Neither Nature, Nor Nurture: How Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children Defies Genealogy Through Absurdity

Abstract

The human tendency to search for one’s biological roots through the study of genealogy can be observed in multiple discourses, in reality as well as in literature. Many traditional and patrilinear views of historiography and the idea of “betterness” have led to a constant battle between communities, social classes and groups on various bases, where each group strives to prove their superiority. The harmful results of such discourse have manifested in various ways, the biggest example of which is the tragedy of the holocaust. The belief that one’s race is superior to the other because of genetics has also been termed “Social Darwinism”, a misappropriation derived from Charles Darwin’s theory about the “survival of the fittest.”   In Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children there are constant references to genealogy and the importance of one’s roots. However, the text is also pervaded by an absurdity, reflected through the narrator’s unreliability as well as the nonsensical and magical-realist events in the novel. In this paper, I argue that Rushdie uses absurdity to subvert traditional ideas of genealogy, historiography and cultural superiority. The objective of this study is to examine the ways in which Rushdie’s novel defies not only the personal genealogy of the protagonist, but also the genealogy of the nation through the formation of a “national allegory”. I present an analysis of the novel through the lens of the Subaltern Studies group, and discuss how Rushdie’s writing dislocates the hegemonic discourse in multiple ways, by ultimately attacking the process of “meaning-making”.