Objects and Motifs
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Keith Wilson writes in Fletcher, D.M.(ed.) that "[in
Midnight's Children] physical
objects periodically re-emerge to mark significant transitions
in both private an public history"
1 [p. 63] Symbolic objects and features such as spittoons and noses act as leitmotifs and talismans which give the impression of patterns in the narrative. Some of the more obvious motifs are listed below. Uma Paremaswaran writes: |
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Repetition is one of Rushdie's distinctive narrative devices.
"The Leitmotif," he has said, is a kind of non-conventional
symbolism where
you use as recurring things in the plot incidents or objects or phrases which in themselves have no meaning or no particular meaning but which form a kind of non-rational network of connections in the book. (Kunapipi vii, 1, 3)In this interview, Rushdie goes on to explain how he used the leitmotif idea to "orchestrate what is otherwise a huge mass of material." A leitmotif provides a backbone to the narrative. 2 |