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Magic Realism as a Postmodern Device

To understand Rushdie’s work we must class him as a postmodernist and the author from ‘elsewhere’. Most of the authors who write in English but are from foreign origin are not included in the canon of English literature. Even though Salman Rushdie comes from India, he is incorporated in this canon. At the same time he is considered a postmodernist and post-colonial author, since “postmodernism shares concerns with those who, because of class, race, gender, or sexual preferences, are ‘other’ than, and have been marginalized by, the dominant tradition” (Lee XI). We can see that almost all of Rushdie’s heroes come from India, which was for many years under British control. These ‘marginalized’ heroes are always somehow confronted with the mainstream culture and the clash between western and eastern cultures (or ‘reality’ and ‘magic’, respectively) is best depicted by the use of magic realism. By this comparison of the two approaches to life and two ways of thinking, “Magic Realism serves to avoid privileging a Western perspective above the Eastern view [...]” because in the Eastern world “miracles do happen, and reality is magic” (Seminck 33).

The term ‘postmodernism‘ originated in the 1930s in Latin America thanks to the critic Federico de Onis and later was reused throughout the 40s and 50s in Europe and the United States. As well as the magic realism, the term ‘postmodernism‘ has gained wide recognition and acceptance particularly in the 1980s “in which it has come to stand for a general movement in the arts, and even in forms of behaviour and daily life“ (Zamora 192-193). Even though the postmodernism is said to deal with the problems of race, gender and the somewhat marginalized heroes in general, in the beginning it was almost completely dominated by authors who where white and male (Bertens ). However, since the early 1980s the term applies also to authors from other countries than Europe or the United States, e.g. Australia, South Africa, India and others. These are the reasons why Salman Rushdie ranks among the postmodern writers.

Theo L. D’haen in his study on magic realism and postmodernism introduces several features that mark postmodernism; these are for instance metafiction, discontinuity, intertextuality, parody, the erasure of boundaries, and the destabilization of the reader (Zamora 194). I have chosen these features because I think they also represent the magic realism (as used in postmodernism). It could be said that between postmodernism and magic realism there is “established a hierarchical relation“ (Zamora 194). It follows that magic realism is concerned with problems that are central to postmodern literature. For example, D’haen introduces Richard Todd’s essay that deals with Rushdie’s Shame. “He sees this novel as achieving its magic realist programme by way of the very same techniques usually singled out as marking postmodernism“ (Zamora 194).

As was mentioned before, magic realism as a postmodern device wants to erase the boundaries between privileged West and marginalized East. At the same time it can also function as “a sign of the otherness of non-Western society“ (Zamora 198). The otherness in this case is meant as something to be proud of. Nevertheless, magic realism in postmodern literature is largly used to criticise the established order in different spheres of public life.

I would like to conclude this chapter with an answer by Salman Rushdie when he was asked about the impact of postmodernism (and magic realism likewise) on his writing: “If you arrive in a society as a migrant, your position is automatically a dislocated one, and so you have to work out a literary mode which can allow that kind of conflict of descriptions to take place in it“ (qtd. in Sandhu).

3. The Phenomenon of Salman Rushdie

For a better understanding of Salman Rushdie’s work it is important to know from what background the author comes. In the case of Rushdie, this is more than important because all his works have an evident connection to the place he was born. Most of his fiction is set on the Indian subcontinent and depicts the life of its inhabitants either in their home country or in the western world – the two areas where Rushdie has lived, respectively.

Salman Rushdie was born on June 19, 1947 in Bombay, India to a Muslim family. The Rushdie family was relatively tolerated in Hindu Bombay and thus decided not to move to the officially Muslim Pakistan after the partition of India. At the age of thirteen, he was sent to study in England – first at the Rugby School and later at King’s College at Cambridge. After graduation in 1968 he returned home; this time not to Bombay but to Karachi in Pakistan where his family moved in 1964. By 1970 Rushdie began with professional writing. His career started with Grimus, a fantastic tale, which was generally neglected by the readers as well as literary critics. His next novel, Midnight's Children, published in 1980, was a huge critical and commercial success. In 1993 this work was awarded the 'Booker of Bookers'¹ prize. After this success, in 1983 Rushdie wrote a short novel, Shame, where he depicts the political disorder in Pakistan. Both these works (and also The Satanic Verses later) are characterised by, apart from the style of magic realism, the immigrant perspective of which Rushdie is very conscious.

During the work on his most controversial book The Satanic Verses, Rushdie was invited to attend the seventh anniversary celebration of the Nicaraguan revolution. After the trip he wrote a travel narrative The Jaguar Smile: A Nicaraguan Journey (1987). In 1988 followed the publication of The Satanic Verses which caused the well-known fatwa (see. Chapter 4.3.). Even though he was under such strenuous circumstances, he continued to write ficiton. In 1990 he published a children’s tale Haroun and the Sea Stories and in 1995 another novel which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize – The Moor’s Last Sight. His latest works focus more on the life in Western world, e.g. The Ground Beneath Her Feet (1999) and Fury (2001). His newest book Shalimar the Clown (2005) was a finalist for the Whitbread Book Awards.

He is also the author of several collections of essays, among them are the Imaginary Homelands: Essays and Criticism 1981-1991 (1991) and Step Across This Line: Collected Non-fiction 1992-2002 (2002). (Wikipedia; Brennan)²

3. 
   The Three Novels
   

For my thesis I have chosen the early three novels by Salman Rushdie: Midnight’s Children (1981), Shame (1983) and The Satanic Verses (1988). These three novels are sometimes said to create a ‘trilogy’. Of course it is not a trilogy in the sense that the plots of individual novels follow each other and neither the characters are the same. It is rather a ‘group’ of novels that have common themes and deal with similar topics.

Certainly, one of the factor that unites these three books is the use of magic realism. By applying the elements of magic realism, Rushdie mainly deals with the problem of migrants and one’s identity. In all these novels the main hero or heroes move from their homeland somewhere else where they are considered foreigners and at the same time they must learn how to deal with that situation. Rather than looking at the theme from a political perspective Rushdie views it from the human point of view. Yet we cannot say that Ruhdie completely avoids politics because he does not. Nevertheless, the politics in his novels is not central and he himself stresses that he is more devoted to the examination of his characters’ experience in the world (Appignanesi 8-9).

4.1. Midnight’s Children – Individual versus Nation

I had been mysteriously handcuffed to history, my destinies indissolubly chained to those of my country (Rushdie 1995-I, 9).

The first novel that meant success for its author was Midnight’s Children published in 1981. In the story of Saleem Sinai whose life is linked with the history of independent India, Rushdie indicates a sort of an autobiographical narrative. Although he claims in many interviews that his heroes are not autobiographical, Saleem Sinai was born in 1947, which is not only the year of the beginning of the independent India but also of Rushdie’s birth.

Of the three novels, this is the only one in which there is only one main hero. However, as in his other works, Rushdie presents the background from which the hero comes two generations back. Saleem Sinai was born on the stroke of midnight on the 15^th of August 1947, the same moment India became independent. From the very beginning he is inseperably connected with the nation’s history. His fate is sealed and from literary point of view foreshadowed when Jawaharlal Nehru sends him a letter: “[...] You are the newest bearer of that ancient face of India which is also eternally young. We shall be watching over your life with the closest attention; it will be, in a sense, the mirror of our own” (Rushdie 1995-I, 122). It seems as if the government itself decided the fate of the midnight’s children (children that were born the same moment as Saleem) and Saleem’s in particular. Later, the simile of the “newest bearer of that ancient face of India” becomes reality. While at school, a teacher finds out that Saleem’s face resembles the map of India: “[...] ‘thees is human geography!’ ‘How sir where sir what sir?’ Zagallo is laughing now. ‘You don’t see?’ he guffaws. ‘In the face of thees ugly ape you don’t see the whole map of India?’[...] ‘See here – the Deccan peninsula hanging down!’ Again ouchmynose” (Rushdie 1995-I, 231). This literalization of metaphor or “linguistic nature of experience” (Zamora 176) is very common in postmodern magic-realist texts and therefore the work of Rushdie is no exception. He uses this element also in his other works that I am dealing with. In his letter, Nehru also mentions mirror. This symbol is often used in magic-realist texts, it “creates a magic of shifting references” (Zamora 177). In this case Saleem’s future life is foregrounded by this letter and by using the word ‘mirror’ in particular as his life ‘mirrors’ the life of India. Then, Saleem is linked to the nation’s history not only mentally but also physically. Saleem himself is very much aware of his status: “I was linked to history both literally and metaphorically, both actively and passively [...]” (Rushdie 1995-I, 238). In this statement, the hero as narrator of his story, reveals several layers of the narration that take place in this novel. These could involve the level of reality – metaphorical link to history as well as the level of fiction or fantasy – literal link. It is obvious that in the magic-realist texts these layers overlap and what is meant in one layer metaphorically in the other could become literal. This is the case of the expressions used to describe Saleem’s (and other midnight’s children) relationship to the nation – the children are “fathered by history” (Rushdie 1995-I, 118) and Saleem is “handcuffed to history” (420). These metaphors became literally true since the midnight’s children are strongly connected to the historical events of India and cannot break up the bonds.

At the age of ten, Saleem realizes that he has the ability of telepathy. He is able to communicate in his head with other children born in the same night. He finds out that all the midnight’s children have some supernatural ability. They can travel in time, perform magic, transform themselves and many other unbelievable powers. These miracles are recounted quite naturally, without any surprise or doubt. Even Saleem becomes very quickly reconciled with his powers and begins to take advantage of them. He organizes the conference of midnight’s children inside his head. All the children pariticipate and take theirs and Saleem’s powers as absolutely normal. In magic-realist texts, the magic really happens. According to the summary of magic-realist elements “wonders are recounted largely without comment, in a matter-of-fact way, accepted as a child would accept them, without undue questioning or reflection” (Zamora 177). In the place when magic mingles with reality everything is possible and nobody wonders.

I think that the main layer of narration is Saleem’s connection with the nation’s events. When something happens in the political situation of India, Saleem is conscious of being somehow indirectly responsible for it. While visiting his uncle who prepares an uprising, Saleem is participating in the planning; they “rehearse” the rebellion with moving pepperpots on the table. And later on when it succeeds, Saleem comes to realize that he is responsible for it. “What began, active-metaphorically, with pepperpots, ended then; not only did I ovethrow a government – I also consigned a president to exile” (Rushdie 1995-I, 291). According to Wendy B. Faris one of the elements that means magic is a “disruption of the ordinary logic of cause and effect” (Zamora 168). As an example of this she points out Saleem’s claim that he caused several historical events by e.g. moving pepperpots on a table (Zamora 168). The reader can be sceptical to these propositions because they reverse the logic of reality, but that is precisely the point of magic realism - the logic of the story is not the same as the logic we know from reality. Rushdie probably uses this kind of magic-realist device to comment on political situation because he explains what happened by inserting a “magic producer” of these events into his story. Wendy B. Faris introduces as one of the elements of magic-realism the idea that the texts try to “take a position that is antibureaucratic” (Zamora 179) and therefore they use the magic against the political or social situation. In Midnight’s Children it is clearly Rushdie’s criticism against the government of Indira Gandhi. He describes the fantastical midnight’s children’s congress as an alternative to the Congress Party (Zamora 179). By inserting magic into reality the author tries to avoid being attacked for criticising the politics of the nation and at the same time he tries to somehow free his narrative from realism, from something that is given and required of a novel. Wendy B. Faris desrcibes this as “a critique of totalitarian discourses of all kinds” (Zamora 180). To the problem of reversed logic I would like to add a similar topic that is associated with magic realism. Some of these fictions “question received ideas about time, space, and identity” (Zamora 173). This feature is not very common in Midnight’s Children but I think there is one moment concerning time that could be considered magical. At the end of the novel Saleem’s son was born on another very important day of India’s history. Rushdie delineates his birth in the same style and even uses the same words as when Saleem was born. It could be interpreted as if the narrator was returning to the beginning of his story and thus the time in his narration becomes cyclical. He also names his son after his own father Aadam. These two aspects seem to ‘return’ the story telling to its beginning.

For most of the novel, Saleem’s connection with the nation’s history is more metaphorical than literal, he more often ‘fabricates’ his actions that cause the events to happen. The third part of the book is different. The Book Three introduces Saleem as an adult man in the course of the war. This part could be interpreted as the real or literal link to the nation’s history when Saleem actively participates in the forming of history. Yet, in this last part Saleem has changed; not only does he actively take part in the war but also his mind has somehow changed. The author refers to him as Saleem or buddha and the point of view changes within one paragraph from the first person narration (I – Saleem) to the third (he – buddha) (Rushdie 1995-I, 377). It seems as if he was living in two worlds; in the real world after the war there “lives” Saleem and as a narrator recounts the story from the present time and in the fictious (magical) world there “lives” buddha (probably named after Buddha because of his supernatural abilities). As a narrator he recollects the events from different perspectives because as he says “reality is a question of perspective; the further you get from the past, the more concrete and plausible it seems – but as you approach the present, it inevitably seems more and more incredible” (Rushdie 1995-I, 165). This quotation implies that we can only guess whether the events the narrator speaks of really happened to Saleem or if they seem incredible because they happened to buddha. I must not forget another important ‘duality’ that take place in this novel. This duality is in Rushdie’s prose represented by the opposite characters, the main protagonists have their alter-egos. In this novel the opposite of Saleem is Shiva, his evil “almost”-brother. They are like two sides of one coin – inseperable from their birth to death. (I will comment more on this topic in the next chapter).

The position of the narrator in this novel is very remarkable. He very often enters the story since he in fact describes his own life. Metafiction is common in postmodern magic-realistic texts, “these texts provide commentaries on themselves” (Zamora 175). Saleem recounts his story while he is writing it in his house and his housemaid Padma makes commentaries on his style and content of writing and also on the pace: “ ‘At this rate,’ Padma complains, ‘you’ll be two hundred years old before you manage to tell about your birth’ ” (Rushdie 1995-I, 38). In fact, she is the one who creates the metafictional dimension of the novel by ‘standing in for’ the reader. As far as writing fiction is concerned, Rushdie employes another magic-realist feature which was already mentioned and this is the metaphor being made real. He assimilates writing a novel to making chutney. Saleem owns a pickle factory, that produces chutney and writing a novel is for him as responsible a task as producing chutney: “To pickle is to give immortality [...]. There are also my special blends [of chutney] [...] I am able to include memories, dreams, ideas [...]” (Rushdie 1995-I, 460). To make the metaphor real, to literalize its meaning, Rushdie lets Saleem to really produce twenty-six pickle-jars identified with labels that bear the names of all the chapters in the novel.

As was mentioned before, sometimes the reader is left uncertain about the events that happened in the war. This notion of uncertainity is quite common in this novel. The narrator several times reveals that he is not sure when some historical events happened and even admits that he made several mistakes concerning the dates. “And then it occurs to me that I have made another error – that the election of 1957 took place before, and not after, my tenth birthday [...] but my memory refuses [...] to alter the sequence of events” (Rushdie 1995-I, 222). In an essay Rushdie discloses that he has chosen to insert into the story “remembered truth” rather than “literal truth” (qtd. in Ghosh-Schellhorn). Thus, the important thing for Rushdie as well as for magic realism in general is what people believe to happen not the “real” truth. In other words, even the incredible occurrences can be ‘true’ if people believe in them.

In the last part of this chapter I would like to focus on the ‘ordinary’ magic that appears in most of the magic-realist texts. This magic and miracles are very much connected with people and folklore in general. Even though “magic realism has tended to concentrate on rural settings” (Zamora 182), Midnight’s Children are set in a city and magic happens. Among the magic that falls into the local lore and the ancient system of belief are ghosts, superstitions and supernatural abilities. Ghosts are very common in magic realism since they unite the two worlds of life and death and thus they serve to “enlarge the space of intersection where magically real fictions exist” (Zamora 178). The people who have seen a ghost have usually some secret that they want to hide and the ghosts represent their guilty conscience. The tradition of the existence of ghosts is very strong in this environment and people sometimes see ghosts everywhere. They primarily have confidence in the mythology and legends and then they think logically. In this novel this occurs when the soldiers encounter smugglers but at first they think they see ghosts (Rushdie 1995-I, 336). To this powerful belief in myths, Rushdie (via Saleem’s voice) says: “Sometimes legends make reality, and become more useful than the facts” (Rushdie 1995-I, 47).

As for the superstitions they also belong to the tradition. Although ghosts could be seen by almost everybody, superstitions are the matter of (according to this novel) children and servants and Reverend Mother (Saleem’s grandmother who is slightly crazy). “[...] it was true that the Brass Monkey was as much animal as human; and, as all the servants and children on Methwold’s Estate knew, she had the gift of talking to birds, and to cats” (Rushdie 1995-I, 151). Children and servants are not considered mature enough people and therefore tend to believe in everything. In the case of Reverend Mother she was superstitious in the true sense of the word. She did not approve of photographs and planes and other inventions that she was not able to comprehend. “[...] aeroplanes were inventions of the devil, and that cameras could steal your soul, and that ghosts were as obvious a part of reality as Paradise [...]” (Rushdie 1995-I, 100).

The supernatural abilities were already mentioned in connection with the midnight’s children. There are oher references to magic powers of different people. For instance there is a man called Hummingbird whose humming has “the ability of inducing erection in anyone within his vicinity” (Rushdie 1995-I, 46). Or there is a painter “whose paintings had grown larger and larger as he tried to get the whole of life into his art. ‘Look at me,’ he said before he killed himself, ‘I wanted to be a miniaturist and I’ve got elephantiasis instead’” (Rushdie 1995-I, 48). This quotations denote the basic elements of magic realism – something that in real life is unbelievable but what in the world of magic-realist fiction is a commonplace and needs no explanation. The second instance (elephantiasis) could be defined as another feature of magic realism (though very much connected with the basic one) which is exaggeration and abundance (Zamora 338). The author is not satisfied only with ‘ordinary’ magic he needs to magnify it to distinguish himself from other authors and especially from realism.

To show that even magic has its boundaries and cannot happen to absolutely everybody, Rushdie uses hyperbole in describing some of the magic occurrences. When Amina Sinai (Saleem’s mother) goes to a seer to foretell her future, she sees him levitate above the ground. But when she looks closer, she realizes that “Ramram the seer was not really floating in midair, six inches above the ground. [Amina’s] eyes focused; and she noticed the little shelf, protruding from the wall” (Rushdie 1995-I, 86). Even though this revelation of ‘miracle’ is funny, it can also be interpreted otherwise. This episode can metaphorically demonstrate that the reality we see depends on the angle we are looking at it. From one angle the magic can seem more true than reality, but when we look at it from a different angle, the ‘real’ reality prevails.

In the end I would like to mention the style of the book. I was already speaking about the metafictional dimension of it and now I would like to concentrate on the style of writing. There are passages that can be described as adopting the “carnivalesque spirit” (Zamora 184) a notion also typical of magic-realist texts. It means that “language is used extravagantly, expending its resources beyond its referential needs” (Zamora 184). Sometimes the form imitates the content – when midnight’s children enter Saleem’s head, they speak all at once and this passage copies the flow of their speeches (Rushdie 1995-I, 170), there is no punctuation or division to paragraphs. In result the content of the passage is difficult to follow as it is with the voices in Saleem’s head. Rushdie also uses a lot of different styles that are mostly imitations of Indian culture. As Wendy B. Faris says “Midnight’s Children is perhaps the most carnivalesque of all, in its conscious adoption of the style of a Bombay talkie – a cast of thousands [midnight’s children], songs, dances [...]” (Zamora 185).