Postmodern Historiographic Metafiction in
Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children and Shashi Tharoor’s Riot
ABSTRACT :
This research paper attempts to analyze postmodern historiographic metafiction with references to Shashi Tharoor’s Riot and Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children. Basically, Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children is widely considered as postcolonial, postmodern, magical realist literature and is set in the context of actual historical events. On other hand, Shashi Tharoor’s Riot is set in and around a riot in India in 1989– about love, hate, cultural collision, religious fanaticism, the ownership of history, and the impossibility of knowing the truth. Here researcher tries to find postmodern historiographic metafiction in both novels.
KEYWORDS :
Postmodernism, Historiographic, Self-reflexivity, Metafiction, Riot, Midnight’s Children
INTRODUCTION :
Shashi Tharoor‟s Riot: A Novel and Salman Rushdie"s Midnight’s Children establish them as one of the most prolific chroniclers of the contemporary lives and times of theirs homeland. Riot is the third novel by Shashi Tharoor and was published in 2001. It is a book of great moral, social, religious, and political complexity. Salman Rushdie‟s Midnight’s Children in 1981 began a new era in the realm of Indian English writing.
The purpose of this paper will be to examine that how post-modernism has determined and developed the Indian English novel and certain novelists. Indian writing in English has stamped its greatness by mixing up tradition and modernity in their art. These novels are written in the late 20th century, especially after the second world war are considered postmodern novels. Salman Rushdie is one of the best-known postmodernists in India. Shashi Tharoor is an Indian former international diplomat, politician, writer, and public intellectual he examines some of the most vital issues of our times on a smaller and more intimate canvas this award-winning novel is a gripping tale that encapsulates the problems afflicting present-day India.
Postmodern Historiographic metafiction :
Historiographic metafiction term is used for works of fiction that combine the literary devices of metafiction with historical fiction. This term is coined by Canadian literary theorist Linda Hutcheon in her essay “Beginning to Theorize the Postmodern” in 1987. It incorporates three domains that fiction, history, and theory. According to Hutcheon, in "A Poetics of Postmodernism", works of historiographic metafiction are "those well-known and popular novels which are both intensely self-reflexive and yet paradoxically also lay claim to historical events and personages" ” (Hutcheon, 2005, p.5). Linda Hutcheon says that this fiction self-reflexive, contradictory, working “within conventions in order to subvert them” and, ‘incorporates all three of these domains: that is, its theoretical self-awareness of history and fiction as human constructs is made the grounds for its rethinking and reworking of the forms and contents of the past” (Hutcheon, 2005, p. 5).
Fictions that can be labeled as postmodern historiographic metafiction have appeared on the Indian scene both before and after Tharoor’s and Rushdie’s work. For example, Chaman Nahal’s Azadi (1975), Geeta Mehta’s Karma Kola (1979), Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things (1994), Githa Hariharan’s In Times of Siege (2003), Kiran Desai The Inheritance of Loss, (2006), and Aravind Adiga’s The White Tiger (2008) all belong to the aforesaid genre.
Postmodern Historiographic Metafiction in Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children :
Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children in 1981 is considered to be the turning point in the history of Indian English novel writing and the literature after that underwent a radical change in form and content. Then other novelists started adopting the postmodern perspectives in their novels. Vikram Seth, Shashi Tharoor, Upamanyu Chatterjee, Ruth Prawar Jhabwala, and Amitav Ghosh are the other makers of new patterns in writing novels with post-modern thoughts and emotions in India.
Kalyan Kishor Barman examined contact with Post-modern traits in the novel of Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children that Postmodern novels celebrate Diaspora. Like Amitav Ghosh, Salman Rushdie highlights the theme of the diaspora in Midnight’s Children. The story moves from Kashmir to Agra then to Bombay and from Karachi to Dhaka. Sinai family moves from place to place and does not stick to any particular place. Salem however finds that Bombay and India is his only satisfaction. He does not like Karachi and does not find Dhaka as his sweet home. Rushdie successfully blends facts and fiction to create a magical realistic environment. This entire episode is described in a magical realistic manner :
“six new moon came into the room,
six crescent knives held by men dressed in all black ;
with covered faces. Two men held Nadir Khan while the
other moved towards humming bird”
(Midnight's Children,1981, P. 57)
Kalyan Kishor Barman argues in the paper that Post-modernism celebrates itself in Fragmentation. In Midnight’s Children , Salman Rushdie emphasizes pieces and fragments—both fragmented characters and objects—which symbolize a fragmented India. The perforated sheet serves as a major form of fragmentation, through which Adam is introduced and falls in love with Nassem. This fragmented love is passed down in the family also. Saleem acknowledged that he too is fragmented. Saleem’s life is broken into two parts; that of old India and that of the new. Religiosity in Adam is also fragmented. After hitting his nose while praying, “he resolved never again to kiss the earth for any God or man”(Midnight’s Children,1981, P. 4). The country itself is fragmented into India and Pakistan.
In Midnight’s Children, the desire for singularity or purity—whether of religion or culture—breeds not only intolerance but also violence and repression. these elements are the outcome of post-modernism. Also here researcher found that the narrative has been borrowed from Punchtantra and Kathasritsagar. The battle between Saleem and Shiva reflects the ancient, mythological battle between the creative and destructive forces in the world. The enmity and tension between the two begin at the moment of their simultaneous births. The reference to Shiva, the Hindu god of both destruction and procreation, reflects not only the tension between destruction and creation but also the inextricably bound nature of these two forces. Saleem, as the narrator of Midnight’s Children, is responsible for creating the world. He represents Brahma, the god of creation. What Saleem creates, however, is not life, but a withered story. By delivering Saleem into the hands of the Widow, Shiva is responsible for the destruction of the midnight’s children, and yet, by fathering Aadam and hundreds of other children, he ensures the continuation of their legacy.
Postmodern Historiographic Metafiction in Shashi Tharoor’s Riot :
Shagufta Parween exploring that The basic features of postmodernist fiction such as experimentation with the formal and thematic content of the novel, self-reflexivity, conscious handling of narrative, fragmentation, discontinuity, subversion of conventional modes of narration, multiple viewpoints, indeterminacy, intertextuality, deferring of closure, mixing of the genres, use of irony and parody, are all present in this novel. In its formal organization, Riot is a novel that deviates from the conventional modes of novel writing and story-telling. Constituting fragments that are apparently disjointed, it is a novel that meticulously engages with the theme of the explosion of religious hatred that roused during the Babri Masjid and Ramjanmabhoomi stir, the communalisation of the public discourse, and the story of love and passion between two persons of conflicting cultures. It is a tale of commitment, devotion, and betrayal, both of the nation and the individual set against a highly charged communal atmosphere in a fictional north Indian town of Zalilgarh. The subplot trenchantly critiques the issue of gender exploitation. The novelistic matrix, thus, incorporates the problematization of race, culture, gender, class as well as the issue of religious dissensions and ideological collisions.
Here researcher found, In Riot, is composed of newspaper accounts, journalistic reports, letters, notebook, and diary entries, telegrams, greeting cards, personal and formal conversations, and interviews. The element of self-referentiality, one of the features of the postmodern novel is most evident in the protagonist’s reference to it. Laxman says that his wish is to write a novel “that doesn’t read like a novel. Novels are too easy-they tell a story, in a linear narrative, from start to finish…” (Riot, 2003, p. 135). His novel would be, “something in which you can turn to any page and read… and they’re all interconnected, but you see the interconnections differently depending on the order in which you read them.” (Riot,1981, P. 36).
Postmodern texts are self-referential. There are many different ways in which authors can create this effect—story-within-a-story, making obvious references to storytelling conventions— but what they have in common is that they draw attention to the methods of writing and reading. Tharoor has discussed the theory of his novel in one of the chapters of the book entitled ‘From Lakshman’s Journal: June 2, 1989’ (135-7) In this chapter, Tharoor talks about the art of writing a novel. Lakshman, the aspiring poet, and writer, is the fictional surrogate of the author here. He writes:
“I’d like to write a novel,” I tell her, “that doesn’t read like a novel. Novels are
too easy – they tell a story, in a linear narrative, from start to finish. They’ve
done that for decades. Centuries, perhaps. I’d do it differently.”
She raises herself on an elbow. “You mean, write an epic?”
“No,” I reply shortly, “someone’s done that already. I’ve read about this chap
who’s just reinvented the Mahabharata as a twentieth-century story – epic
style, oral tradition, narrative digressions, the lot. No, what I mean is, why
can’t I write a novel that reads like – like an encyclopedia?”
“An encyclopedia?” She sounds dubious.
“Well, a short one. What I mean is, something in which you can turn to any
page and read. You pick up chapter 23, and you get one thread of the plot.
Then you go forwards to chapter 37, or backwards to 16, and you get another
thread. And they’re all interconnected, but you see the interconnections
differently depending on the order in which you read them. It’s like each bit
of reading adds to the sum total of the reader’s knowledge, just like an
encyclopedia. But to each new bit of reading he brings the knowledge he’s
acquired up to that point – so that each chapter means more, or less, depending
on how much he’s learned already.” (135-6)
CONCLUSION :
To conclude with its heterogeneity of forms, genres, and multiplicity of voices; its use of irony and parody, lack of narrative closure, discontinuity, fragmentation, it is contesting of authoritative knowledge and ideology, the problematization of the past, concern with politics and history with an ingrained futuristic bent, self-referentiality, intertextuality and acknowledgment of plural truths, the novel ‘Riot’ can be aptly described as a postmodern historiographic metafiction.
In Midnight’s children thus the major incidents and the personal slices of life are brought together as historical facts. Behind historical facts, powerful imagination is used to bring out the post-modern features. an allegorical novel, it is a chronicle of modern India centering on the inextricably linked fates of the two children. The entire novel is based on post-modern elements, the novel ‘Midnight's Children’ can be aptly described as a postmodern historiographic metafiction.
WORK CITED :
- Barman,Kishorkalyan. “Post-modern traits in the novel of Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children”International Global Journal for Research Analysis 4.8 (August 2015):53-54.Web.https://www.worldwidejournals.com/global-journal-for-research-analysis-GJRA/recent_issues_pdf/2015/August/August_2015_1438858313__21.pdf
- Hutcheon, Linda . A Poetics of Postmodernism: History, Theory Fiction. (1988). New York: Routledge.
- Mullan,John. “Salman Rushdie on the writing of Midnights Children”Gurdian.26 July 2008
- Parween, Shagufta. “Rethinking History: A Study of Shashi Tharoor’s Riot As a Postmodern Historiographic Metafiction.” International Journal of Innovative Research and Development 3.2 (February 2014): 56-60. Web. www.ijird.com
- Rushdie, Salman. Midnight’s Children. New York: Penguin, (1980), Print.
- Tharoor, Shashi. Riot London: Penguin Books, (2001)
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