of this history, this creates a personal perspective and ambiguity in history