Magic Realism as Postcolonial Narrative inSalman Rushdie’s ‘Midnight’s Children

Abstract

Magic realism is a synthesis of the literal and the metaphorical. The two irreconcilable worlds artistically interweave the fantastic and the real into a quasi surrealistic art form. Such an art form allows the writer to enter into the language of colonial discourse effortlessly through oppositional narratives. It reflects the act of colonization and the process of decolonization through a language of binarial oppositions. Reflecting upon the ‘metaphysical clash’ that the imperial power affords, magic realism offers a counter narrative brings into play the possible hybrid positions and situations in a narrative form. Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children is a magic realist tale, a poignant amalgam of real and the magic. He brings together the fairy tales and postcolonial experiences together symbolizing the deterioration of imagination, experience and identity, each relying upon each other to make the characters whole and to mirror the process of making of a nation. History and fiction share common space of origin, the space of an emergent hybridity and the position from which the narrator embarks upon the postcolonial narrative. This paper is an attempt to analyze Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children as a magic realist postcolonial narrative.