Salman Rushdie

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Salman Rushdie

• Christopher Columbus Queen Isabella
• The Midnights Children

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Outline

• General Introduction Rushdie and Rushdie in our
  class
• His definition of migrant identity and the themes
  of Indian diaspora
• Colonialism and Gender/Power Struggle
• General Introduction to Midnights Children

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Salman Rushdie General Introduction His life
1989, Feb. "fatwa"

• 1947 born in Bombay, son of a Cambridge-educated
  merchant of Muslim background
• 1961 Studied in England
• 1964 moved with his family from Bombay to
  Pakistan

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Salman Rushdie General Introduction (2) his
work

• 1975 Grimus 1987 The Jaguar Smile A
  Nicaraguan Journey 1990 Haroun and the Sea of
  Stories
• 1980 Midnight's Children
• 1983 Shame
• 1989 The Satanic Verses
• 1991 Imaginary Homelands
• 1994 East, West
• 1995 The Moor's Last Sigh
• 1999 The Ground Beneath her Feet

India trilogy
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Rushdies Position in our Class

• The Empire Writes Back in dual language
  (parody, revision, etc.), from multiple
  positions. E.g.Christopher Columbus Queen
  Isabella
• His Migrant Position (the country of origin
  becomes a baggage, an imaginary homeland.)
• His description of Indias Independence and
  Bombay government corruption the crowd

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Salman Rushdie Major Concerns

• From Indias National Identity vs. British
  colonization
• Indian diaspora
• migrant identity

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Rushdie migrant identity

• What is the best thing about migrant peoples and
  seceded nations? I think it is their
  hopefulness... And what is the worst thing? It
  is the emptiness of one's luggage....We have
  floated upwards from history, from memory, from
  Time. (70-71)
• It maybe be argued that the past is a country
  from which we have all migrated, that its loss is
  part of our common humanity. . . .

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Rushdie Pakistan migrant writer--for your
reference only

• Although I have known Pakistan for a long time, I
  have never lived there for longer than six months
  at a stretch...I have learned Pakistan by
  slices...however I choose to write about
  over-there, I am forced to reflect that in
  fragments of broken mirrors...I must reconcile
  myself to the inevitability of the missing bits.
  ...
• Immigrant writer "the ability to see at once
  from inside and out is a great thing, a piece of
  good fortune which the indigenous writer cannot
  enjoy." (4)

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Colonialism Gender/Power Struggle
Amerigo Vespucci

• The Discovery of America, Jan van der Straet,
  1575 --the new world as a woman

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Colonialism Gender/Power Struggle

• For reference
• Michel de Certeau, in The Writing of History,
  writes
• An inaugural scene after a moment of stupor . .
  . the conqueror will write the body of the other
  and trace there his own history. . . . Jan Van
  der Straets staging of the disembarkment surely
  depicts Vespuccis surprise as he faces this
  world, the first to grasp clearly that she is a
  nuova terra not yet existing on mapsan unknown
  body destined to bear the name . . . of its
  inventor. But what is really initiated here is a
  colonization of the body by the discourse of
  power. (xxv) (source)

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Christopher Columbus Queen Isabella of Spain
Consummate Their Relationship

• History of Colonialism (1) Columbus --
• The Images of Columbus in history
• a visionary genius, a mystic, a national hero,
• --discovered the New World opened up the
  Americas to European settlement.
• -- accomplished the four voyages,
• -- brought great material profit to Spain and to
  other European countries.

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The Images of Columbus in history (2)

• a failed administrator, a naive entrepreneur,
• a ruthless and greedy imperialist.
• --encountered but not discovered Americas
• -- enslaved indigenous people and caused slave
  trade
• -- brought along some diseases to Americas.

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History of Colonialism Columbus (3)

• 3. King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella (p. 110)
• she an absolute monarch,
• -- he, an absolute zero.
• Is this description true? Does it matter whether
  the description of Isabella is true or not?

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Isabella and Ferdinand

• Isabella I, portrait by an unknown artist in the
  Real Academia de la Historia, Madrid, Spain.

• They united the Spanish kingdoms into the nation
  of Spain and began Spain's entry into the modern
  period of imperial expansion.
• a marriage of political opportunism, followed by
  the couples continued separation and conflicts.
  
• He, a hero who conquored a lot of lands, and a
  man with some mistresses.

Image and info source
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Reasons for Sponsoring Columbus

• Columbus' appeal to Queen Isabella to finance
  his planned voyage to the East by sailing west in
  1486 was originally turned down. ? departure in
  1492
• Then she suddenly changed her mind. . . . it was
  what the keeper of her private purse told her of
  "History's Greatest Bargain". To finance
  Columbus' enterprise would cost no more than a
  week's royal entertainment for a visiting
  dignitary.

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Reasons for Sponsoring Columbus

• Conditions (Mutual profit)
• -- he conquers some of the islands and mainland
  for Spain.
• -- given the title of "Admiral of All the Ocean
  Seas," and receive one-tenth of the riches that
  came from any of his discoveries.

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Christopher Columbus Queen Isabella of Spain
Structure

• I. C I seen by the two speakers
• II. A third-person description of the Is
  treatment of C.
• 1. C as a secret lover and a sex toy p. 109
• 2. C as a slave (in pigsty and body-washing)
• 3. Columbus reactions possibilities 110-111
• III. The twos description of I
• IV. Departure (p. 114- ) , A Dream and a dream of
  a dream

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Christopher Columbus Queen Isabella of Spain
Structure

• Questions
• How are the two presented?
• Why does Queen Isabella play with Columbus? What
  could be the reasons and what are the reasons
  Columbus thinks of? Why does Columbus want
  consumation? How is the story a satire of
  colonialism?
• Why does Rushdie choose to describe Isabella, but
  not Ferdinand?

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Christopher Columbus Queen Isabella How is
the story a satire of colonialism?

• The image of Columbus
• coarse and flattering p. 107
• a drunkard 108-109
• adventure as his meaning of life 112
• Queen Isabella
• an absoluate monarch, a tyrant, p. 110-11
• gallops around. P. 111-12 her appetites
• Her uncertainties the descriptions of her
  bodily parts p. 113

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Christopher Columbus Queen Isabella How is
the story a satire of colonialism?

• The two dreams
• Cs dream -- a vision p. 116 not be satisfied by
  the known
• savage dream -- 117 Are these dreams true of not?
  
• the ending
• The two speakers and their roles
• Their attitudes towards foreigners 108
• Their description of the queen
• Their function as messengers at the end

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Christopher Columbus Queen Isabella How is
the story a satire of colonialism?

• The narrators tone repetition of lines and
  words e.g. Consummation, Columbus hopes
  (107) money patronage//love 112 115 must
  must must 116
• The meaning of consummation 117
• The motivation for colonialism escapes
  meaninglessness, go beyond the boring known world.

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Midnights Children

• Plot Exactly at midnight on Aug. 15, 1947, two
  boys are born in a Bombay hospital, where they
  are switched by a nurse. Around that time, a
  thousand children were born and they are the
  midnight children.

Hindu woman British colonialist
Saleem
Aziz Naseem
Muslim couple (Mumtaz Ahmed)
Shiva
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Midnights Children Plot (2)

• Midnight Children as a national allegory
• from cultural conflicts and national movements in
  the colonial period
• to the birth of the
  nation as well as its 3000 midnights children
• to the gradual
  fragmentation of Saleems body, the children, and
  the nation

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Midnights Children narrative methods

• (for your reference)
• The narrator and narrative methods (p. 3)
• Digressive, foreboding and summarizing.
• Talking about his own writings.
• A mixture of tones humorous, poetic, crude and
  with ribald jokes (e.g. snot)
• Mixing the personal and the historical/political
• Motifs -- e.g. hole in the nose, perforated
  sheet, p. 13 -

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Midnights Children Cultural Identity

• e.g. grandfather Aziz

Indian belief
Aziz
German knowledge
Boatman Tai
His mother
Ghanis house
His wife
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Midnights Children Kashmire
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references

• Encyclopedia Britannica Christopher Columbus
• Celebrate! Holidays In The U.S.A. Columbus Day
• Queen Isabella I of Spain Queen Isabella I of
  Spain