Key Facts
full title · Midnight's Children
author · Salman Rushdie
type of work · Novel
genre · Bildungsroman; satire; farce
language · English
time and place written · England, late 1970s and early 1980s
date of first publication · 1981
publisher · Penguin Books
narrator · Saleem Sinai
point of view · This novel is narrated in the first person. The narrator
is subjective, though he claims omniscience as he speculates on
the motives and thoughts of all the major characters
tone · Urgent; ironic; satirical
tense · Saleem, age thirty, generally narrates in the present
tense. Most of the events he describes, however, occur in the past,
at which point Saleem switches to the past tense.
setting (time) · From 1915 to 1977
setting (place) · India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh
protagonist · Saleem Sinai
major conflict · The battle between Saleem, who represents creation,
and his archrival, Shiva, who represents destruction, encapsulates
the major conflicts of the novel.
rising action · The birth of Parvati and Shiva's son, which occurs
at the same moment that Prime Minister Indira Gandhi declares a
State of Emergency.
climax · Shiva and the army's destruction of the magicians'
ghetto, where Saleem has been living with his wife and her son
falling action · After his home is destroyed and his wife is killed,
Saleem is taken to the Widow's hostel, where heand the rest of the
midnight's children are sterilized.
themes · The single and the many; truth of memory and narrative; destruction
vs. creation
motifs · Snakes; leaking; fragmentation
symbols · Silver spittoon; the perforated sheet; knees and nose
foreshadowing · Ramram's prophesy of Saleem's birth; Saleem's fever
induced dream of the Widow
