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Linguistic Experiments in Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children
| Content Provider | Semantic Scholar |
|---|---|
| Author | Dwivedi, Om Prakash |
| Copyright Year | 2008 |
| Abstract | The use of English language in the postcolonial era has undergone a significant change and this has been possible, as Derek Walcott implies in the quotation above, because of the writer’s flying imagination. Prominent writers of Indian English Fiction like Raja Rao, G.V. Desani, Kamala Markandaya, Anita Desai, Salman Rushdie, Arundhati Roy and Kiran Desai have used English creatively, showing in their writings how far English can be ‘Indianised’. Indianisation and hybridisation are traits in their works which constitute an integral part of their linguistic experiments. Salman Rushdie created a furore with the publication of his novel, Midnight’s Children (1981). Its popularity rests on two things: the innovative use of English as a language, and the fantastic representation of history. While Rushdie resorts to the use of ‘magic realism’ to oppose the Euro-centrism of master discourses, the innovativeness of Rushdie’s English is prompted by a desire to capture the spirit of Indian culture with all its multiplicity and diversity. As a linguistic experimentalist, Rushdie attempts to destroy ‘the natural rhythms of the English language’ and to dislocate ‘the English and let other things into it’. Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children best illustrates his strategy of ‘Indianising, revitalising and decolonising the English language’. Here in this paper, I shall try to highlight the linguistic innovations of Salman Rushdie in his Midnight’s Children. At the first glance, the most inviting feature of Salman Rushdie’s language is the bounteous sprinkling of English with Hindi and Urdu words throughout Midnight’s Children, and this colourful sprinkling provides a certain amount of oriental flavour to the novel. This is probably done for two specific reasons: firstly, to situate the novel in its geographical location in the various cities of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh; and secondly, to subvert a language associated with colonial powers. Evidently, the English of Midnight’s Children is not the Queen’s English (or Standard English); it is the English best suited to express the sensibility of South Asian readers, even if they are living abroad. But though the novel abounds in Hindi and Urdu words, Rushdie has added no notes or glossary to explain them fully to Western readers, as Raja Rao has done at the end of his monumental novel, Kanthapura (1938). Like Vikram Seth in his famous novel, |
| File Format | PDF HTM / HTML |
| Alternate Webpage(s) | https://dspace.flinders.edu.au/xmlui/bitstream/handle/2328/3244/Dwivedi.pdf;jsessionid=F69F649E5FC361C744BAA2034D63B8AE?sequence=1 |
| Language | English |
| Access Restriction | Open |
| Content Type | Text |
| Resource Type | Article |
