Fearing absurdity : the style of humour in Salman Rushdie's 'Midnight's Children'

Abstract

Salman Rushdie's unique brand of humour manifests itself in the style of his first major work - Midnight's Children. Hence, even with its ineffable qualities, Rushdie's style in this epic novel narrating India's coming-of-age is a presence which cannot be ignored. Being inherently more identifiable through its worldliness, politics rooted in history is a useful starting point from which a discussion of both style and humour can proceed. This dissertation attempts to do just that by taking as its constant point of reference Rushdie's central plot device: the symbiotic relationship between the microcosm embodied by the narrator - Saleem - and the macrocosm reified in India. A question which is immediately raised in view of the importance of politics and history in this novel regards the authenticity of the text which presents itself as a postmodern narrative. This issue is exacerbated in Midnight's Children because Saleem is physically and mentally disintegrating. Hence, Chapter I focuses on memory and dementia in the novel. The irony present in this paradox of the decaying narrator who insists on writing his life is intimately connected with the absurdity that pervades the novel on various levels, alongside the grotesque. Hence, Chapter II explores the absurd and the grotesque through the lens of tradition: a perspective which explains the humour inherent in these concepts in terms of the politics of literature itself. Finally, Chapter III investigates the relation of all this to Rushdie's reader so as to discover how (in yet another symbiotic relationship) the identity of that reader also influences the style of the text. All along the collusion between the micro- and the macrocosms remains a consistent thread, as in the very novel. Therefore, at the coming together of all these aspects an insight into the style in which style itself colludes with humour and politics can be garnered.