A Postmodern Perspective On India History Writing In Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children

Midnight's Children is the masterpiece of Salman Rushdie, a British Indian writer,and it has won many prizes, including the Booker McConnell Prize, the highest literature prize in Britain. Although Rushdie was born in an Islamic family in India, he was deeply influenced by the western culture in his upbringing, which has resulted in his complicated living environment and offered a great many opportunities for his creating which reflects in Midnights Children. Now,many scholars have studied and discussed the novel from the perspectives of post-colonialism, new historicism and magical realism and so on. This thesis attempts to study on Indian history writing in Midnight's Children from the postmodern perspective.With the adoption of postmodern perspective, the thesis studies on the issue of Indian history writing in Midnight's Children, trying to reflect Rushdie's query about the authenticity of Indian history and his introspection of Indian history by analyzing the incredibility of history writing of the protagonist Saleem and the search for the truth of Indian history wiring in order to embody the enlightening significance of Midnight's Children on historical reflection.The thesis consists of five chapters. The first chapter gives a brief introduction of Salman Rushdie and the novel Midnight's Children, summarizes the previous studies of Midnight's Children both at home and abroad, and explains the structure and focus of the thesis. Chapter two analyze the incredibility of history writing of the protagonist Saleem from three aspects: his lost power of omniscience, his self-disclosure of the narrative process and his complicated identity. Chapter three searches for the truth of Indian history writing by combining postmodern historical view with Saleem's unreliable history writing, coming with the conclusion that Indian history writing is in fact a subjective human construct and reflects the ideology of the authority. In the novel, as the official history, Indian history is the reflection of western ideology and dictatorial ideology in the colonial period and Indira's governing period after the independence of India respectively. Chapter four analyzes the way of subversion of Indian history writing Rushdie uses to query about the authenticity of Indian history after the reveal of the truth of Indian history writing in order to reflect on Indian history. However, his query about history is not for the purpose to deny the history, instead, it is a way to explore and pursue the historical truth and in the mean time to remind people not to forget the history. Chapter five is the conclusion. It summarizes the previous analyses and discussions, and again emphasizes the subjectivity and the authoritative ideology of Indian history writing.And through the subversion of Indian history writing in Midnight's Children Rushdie achieves his goal to query about history and brings readers enlightening reviewing and thinking of history.