Assignment paper no 205: Diaspora on the Plate: Food, Memory, and Identity in Migrant Narratives

  Assignment paper no 205: Diaspora on the Plate: Food, Memory, and Identity in Migrant Narratives

Personal Information:-

Name:- Bhumi Mahida
Batch:-  M.A. Sem 3 (2024-2026)
Enrollment Number:- 51082240017
E-mail Address:- bhumimahida385@gmail.com
Roll Number:- 2

Assignment Details:

Topic:-“Class, Ideology, and Alienation: A Marxist Reading of George Orwell’s 1984”
Paper & subject code:-Paper 204: Contemporary Western Theories and Film Studies
Submitted to:- Smt. Sujata Binoy Gardi, Department of English, MKBU, Bhavnagar
Date of Submission:- 

Table of Contents :

Abstract
Keywords
Introduction
Theoretical Framework: Food, Culture, and Identity
Food, Memory, and the Homeland
Hybridity and Reinvention: Negotiating Identity Through Food
Food, Gender, and Domestic Space
Food, Globalization, and Cultural Exchange
Food as Cultural Text: Reading Memory and Belonging
Conclusion

Abstract :

Food is one of the most potent signifiers of culture, functioning not only as nourishment but also as a marker of memory, belonging, and identity. Within diasporic contexts, food becomes a language of continuity, resistance, and adaptation — a sensory archive that carries the flavors of home into foreign lands. This paper examines how food operates as a cultural text in diasporic narratives, focusing on the works of Jhumpa Lahiri and Hanif Kureishi, and on selected films such as The Hundred-Foot Journey and Bend It Like Beckham. Drawing upon the theoretical insights of Stuart Hall, Avtar Brah, and Arjun Appadurai, the discussion situates food at the intersection of migration, globalization, and identity. The essay argues that the preparation, consumption, and negotiation of food in migrant spaces symbolize the ongoing tension between memory and modernity — between preserving the past and adapting to the demands of the host culture. Ultimately, food becomes a form of cultural storytelling through which diasporic subjects reclaim agency and reimagine the meaning of “home.”

Keywords: 

Diaspora
Food
Identity
Memory
Globalization
Hybridity
Cultural belonging

Introduction :

Food, in its most elemental sense, sustains life, but within the realm of cultural theory, it also sustains identity. It is both material and metaphorical — a repository of shared traditions, collective memory, and affective ties to the homeland. In diasporic settings, food takes on an even greater symbolic weight: it mediates between the familiar and the foreign, connecting the migrant subject to a lost geography while allowing for new hybrid forms of belonging. As Avtar Brah observes, the “diaspora space” is not merely a geographic displacement but a psychic and cultural negotiation, a site where “the native” and “the foreign” coexist in complex entanglement.

This paper explores the cultural and theoretical implications of food in diasporic identity formation. Through the frameworks of Stuart Hall’s notion of identity as a “production,” Brah’s concept of “diaspora space,” and Arjun Appadurai’s idea of global cultural flows, food will be examined as a language of both memory and reinvention. By analyzing the literary works of Jhumpa Lahiri and Hanif Kureishi, alongside cinematic representations such as The Hundred-Foot Journey (2014) and Bend It Like Beckham (2002), this paper seeks to show how culinary practices become metaphors for negotiation, hybridity, and resistance within migrant narratives.

Theoretical Framework: Food, Culture, and Identity

Stuart Hall: Cultural Identity as Production :

In his seminal essay “Cultural Identity and Diaspora,” Stuart Hall challenges essentialist notions of identity, proposing instead that identity is a matter of “becoming” as much as of “being” (Hall 225). For Hall, identity is not a fixed essence carried intact from the homeland; it is constructed through continuous cultural negotiation. Within diasporic contexts, food operates precisely within this dynamic — it is both a nostalgic link to origin and a mutable practice reshaped by new surroundings. For example, the act of cooking traditional dishes in a foreign environment often results in improvisations born of necessity, reflecting the hybrid nature of diasporic existence. Food, then, becomes a performance of identity, one that constantly evolves as migrants reconcile their inherited tastes with their contemporary realities.

Avtar Brah: Diaspora and Displacement :

Avtar Brah extends this argument through her concept of “diaspora space,” which describes the cultural intersections where different histories of displacement meet. For Brah, diaspora is not simply a movement of people but a “convergence of multiple subjectivities”. Food becomes a tangible manifestation of this convergence. In diaspora kitchens, ingredients and cooking methods intertwine across cultural boundaries, producing hybrid cuisines that embody the coexistence of multiple identities. The act of eating or sharing food in such spaces fosters a sense of belonging while also marking difference — a duality central to diasporic identity.

Arjun Appadurai: Globalization and Culinary Imagination :

Arjun Appadurai’s Modernity at Large introduces the concept of global “-scapes” — ethnoscapes, mediascapes, technoscapes, financescapes, and ideoscapes — to describe the complex flows of people, media, and culture in the modern world. Food is a key element within these flows. As Appadurai argues, culinary practices travel and transform, shaping “global gastronomic imagination”. Migrants carry not only recipes but also the memories and meanings embedded in them. The global circulation of Indian, Chinese, or Caribbean cuisines thus reflects the migration of cultures themselves. Food in this sense becomes a transnational language that transcends borders yet retains traces of origin, embodying both continuity and change.

Food, Memory, and the Homeland :

Memory is central to the diasporic condition, and food serves as one of its most intimate triggers. The sensory experience of taste and smell often revives the memory of a lost home more vividly than language or landscape can. In Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake, food functions as a vital link between generations. For Ashima, preparing Bengali snacks such as muri-mix in her American kitchen becomes an act of emotional survival — a way of preserving her identity amidst the alienating spaces of Massachusetts. Lahiri describes Ashima’s longing for home through her cooking: “Ashima has been preparing the snack for herself since she came to Cambridge”. The act of making and eating familiar food provides comfort but also highlights displacement — a bittersweet reminder that the homeland now exists only through memory and imagination.

Similarly, in Interpreter of Maladies, Lahiri portrays food as a mode of cultural translation. In “Mrs. Sen’s,” the protagonist’s meticulous preparation of fish and vegetables from Calcutta becomes an act of reclaiming selfhood in an alien culture. Her kitchen becomes both a site of nostalgia and confinement, where the rhythms of chopping and frying are rituals of remembrance. The smell of mustard oil — a recurring motif — represents the persistence of cultural identity that refuses assimilation. Lahiri’s diasporic characters thus express their belonging through culinary practices, translating memory into the language of taste.

Hybridity and Reinvention: Negotiating Identity Through Food :

While food preserves memory, it also adapts to new cultural realities, embodying what Homi Bhabha calls “hybridity” — the merging of cultural elements into new, syncretic forms. Hanif Kureishi’s The Buddha of Suburbia exemplifies this negotiation of identity. Karim, the Anglo-Indian protagonist, navigates the cultural contradictions of being “a new breed” — neither entirely British nor fully Indian. Food in Kureishi’s novel symbolizes this hybrid position. The family’s meals blend British convenience food with Indian spices, mirroring their layered identities. The kitchen becomes a microcosm of postcolonial Britain, where curry coexists with chips, and authenticity is always in flux.

Kureishi also uses food as a tool for satire. When British characters embrace curry as a marker of cosmopolitan sophistication, the novel exposes how “ethnic” food is commodified and consumed without understanding its cultural significance. This aligns with bell hooks’s critique of “eating the Other,” where dominant cultures consume difference as exotic pleasure while ignoring its political roots. Thus, food in The Buddha of Suburbia reflects not only personal identity but also the politics of representation and cultural appropriation.

In filmic representations, The Hundred-Foot Journey dramatizes hybridity through the rivalry and eventual reconciliation between an Indian restaurant and a French one. The protagonist Hassan’s culinary journey — from cooking traditional Indian dishes to mastering French haute cuisine — embodies the negotiation between heritage and assimilation. Food becomes the medium through which cultural barriers are bridged, suggesting that hybrid identities can produce creative harmony rather than loss.

Similarly, Bend It Like Beckham portrays food as a symbol of generational conflict and eventual reconciliation. Jess’s mother insists that cooking Punjabi food defines womanhood, while Jess resists this domestic expectation to pursue football. Yet, by the film’s end, food becomes a site of mutual understanding — the family’s meals signify acceptance of hybridity rather than rejection of tradition. These representations highlight how diasporic identity is constantly redefined through negotiation, not opposition.

Food, Gender, and Domestic Space :

Within diasporic narratives, the kitchen often emerges as a gendered space where women perform both cultural preservation and creative resistance. For female migrants, cooking is a form of agency — a way to assert identity in contexts where other forms of self-expression may be limited. Ashima in The Namesake, Mrs. Sen in Interpreter of Maladies, and Mrs. Bhamra in Bend It Like Beckham embody this tension between domesticity and empowerment. Their culinary labor is both a duty and a declaration: through cooking, they reproduce culture, but through innovation, they also transform it.

Avtar Brah’s notion of “diaspora space” resonates here — it is within such domestic zones that the boundaries between “home” and “hostland” blur most visibly. The kitchen becomes a symbolic crossroads where histories of migration, gender, and cultural memory intersect. Food, therefore, is not only a sign of continuity but also a creative act that challenges patriarchal and colonial definitions of identity.

Food, Globalization, and Cultural Exchange :

In the contemporary global landscape, food has become a powerful vehicle for cultural exchange and representation. Arjun Appadurai argues that globalization leads not to cultural homogenization but to “new forms of global cultural production” (Appadurai 31). The global spread of Indian cuisine, for instance, reflects both migration and adaptation. Dishes like “chicken tikka masala” — often cited as Britain’s “national dish” — epitomize this cross-cultural fusion. They carry traces of colonial history, postcolonial migration, and capitalist commodification.

However, globalization also raises questions about authenticity and ownership. As diasporic cuisines become global commodities, their meanings shift. What once symbolized nostalgia and belonging may become a spectacle for global consumption. This paradox underscores the complexity of diasporic identity: the same food that connects migrants to their roots can also be appropriated and sanitized by dominant cultures.

Despite this tension, food continues to serve as a medium of dialogue. Migrant restaurants, cookbooks, and culinary television programs function as platforms for cross-cultural storytelling. They enable diasporic voices to redefine representation on their own terms, turning the act of eating into an act of understanding.

Food as Cultural Text: Reading Memory and Belonging :

Food operates as what Roland Barthes would call a “system of communication” — a semiotic code through which social meanings are produced. In diasporic narratives, each ingredient, recipe, or meal becomes a text that encodes histories of migration, adaptation, and resistance. Lahiri’s Bengali dishes, Kureishi’s Anglo-Indian meals, or the cinematic representations of multicultural cuisine all function as cultural scripts that articulate identity beyond words.

The act of sharing food — whether in a family dinner or a restaurant — creates what Benedict Anderson terms an “imagined community,” where the dispersed members of a diaspora momentarily experience unity. Through the sensory act of eating, migrants affirm that belonging can be rebuilt, not merely remembered. Food thus serves as both archive and art — a living narrative of who we were, who we are, and who we continue to become.

Conclusion :

Food, within the context of diaspora, transcends its material function to become a profound expression of identity, memory, and adaptation. It acts as a bridge between the lost homeland and the new world, embodying the tension between nostalgia and transformation. As this essay has demonstrated, the works of Jhumpa Lahiri and Hanif Kureishi, along with films like The Hundred-Foot Journey and Bend It Like Beckham, reveal how culinary practices narrate the migrant experience in rich and complex ways.

Guided by the theoretical insights of Hall, Brah, and Appadurai, we see that food in diasporic literature and film is not merely a motif but a method — a mode of storytelling that encodes the politics of belonging. In every spice, every meal, and every act of eating together, the migrant reclaims agency, articulates hybridity, and reimagines home. Food, ultimately, is both memory and invention — the taste of survival and the flavor of becoming.

Words :2020

Images : 02

References :

Appadurai, Arjun. “Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization.” Public Worlds, edited by Dilip Gaonkar and Benjamin Lee, vol. 1, UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA PRESS, 1996, mtusociology.github.io/assets/files/%5BArjun_Appadurai%5D_Modernity_at_Large_Cultural_Dim(Bookos.org).pdf.

Barthes, Roland. “MYTHOLOGIES.” THE NOONDAY PRESS - NEW YORK, translated by ANNETTE LAVERS, FARRAR, STRAUS and GIROUX, 1972, soundenvironments.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/roland-barthes-mythologies.pdf.

Cartographies of Diaspora: Contesting Identities. Routledge & CRC Press, www.routledge.com/Cartographies-of-Diaspora-Contesting-Identities/Brah/p/book/9780415121262.

Hall, Stuart. “Cultural Identity and Diaspora.” Identity: Community, Culture, Difference, edited by Jonathan Rutherford, Lawrence & Wishart, 1990, pp. 222–237. University of Warwick. 

Lahiri, Jhumpa. Interpreter of Maladies. iblit2013.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/lahiri-interpreter-of-maladies-full-text.pdf.

Lahiri, Jhumpa. The Namesake. HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY, 2003, www.ssgopalganj.in/online/E-Books/CLASS%20XII/THE%20NAMESAKE%20BY%20JHUMPA%20LAHIRI.pdf.

Bhav Gunjan Youth Festival 2025

 Bhav Gunjan Youth Festival 2025

This blog has been prepared as an academic assignment under the guidance of Dr. and Prof. Dilip Barad. It focuses on the 33rd Inter-College Youth Festival, “Bhav Gunjan,” organized by The Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University. The event was hosted by the Department of Physical Education and Cultural Activities and took place from October 8 to October 11, 2025.

The Youth Festival, fondly titled “Bhav Gunjan”—a phrase that poetically translates to *“The Resonance of Emotion”—was far more than a routine entry on the university calendar. Hosted by The Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University (MKBU) from October 8th to 11th, 2025, the event stood as a grand socio-cultural celebration, uniting imagination, artistry, and intellect. Across four vibrant days, the university campus came alive as a dynamic embodiment of the ‘Yuvaani ka Mahotsav’, truly symbolizing the festival of youth and creativity.

Kala-yatra  :

The Youth Festival opened with remarkable energy through the Kala-Yatra (Art Procession) on October 8th, a vibrant showcase that journeyed from Shamaldas Arts College to J.K. Sarvaiya College. More than a parade, it was a moving statement of social awareness, as each college presented thought-provoking performances addressing pressing contemporary issues.

Participants boldly highlighted the rise in gender-based violence, demanding justice and societal change; the flaws in the education system, criticizing its rigidity and commercialization; and the psychological impact of social media, exposing how virtual life erodes genuine human connection. Amid these serious reflections, other groups celebrated Gujarat’s cultural heritage, expressing pride in its traditions, language, and identity—balancing critique with cultural affirmation.

Assignment paper no 204 :“Class, Ideology, and Alienation: A Marxist Reading of George Orwell’s 1984”

Assignment paper no 204 :“Class, Ideology, and Alienation: A Marxist Reading of George Orwell’s 1984”

Personal Information:-

Name:- Bhumi Mahida
Batch:-  M.A. Sem 3 (2024-2026)
Enrollment Number:- 51082240017
E-mail Address:- bhumimahida385@gmail.com
Roll Number:- 2

Assignment Details:

Topic:-“Class, Ideology, and Alienation: A Marxist Reading of George Orwell’s 1984”
Paper & subject code:-Paper 204: Contemporary Western Theories and Film Studies
Submitted to:- Smt. Sujata Binoy Gardi, Department of English, MKBU, Bhavnagar
Date of Submission:- 

Table of Contents :

Abstract
Keywords
Introduction
Theoretical Framework: Marx, Althusser, and Ideology
Class Hierarchy and the Logic of Power
Ideological Manipulation: Language, Media, and Memory
Alienation and the Crisis of Subjectivity
The Party as the Ultimate Ideological State Apparatus
Revolution and the Limits of Resistance
Conclusion

Abstract :

George Orwell’s 1984 is often read as a dystopian critique of totalitarianism, but beneath its political surface lies a profound Marxist subtext that interrogates the class structures and ideological mechanisms of a capitalist-imperialist order gone to its logical extreme. This paper explores 1984 through the lens of Marxist criticism, focusing on how Orwell’s depiction of class hierarchy, ideological control, and alienation reflects Karl Marx’s theories of false consciousness and economic exploitation. Drawing upon the theoretical frameworks of Marx, Althusser, and Gramsci, the essay argues that Orwell’s dystopia represents a world in which ideology functions as both economic and psychological oppression. The Party’s manipulation of truth, language, and history embodies Althusser’s “Ideological State Apparatuses,” while Winston Smith’s fragmented consciousness mirrors the alienation of the proletariat under advanced capitalism. Ultimately, 1984 dramatizes the end point of capitalist logic — a total system where the distinction between material domination and ideological subjugation collapses, producing a world where resistance becomes both necessary and nearly impossible.

Keywords: 

Marxism
Ideology
Class struggle
Alienation
Althusser
False consciousness
Totalitarianism

Introduction: Orwell and Marxist Critique :

George Orwell’s 1984 (1949) stands as one of the twentieth century’s most haunting visions of a society dominated by total power. The world of Oceania — with its omnipresent surveillance, rigid class division, and psychological control — has often been seen as a critique of Stalinist communism. However, a deeper reading reveals that Orwell’s novel is equally a critique of capitalist modernity and its ideological apparatuses. Far from being merely anti-communist, 1984 exposes how power perpetuates itself by manufacturing consent, controlling consciousness, and reducing human life to a function of economic and political utility.

Marxist criticism provides a compelling framework to read 1984, because it interprets literature as a product of its historical and material conditions. As Terry Eagleton notes, “literature does not exist in a vacuum; it is a social institution that reflects and participates in class struggle” (Marxism and Literary Criticism 3). In this light, Orwell’s 1984 becomes not just a political allegory, but a text that reveals how ideology and class relations operate to reproduce the dominance of a ruling elite. By linking Marx’s theories of class and alienation with Louis Althusser’s concept of Ideological State Apparatuses, this essay examines how 1984 portrays the mechanisms of ideological control and the resulting alienation of the individual.

Theoretical Framework: Marx, Althusser, and Ideology :

Marx’s materialist theory begins with the distinction between base (the economic structure) and superstructure (the ideological and political institutions built upon it). In The German Ideology, Marx and Engels write that “the ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas.” Ideology, in this sense, functions to maintain the dominance of those who control the means of production. This false consciousness — the belief system that makes exploitation appear natural — ensures that the working class remains complicit in its own subjugation.

Building on Marx, Louis Althusser in his essay “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses” (1971) distinguishes between Repressive State Apparatuses (RSAs), such as the police or army, which function by coercion, and Ideological State Apparatuses (ISAs), such as education, media, and religion, which function by persuasion. Althusser’s insight is that ideology does not merely deceive individuals but “interpellates” them as subjects — forming their very sense of identity within the system. Thus, ideology operates not only externally but internally, shaping the individual’s desires, fears, and consciousness.

In Orwell’s 1984, these concepts converge powerfully. The Party uses both repressive and ideological mechanisms to maintain control. The Thought Police, Ministry of Truth, and Ministry of Love function as Althusserian apparatuses — enforcing conformity through both fear and belief. As Winston Smith observes, “If the Party could thrust its hand into the past and say of this or that event, it never happened — that, surely, was more terrifying than mere torture or death” (Orwell 40). The control of history becomes the control of reality itself, and thus of consciousness.

Class Hierarchy and the Logic of Power :

At the center of 1984 lies a rigid class structure that mirrors Marx’s analysis of capitalist society. Orwell divides Oceania into three groups: the Inner Party (the ruling elite), the Outer Party (the bureaucratic middle class), and the Proles (the exploited working class). This tripartite structure is a dystopian echo of Marx’s bourgeoisie–proletariat divide, intensified by total ideological control.

The Inner Party, represented by figures like O’Brien and Big Brother, controls both the material and ideological means of production. They do not merely own factories or resources but control the very production of truth. As Marx wrote, “The ruling ideas are nothing more than the ideal expression of the dominant material relationships” (The German Ideology 47). By monopolizing the means of communication, the Party ensures that the superstructure (language, thought, art, history) reflects and sustains its material dominance.

The Outer Party — including Winston — represents the intellectual laborers whose function is to maintain the ideological machinery. They are alienated not only from their labor but also from truth and memory. Winston’s job at the Ministry of Truth — rewriting history — literalizes Marx’s notion of alienated labor: work that estranges the worker from the product of his own activity. As Marx observed in Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, “The worker becomes all the poorer the more wealth he produces.” Winston’s revisions enrich the Party’s power even as they destroy his own grasp on reality.

Meanwhile, the Proles embody the unorganized masses — the potential revolutionary class in Marxist terms. Orwell’s narrator famously notes, “If there is hope, it lies in the proles” (Orwell 72). Yet this hope remains unrealized, as the proles are kept in ignorance through poverty, pornography, and cheap entertainment — instruments of what Gramsci calls “cultural hegemony.” Their potential revolutionary energy is neutralized by ideological distraction, making them complicit in their own domination.

Ideological Manipulation: Language, Media, and Memory :

One of Orwell’s most penetrating insights lies in his depiction of ideology as a system embedded in language itself. The invention of Newspeak, the Party’s official language, exemplifies Althusser’s argument that ideology constructs subjectivity. By reducing vocabulary and altering grammar, the Party limits the range of thought: “Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible” (Orwell 52). This linguistic control ensures that dissent cannot even be imagined — a direct illustration of how ideology operates through language to shape consciousness.

The Ministry of Truth, where Winston works, manipulates historical records to align with Party propaganda. This reflects the ideological function of media in capitalist societies: the production of “reality” as a consumable narrative. Althusser would describe this as the operation of an Ideological State Apparatus — producing “subjects” who internalize the Party’s vision as truth. The rewriting of history also dramatizes what Marx called the fetishism of commodities, where human relations are masked by objectified forms. In 1984, social relations are mediated not through commodities but through images — Big Brother’s face, slogans like “War is Peace,” and the two minutes hate — all functioning as ideological commodities that replace authentic human experience.

Alienation and the Crisis of Subjectivity :

Alienation, a central concept in Marxist theory, is both economic and existential in 1984. For Marx, alienation occurs when workers are estranged from the product of their labor, from others, and from themselves. In Orwell’s dystopia, this alienation is total — extending beyond labor into thought and emotion. Winston’s struggle is not merely political but deeply psychological: the attempt to reclaim a self in a world that denies subjectivity.

His diary, for instance, represents an act of alienated production. He writes for no audience, in defiance of a world that forbids personal expression. As he confesses, “Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four” (Orwell 84). This simple assertion becomes revolutionary because it reclaims the material reality of truth against ideological distortion. Yet Winston’s rebellion is ultimately absorbed and destroyed by the system — a tragic illustration of what Marx termed false consciousness, where individuals misrecognize the real source of their oppression.

Julia, too, embodies alienated resistance. Her rebellion is sensual rather than political — a private act within a collective nightmare. But even this is futile. When she and Winston are captured and reconditioned in the Ministry of Love, their love becomes a site of ideological reconstruction. “We are the dead,” Winston tells her; and indeed, under total ideology, authentic human relations are impossible.

The Party as the Ultimate Ideological State Apparatus :

The Party in 1984 is not merely a political institution; it is the ultimate Ideological State Apparatus — one that fuses coercion and consent, the repressive and ideological, into a seamless system. O’Brien articulates the Party’s logic bluntly: “If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face — forever” (Orwell 280). This horrifying image captures the perpetual reproduction of power that Althusser describes: the system endures not by external domination alone but by shaping internal belief.

The Party’s slogans — “War is Peace,” “Freedom is Slavery,” “Ignorance is Strength” — function as ideological paradoxes that dissolve contradiction, much like capitalist ideology itself, which justifies exploitation as “freedom of the market.” The perpetual war economy in 1984 mirrors Marx’s analysis of capitalism’s need for continuous production and destruction to sustain itself. The enemy — Eastasia or Eurasia — changes, but the system persists, proving that ideology’s function is to obscure the material relations of power beneath an endless spectacle of conflict.

Revolution and the Limits of Resistance :

Orwell’s pessimism lies in his recognition that ideology is not easily escaped. Winston’s final defeat — his acceptance of Big Brother — illustrates Althusser’s assertion that “there is no outside to ideology.” The system not only punishes dissent but absorbs it. The rebellion becomes another ritual of power, its failure reinforcing the inevitability of control.

Yet, in Marxist terms, 1984 still affirms the necessity of class consciousness. The proles, though politically inert, remain symbolically vital: “They were human beings. We are not human” (Orwell 166). In this recognition lies the glimmer of revolutionary potential. Orwell’s despair thus contains an implicit critique of modern capitalism — a world where technology, bureaucracy, and ideology combine to annihilate individuality. His vision anticipates the conditions of late capitalism described by Fredric Jameson, where “the cultural logic of capital” colonizes even the imagination.

Conclusion :

George Orwell’s 1984 endures as one of the most incisive literary representations of ideology and class domination. Through a Marxist lens, the novel reveals a world in which the superstructure of ideology has completely absorbed the material base — a world where power reproduces itself not only through economic control but through the very formation of thought. The Party’s manipulation of language, history, and emotion exemplifies Althusser’s Ideological State Apparatuses, while Winston’s alienation dramatizes Marx’s theory of estranged labor in psychological form.

Ultimately, Orwell’s dystopia is not only a warning against totalitarianism but a critique of the capitalist logic of domination that makes such systems possible. It is a world where false consciousness becomes absolute — where ideology ceases to mask exploitation because it becomes indistinguishable from reality itself. In this sense, 1984 remains profoundly Marxist: it insists that freedom requires the awakening of class consciousness and the recovery of authentic human subjectivity from the machinery of power.

Words : 1980

Images : 05

References :

Althusser, Louis. Ideology and  Ideological State Apparatuses by Louis Althusser 1969-70. www.marxists.org/reference/archive/althusser/1970/ideology.htm.

Eagleton, Terry. Marxism and Literary Criticism. Routledge, 2002.

Marx, Karl. Marx’s Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844. www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/manuscripts/preface.htm.

Orwell, George. 1984. Penguin Books, 2013.

Stedman Jones, Gareth. "Karl Marx’s Changing Picture of the End of Capitalism." Journal of the British Academy, vol. 6, 2018, pp. 187-206. Accessed  1 Nov. 2025.

White, Richard. “George Orwell: Socialism and Utopia.” Utopian Studies, vol. 19, no. 1, 2008, pp. 73–95. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/20719892. Accessed 1 Nov. 2025.

Assignment paper no 203 : “Racism and the Psychology of the Colonised: Identity, Resistance and Subjectivity in The Wretched of the Earth.”

  Assignment paper no 203 : “Racism and the Psychology of the Colonised: Identity, Resistance and Subjectivity in The Wretched of the Earth.”

Personal Information:-

Name:- Bhumi Mahida
Batch:-  M.A. Sem 3 (2024-2026)
Enrollment Number:- 51082240017
E-mail Address:- bhumimahida385@gmail.com
Roll Number:- 2

Assignment Details:-

Topic:- “History as Narrative: Saleem Sinai’s Memory-Making and the Politics of Truth in Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children”
Paper & subject code:-Paper 202: Indian English Literature – Post-Independence
Submitted to:- Smt. Sujata Binoy Gardi, Department of English, MKBU, Bhavnagar
Date of Submission:- 

Table of Contents :

Abstract
Keywords
Introduction
The Colonial World & the Making of the Colonised Subject
Psychic Impact: Identity, Inferiority Complex & Mental Health
Resistance, Subjectivity and the Re-Making of the Colonised Agent
Conclusion

Abstract :

Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth (1961) remains one of the most powerful examinations of how colonialism deforms both the political and psychological landscapes of the colonised world. This paper explores Fanon’s profound analysis of racism as a structural and psychic mechanism that constructs the colonised subject as inferior, fragmented, and dependent on the coloniser’s gaze. It argues that colonial domination extends beyond physical exploitation into the inner life of the colonised, where identity becomes a site of conflict and alienation. Fanon’s insights—rooted in his psychiatric practice in Algeria—reveal that racism produces an internalised inferiority complex and psychological trauma that sustain colonial hierarchies. However, the paper also highlights Fanon’s emphasis on resistance: through revolutionary struggle, the colonised can reclaim agency, heal psychic wounds, and reconstruct subjectivity independent of colonial definitions. By analysing key chapters such as “On Violence” and “Colonial War and Mental Disorders,” this study situates Fanon’s thought at the intersection of psychology, politics, and decolonial theory. Ultimately, it contends that Fanon’s work demonstrates how the fight against colonial racism must entail both political liberation and psychological decolonisation, leading to the creation of a new humanism founded on equality, dignity, and self-definition.

Keywords :

Colonialism and Racism
Psychology of the Colonised
Inferiority Complex
Identity and Subjectivity
Oppression and Mental Health
Resistance and Liberation
Decolonisation
Violence and Healing

Introduction :

Frantz Fanon (1925–1961) stands as one of the most influential figures in postcolonial thought, renowned for his profound engagement with the psychological and political dimensions of colonialism. Born in Martinique, a French colony, and later trained as a psychiatrist in France, Fanon combined his medical expertise with revolutionary activism during the Algerian War of Independence. His dual identity as both a doctor and anti-colonial theorist gave him unique insight into how systems of racial domination affect not only the structures of nations but also the inner lives of individuals. The Wretched of the Earth (1961), his final and most celebrated work, was written during the last years of his life and became a manifesto for decolonisation across Africa and the Third World. It explores how colonial power dehumanises the colonised, producing not only economic and political dependency but also deep psychological scars that continue long after formal independence.

This paper focuses on how Fanon articulates the psychological impact of racism on the colonised subject, analysing the ways in which colonialism distorts identity, breeds an inferiority complex, and suppresses subjectivity. For Fanon, colonial racism functions as an invisible yet pervasive force that infiltrates consciousness, shaping how the colonised see themselves and their world. Through his psychiatric observations and political analysis, Fanon reveals that colonial domination thrives on internalised self-hatred, alienation, and psychic disintegration.

The essay will explore four key dimensions of Fanon’s argument: first, the construction of the colonial world and the making of the colonised subject; second, the psychological consequences of racism—particularly the inferiority complex and identity crisis; third, the processes of resistance and the reclamation of subjectivity; and finally, the broader implications for liberation and human renewal. Ultimately, it argues that for Fanon, the struggle against colonialism is inseparable from the struggle for psychological freedom and self-definition.

The Colonial World and the Making of the Colonised Subject :

In The Wretched of the Earth, Frantz Fanon opens his analysis of colonialism by describing the colonial world as a space defined by absolute division. He famously declares that “the colonial world is a Manichaean world,” a dualistic order that separates humanity into two irreconcilable zones: coloniser and colonised, white and black, civilised and savage (Fanon 40). This binary is not merely geographic or political but ontological—it defines being itself. The coloniser’s world is clean, ordered, and privileged, while the colonised zone is chaotic, impoverished, and brutalised. Such a system relies on the fiction of racial hierarchy, constructing whiteness as the embodiment of civilisation and blackness as the mark of primitiveness. As LitCharts observes, Fanon’s Manichaean structure reveals how colonialism organises the entire social and moral universe around racial difference, where every aspect of life—from spatial arrangement to language—reaffirms the coloniser’s superiority and the colonised subject’s degradation.

Racism, therefore, is not an incidental feature of colonial rule but its foundation. Fanon argues that colonialism is sustained through the systematic dehumanisation of the colonised, reducing them to the level of animals or things. The colonised body becomes a site upon which inferiority is inscribed and constantly reinforced through violence, stereotypes, and economic subjugation. As LitCharts notes, this racialisation transforms colonial power into a totalising system that governs not only what the colonised can do but who they can be. Colonialism’s power lies in its capacity to define the limits of the possible for the colonised subject—to make them internalise the image of their own inferiority.

Fanon captures this psychological mechanism when he writes, “Because it is a systematized negation of the other, colonialism forces the colonized to constantly ask the question: ‘Who am I in reality?’” (The Wretched of the Earth, qtd. in GradeSaver). This existential crisis reflects the deeper function of racism: it alienates individuals from their own humanity and replaces it with a distorted self-perception constructed by the coloniser. The colonised are compelled to see themselves through the lens of the oppressor, internalising stereotypes of backwardness and moral deficiency. As ERIC commentary on Fanon notes, colonialism’s greatest violence lies not only in its physical brutality but in its everyday, structural racism that normalises inequality and subordination. Racial violence thus becomes both overt—manifest in police force and segregation—and covert, embedded within the psychological and cultural institutions that shape identity.

Fanon’s insight is that colonial domination operates on multiple levels: economic, political, and crucially, psychological. The colonised do not merely obey the coloniser’s rule; they come to internalise the coloniser’s gaze, values, and judgments. As SAGE Publications observes, this internalisation produces what Fanon identifies as a “colonised consciousness”—a psyche fractured between imposed inferiority and a repressed desire for self-affirmation. The process of colonisation thus creates subjects who are both oppressed and shaped by the structures that oppress them.

Having examined how the colonial world constructs subjectivity through racism and division, we can now turn to the psychic consequences of this system—the inferiority complex, identity crisis, and psychological disorders that arise from internalised oppression in the colonised mind.

Psychic Impact: Identity, Inferiority Complex & Mental Health :

Begin by stating that one of Fanon’s major concerns is the psychological injury inflicted by colonial racism. For example, he links colonial war, torture, humiliation to psychological disorders. 

Inferiority complex and identity crisis:

Explain how the colonised subject internalises the racial hierarchy, developing feelings of inadequacy and self-negation. 

Cite Fanon’s notion of “epidermalization” (though more fully in Black Skin, White Masks) but apply that logic here: identity becomes skin deep, a marker of inferiority. 

Illustrate: Fanon says that being told one is bad, savage, inferior becomes part of the self-image. “The native’s sector is a place of ill fame, … men live there on top of each other…” 

Mental health and trauma:

Fanon as psychiatrist treated colonised patients: he observed psychotic reactions, neuroses, violence arising from colonial oppression. 

Example: The colonised man “surviving a massacre… developed homicidal impulses”

The effect of systemic dehumanisation: The colonised lives under constant “atmospheric violence” (ongoing, unseen) which erodes mental health. 

Subjectivity and split self:

The colonised subject is split: on one hand the imposed identity (inferior, other), on the other their own human being trying to assert itself. Fanon: “the identity of the subjugated is defined through the discourse … of the subjugator …” 

This internal conflict creates alienation, self-hatred, and a fractured sense of self

Linking identity, mental health and resistance:

The inferiority complex and psychic wounds are not merely collateral—they are integral to keeping colonial domination functional. When the colonised subject accepts their inferiority, resistance is stifled.

Fanon insists that healing the psyche requires decolonisation of the mind, not just of territory.

Resistance, Subjectivity and the Re-Making of the Colonised Agent :

Although The Wretched of the Earth lays bare the destructive power of colonial domination, Frantz Fanon refuses to portray the colonised as passive victims of history. He conceives them as capable of agency, transformation, and revolt. For Fanon, decolonisation is not merely a political transfer of power from coloniser to colonised; it is a total re-creation of humanity itself. The colonised, long denied subjectivity, must reclaim it through struggle—an act that is at once political, social, and psychological. As GradeSaver notes, Fanon situates liberation in the realm of human becoming: revolution is not only about reclaiming land but about reconstructing the self that colonialism has mutilated.

Central to Fanon’s understanding of resistance is his controversial argument that violence can serve as a means of psychic liberation. In the opening chapter “On Violence,” he writes, “At the individual level, violence is a cleansing force. It rids the colonized of their inferiority complex and of their despair and inaction; it makes them fearless and restores their self-respect”. For Fanon, colonialism is founded upon violence—military, structural, and psychological—and only through counter-violence can the colonised break the chains of subjugation. Violence becomes a radical form of self-assertion, a cathartic process through which the colonised subject reclaims agency and dignity. It shatters the internalised image of weakness imposed by the coloniser and replaces it with a sense of potency and self-worth. As scholars have observed, Fanon’s notion of revolutionary violence is less about revenge and more about renewal: it destroys the coloniser’s value system and allows the colonised to rebuild a moral universe of their own.

This transformation of identity lies at the heart of Fanon’s humanism. He demands that the colonised become what he calls “new men,” freed from the inferiority complexes and false identities imposed upon them. The creation of this new humanity requires rejecting the coloniser’s categories—white superiority, black inferiority, savagery, and civilisation—and constructing a new subjectivity grounded in dignity and equality. As GradeSaver’s analysis notes, Fanon’s call for the “new man” symbolises the rebirth of subjectivity: a person no longer defined by the coloniser’s gaze but by self-determined agency. The colonised must cease to measure themselves by colonial standards and instead affirm their humanity through collective struggle, cultural regeneration, and self-knowledge.

Resistance, therefore, is not confined to political or military confrontation; it extends deeply into the psychic realm. Fanon argues that decolonisation must involve a psychological revolution—the unlearning of inferiority and the reassertion of selfhood. The colonised must deconstruct the mental architecture of dependency and reclaim the cultural values that colonialism has denigrated. As EWriter29 notes, Fanon views decolonisation as both an external and internal process: it liberates territories, but it must also heal minds. Without psychological renewal, political independence risks reproducing colonial hierarchies under new names. Hence, decolonisation for Fanon is a form of mental healing, restoring the colonised subject’s capacity for self-love, creativity, and solidarity.

Yet Fanon also recognises the contradictions that accompany this process. He warns that if liberation does not include decolonisation of consciousness, the new ruling elites may mimic the attitudes and structures of the colonisers, producing what he calls “neocolonial” societies. The colonised intellectual, in particular, risks replicating the coloniser’s categories, aspiring to European approval rather than indigenous renewal. True emancipation, Fanon insists, requires vigilance against such psychic colonisation; otherwise, the cycle of alienation continues under a different guise.

In sum, Fanon’s theory of resistance situates the psychological dimension at the centre of decolonisation. Identity, inferiority, subjectivity, and resistance are inextricably linked. The act of liberation is both external and internal: to overthrow colonialism is to cure the colonial mentality. Through struggle—both physical and psychological—the colonised reclaim their humanity, transforming from objects of history into its active creators.

Conclusion :

Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth offers one of the most profound explorations of how colonialism and racism intertwine to shape not only political structures but also the deepest layers of human psychology. Throughout his work, Fanon maps the racialised making of the colonised subject, showing how colonialism operates through binaries—white/black, civilised/savage—that strip the colonised of identity and humanity. He exposes how these hierarchies inflict psychic wounds, producing internalised inferiority and fractured selfhood. Yet Fanon equally insists on the possibility of healing through resistance: the reclaiming of subjectivity, the destruction of colonial values, and the birth of what he calls “new men.” Violence, for Fanon, becomes symbolic of this rebirth—a means of cleansing the mind and restoring dignity to the colonised psyche.

For postgraduate inquiry, Fanon’s analysis reveals that racism and colonial domination are not merely material or structural but profoundly psychological and cultural. The coloniser’s power endures through the control of imagination and self-perception, and liberation must therefore begin in the mind as much as in the streets. Fanon’s insights remain strikingly relevant in contemporary discussions of internalised racism, postcolonial identity, and systemic inequality. The journey of the colonised subject, as Fanon envisions it, is thus both inward and outward—a struggle to rebuild the self as much as to reclaim the nation. True freedom, in his view, emerges when the colonised cease to live under the shadow of inferiority and become creators of their own human destiny.

Words : 2287

Images : 02

References :

Burke, Edmund. “Frantz Fanon’s ‘The Wretched of the Earth.’” Daedalus, vol. 105, no. 1, 1976, pp. 127–35. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/20024388. Accessed 31 Oct. 2025.

Colonialism, Racism, and Violence Theme in the Wretched of the Earth | LitCharts. LitCharts, www.litcharts.com/lit/the-wretched-of-the-earth/themes/colonialism-racism-and-violence.

Consciousness: Fanon’s Origins for the Postcolonial Self – Serena E. Suson. journeys.dartmouth.edu/serenaesuson25/consciousness-fanons-origins-for-the-postcolonial-self.

Fairchild, Halford H. “Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth in Contemporary Perspective.” Journal of Black Studies, vol. 25, no. 2, 1994, pp. 191–99. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/2784461. Accessed 31 Oct. 2025.

Fanon, Frantz. The Wretched of the Earth. Translated by Constance Farrington, Penguin, 2001.

Assignment paper no 202 :“History as Narrative: Saleem Sinai’s Memory-Making and the Politics of Truth in Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children”

  Assignment paper no 202 :“History as Narrative: Saleem Sinai’s Memory-Making and the Politics of Truth in Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children”

Personal Information:-

Name:- Bhumi Mahida

Batch:-  M.A. Sem 3 (2024-2026)

Enrollment Number:- 51082240017

E-mail Address:- bhumimahida385@gmail.com

Roll Number:- 2

Assignment Details:-

Topic:- “History as Narrative: Saleem Sinai’s Memory-Making and the Politics of Truth in Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children”

Paper & subject code:-Paper 202: Indian English Literature – Post-Independence

Submitted to:- Smt. Sujata Binoy Gardi, Department of English, MKBU, Bhavnagar

Date of Submission:- 

Table of Contents :

Abstract

Keywords

Introduction

History, Memory, and Postcolonial Context 

Saleem’s Storytelling and the Rewriting of History

Theoretical Framing: Memory, Narrative Authority, and Competing Histories

Conclusion: The Politics of Remembering

Abstract :

Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children (1981) redefines history through the unreliable yet imaginative narrative of its protagonist, Saleem Sinai. The novel transforms India’s postcolonial history into a personal myth, challenging the authority of “official” national narratives. Through Saleem’s fragmented storytelling, Rushdie explores how memory constructs and contests truth. This paper argues that Midnight’s Children frames history not as a fixed record but as a dynamic narrative shaped by memory, identity, and imagination. Rushdie’s fusion of magical realism and historiography exposes the politics behind who gets to tell the story of the nation, suggesting that truth itself is plural and narrative-bound.

Keywords: 

Midnight’s Children

postcolonialism

historiography

memory

narrative

nation

truth

magical realism

Introduction :

Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children (1981) stands as one of the most significant postcolonial novels of the twentieth century, redefining how history is written and remembered. Through the character of Saleem Sinai—born at the precise moment of India’s independence—Rushdie transforms the national history of India into a deeply personal narrative. The novel’s opening line, “I was born in the city of Bombay… on the stroke of midnight,” sets the stage for a symbolic relationship between individual life and collective history (Rushdie 3).

This paper argues that Rushdie deliberately frames national history as an act of storytelling. Saleem’s unreliable narration and his flawed memory expose how history, like fiction, is constructed rather than discovered. By transforming historical events—Partition, the Emergency, and post-Independence politics—into acts of personal remembrance, Rushdie questions the authority of state historiography. The novel reveals that personal memory, though fallible, can resist the homogenizing power of official truth.

History, Memory, and Postcolonial Context :

In postcolonial literature, history often becomes a site of contestation between colonial and indigenous voices. As Homi K. Bhabha notes, “the nation’s narrative is always the story of its difference” (Nation and Narration 1). Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children epitomizes this tension, blending myth, history, and memory to reclaim a fragmented national identity.

Postcolonial writers frequently view history as a colonized discourse—shaped by the language, perspective, and priorities of the imperial power. Edward Said, in Culture and Imperialism, argues that narrative is central to empire-building: “Empire requires narratives to justify itself” (Said xii). Rushdie reverses this by giving narrative power to the formerly colonized subject.

Saleem’s storytelling does not seek accuracy but authenticity. His errors, exaggerations, and revisions mirror the instability of collective memory itself. Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths, and Helen Tiffin in The Empire Writes Back describe this as “writing back to the empire,” a form of cultural resistance that reclaims the power of narration (Ashcroft et al. 7). Thus, Rushdie’s historiography is postcolonial in method and purpose: it dismantles colonial archives and reconstructs them through memory and imagination.

In Midnight’s Children, history becomes a palimpsest—layered with voices, contradictions, and subjective recollections that reveal more about identity and power than about chronological fact.

Saleem’s Storytelling and the Rewriting of History :

Rushdie uses Saleem Sinai’s voice to dramatize how history is narrated rather than lived. Saleem serves simultaneously as participant, chronicler, and unreliable historian. His attempt to write the story of India through his own life demonstrates how the personal and national are inseparably entwined.

1. The Birth of Saleem and the Birth of a Nation

Saleem’s birth at midnight on August 15, 1947, directly links his body to the nation’s birth. This symbolic coincidence foregrounds the novel’s central conceit: the child’s life parallels the trajectory of postcolonial India. Saleem’s insistence that his “destiny is handcuffed to history” (Rushdie 9) suggests that history is an imaginative construct, not an objective record.

However, as Saleem’s narrative unfolds, his memory becomes increasingly unreliable—distorted by time, trauma, and personal desire. This unreliability functions not as a flaw but as a political statement: Rushdie asserts that all history, including that written by states, is subjective.

2. Partition and the Trauma of Memory

The Partition of India (1947) is one of the novel’s pivotal events. Saleem’s recounting of Partition blurs myth and history, memory and imagination. His descriptions of violence are filtered through his personal emotions and family conflicts. He admits, “I told myself stories about the stories I told” (Rushdie 231). This self-reflexivity shows that historical events become meaningful only when narrated.

The fragmentation of Saleem’s memory reflects the fragmentation of the subcontinent itself. As Neil ten Kortenaar observes, “Rushdie makes the nation itself a narrative construct, as fictional as Saleem’s autobiography” (Critical Essays on Salman Rushdie 57).

3. The Emergency and the Control of Narrative

The Emergency period (1975–77), under Indira Gandhi’s rule, represents the climax of Rushdie’s critique of historical control. Saleem’s sterilization symbolizes the state’s attempt to silence individual and reproductive power—metaphors for both creativity and dissent. The erasure of the “midnight’s children” parallels the government’s erasure of alternative histories.

Rushdie exposes the politics of truth: the state seeks to control how history is told, while Saleem’s chaotic storytelling resists that control. His fragmented memories, however inconsistent, preserve the multiplicity of Indian experience.

4. Memory as Survival

Saleem’s obsessive act of narration—writing down his story before he “cracks like an old pot”—is a struggle against oblivion (Rushdie 36). His “memory-making” becomes a moral act of survival. By re-telling and re-imagining the past, he ensures that marginalized experiences persist despite political erasure.

As critic Linda Hutcheon argues, postmodern historiographic metafiction like Midnight’s Children “problematizes the very possibility of historical knowledge” (A Poetics of Postmodernism 122). Rushdie’s technique—interweaving myth, fantasy, and fact—mirrors India’s pluralistic reality, rejecting the colonial idea of linear history.

Thus, Saleem’s unreliable storytelling becomes Rushdie’s means of democratizing history: every version of the past, no matter how flawed, deserves to be told.

Theoretical Framing: Memory, Narrative Authority, and Competing Histories :

Rushdie’s narrative engages with postmodern and postcolonial theories of history and truth. Michel Foucault’s idea that power and knowledge are intertwined resonates deeply with Rushdie’s portrayal of the Emergency. The control of archives, censorship, and propaganda all demonstrate how authority determines what counts as “truth.”

Similarly, Hayden White’s concept of “emplotment” in Metahistory (1973) reveals that historical writing is itself a form of narrative construction. By applying literary forms (tragedy, romance, comedy) to historical events, historians inevitably shape the reader’s perception of truth. Rushdie dramatizes this idea through Saleem, whose “errors” highlight the narrative nature of all historiography.

Paul Ricoeur’s Memory, History, Forgetting (2004) also informs this reading. Ricoeur distinguishes between memory as personal recollection and history as collective documentation, arguing that both depend on interpretation. Saleem’s personal memory blurs these boundaries: his memories are collective and mythical, encompassing the nation’s joys and traumas.

Furthermore, Rushdie’s own essay “Imaginary Homelands” provides an authorial lens: “The past is a country from which we have all emigrated… its loss is part of our common humanity” (Rushdie Imaginary Homelands 12). Here, Rushdie suggests that memory is both creative and compensatory—it fills the gaps left by history’s silences.

By aligning Saleem’s storytelling with postmodern theories of narrative and postcolonial critiques of historiography, Midnight’s Children becomes a text that resists closure. It insists that there is no single “truth” of history, only a chorus of memories competing to be heard.

Conclusion: 

In Midnight’s Children, Salman Rushdie transforms the act of remembering into an act of resistance. Saleem’s fragmented, digressive narrative destabilizes the idea that national history is coherent or authoritative. Instead, history emerges as a mosaic of personal memories, myths, and interpretations.

Rushdie’s use of magical realism further emphasizes the blurred boundary between fact and fiction. The “midnight’s children,” each endowed with supernatural powers, symbolize India’s pluralism and its fractured identity. Their eventual disintegration reflects the nation’s lost potential but also underscores the fragility of collective memory.

By presenting Saleem as an unreliable narrator, Rushdie exposes how history depends on who tells it—and from where. His fallibility becomes a metaphor for the postcolonial condition: nations, like individuals, reconstruct their pasts through memory and imagination.

Ultimately, Rushdie’s novel suggests that truth is not discovered but narrated. In giving narrative power to the marginalized and the mistaken, Midnight’s Children restores humanity to the process of history-making. As a literary event, it challenges both the imperial archive and the nationalist myth, asserting that fiction can reveal deeper truths than historical documentation ever could.

Thus, the novel’s politics of truth lies not in accuracy but in plurality—in the coexistence of many stories, voices, and memories that together create the living fabric of postcolonial India.

Words : 1656

Images : 04

References :

Ashcroft, Bill, et al. The Empire Writes Back. 1989. 2nd edition, Routledge, 2002, elearning.alberts.edu.in/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Ashcroft_Bill_Gareth_Griffiths_Helen_Tif-1.pdf.

Bhabha, Homi K., editor. Nation and Narration. Routledge, 1990.

Györke, Ágnes. “ALLEGORIES OF NATION IN ‘MIDNIGHT’S CHILDREN.’” Hungarian Journal of English and American Studies (HJEAS), vol. 7, no. 2, 2001, pp. 169–90. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/41274152. Accessed 31 Oct. 2025.

Kumar, Prashant. “Midnight’s Children: An Allegory of Indian History.” Advances and Scholarly Researches in Allied Education |, 2 October 2022, https://ignited.in/a/57702. Accessed 30 October 2025.

“Midnight’s Children: analysis and symbols of the book.” 16 June 2023, https://auralcrave.com/en/2020/06/07/midnights-children-analysis-and-symbols-of-the-book/?expand_article=1. Accessed 30 October 2025.

Novianti, Nita. “Unveiling India through “the Perforated Sheet” in Rushdie's Midnight's Children.” Academia.edu,

https://www.academia.edu/10148444/Unveiling_India_through_the_Perforated_Sheet_in_Rushdie_s_Midnight_s_Children. Accessed 30 October 2025.

Ricœur, Paul. Memory, History, Forgetting. University of Chicago Press, 2004, http://catdir.loc.gov/catdir/bios/uchi051/2004001269.html.

Rushdie, Salman. Midnight’s Children. Vintage, 1995.