Midnight's Children: "From Screen to Self: What I Learned from Two Inspiring Videos"

 This blog is written as a task assigned by the head of the Department of English (MKBU), Prof. and Dr. Dilip Barad Sir.

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Deconstructive Reading of Symbols

The video lecture explores symbols in Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children through post-structuralist theory, focusing on Jacques Derrida’s concept of pharmakon — a paradoxical idea meaning both remedy and poison. It explains how the novel resists fixed meanings by presenting India’s history through the fragmented perspective of Saleem Sinai.

Drawing on Plato’s Phaedrus, the lecture shows how symbols in the novel—like the perforated sheet (revealing and concealing), the silver spittoon (memory and amnesia), and pickles (preservation and decay)—hold opposing yet complementary meanings. Even body parts, such as Saleem’s nose and Shiva’s knees, embody strength and vulnerability at once.

Saleem’s amnesia becomes an allegory for an “amnesiac nation,” where forgetting threatens political awareness. The lecture concludes that Midnight’s Children embraces contradiction, multiplicity, and fluid interpretation, mirroring post-structuralist thought.

Mr. Rushdie and Mrs. Indira Gandhi

The lecture examines Indira Gandhi’s portrayal as “the Widow” in Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children, situating it within the political climate of the Emergency (1975–1977), when civil liberties were curtailed, opposition silenced, and policies like forced sterilization were enforced. Rushdie’s satirical depiction becomes a sharp critique of authoritarianism, drawing parallels with other 20th-century regimes.

It contrasts the public’s adulation of Gandhi after the Bangladesh war with warnings about centralized, personalist power, referencing censorship cases like Gulzar’s banned film Aandhi. The discussion also covers the ideological clash between Rushdie and Gandhi, their legal battle over the novel’s portrayal, and broader questions about truth in fiction versus history.

Invoking Harold Pinter’s Nobel speech, the lecture highlights how political language manipulates, while literary language seeks deeper truths—underscoring the essential role of artistic freedom in confronting uncomfortable political realities.

Learning Outcomes

From these two videos, I learned that:

• Symbols are never fixed—their meanings can be contradictory, fluid, and shaped by context, as shown in Rushdie’s use of objects and body parts in Midnight’s Children.
• Post-structuralist theory—especially Derrida’s pharmakon—offers a powerful way to read literature, revealing layers of paradox in meaning.
• Literature can act as a political critique, exposing authoritarian tendencies and preserving uncomfortable truths even when facing censorship.
• Freedom of expression in art is not just a right but a responsibility to challenge dominant narratives and uncover deeper realities.
• The tension between fiction and history reminds us that storytelling shapes public memory as much as political discourse does.

References:

DoE-MKBU. “Deconstructive Reading of Symbols | Midnight’s Children | Sem 3 Online Classes | 2021 07 13.” YouTube, 13 July 2021, www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgJMf9BiI14.

DoE-MKBU. “Midnight’s Children | Mr. Rushdie and Mrs. Gandhi | Sem 3 Online Classes | 2021 07 14.” YouTube, 14 July 2021, www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mobzaun3ftI.

Barad, Dilip. “(PDF) Erasure and Oppression: The Bulldozer as a Toolof ...” Erasure and Oppression: The Bulldozer as a Toolof Authoritarianism in Midnight’s Children, Aug. 2024, www.researchgate.net/publication/383410297_Erasure_and_Oppression_The_Bulldozer_as_a_Toolof_Authoritarianism_in_Midnight’s_Children. Accessed 13 Aug. 2025.