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FARKLI GERÇEKLİKLERİ DİLE GETİRMEK: MIDNIGHT'S CHILDREN'DA ÇOK SESLİLİK VE BÜYÜLÜ GERÇEKÇİLİK

Year 2017, Volume: 57 Issue: 1, 654 - 673, 01.01.2017

Abstract

Salman Rushdie'nin Geceyarısı Çocukları 1981 başlıklı romanında anlatıcı kendi hayat öyküsünü Hindistan tarihindeki önemli olaylara atıarda bulunup bu olayları anılarıyla yorumlayarak anlatır. Bu makalede romanda farklı gerçeklikleri yansıtma ve baskıcı güçlerin gücünü azaltmada çok sesliliğin ve büyülü gerçekçiliğin rolü incelenecektir. Romanda, Hindistan'da çok kültürlülüğün totaliter devlet tarafından tehdit edilişi anlatılmaktadır. Bu bağlamda anlatı büyülü gerçekçilik ve çok seslilik gibi yöntemlerle baskıcı yönetimin temsil ettiğinden farklı olan gerçeklikler sunmakta ve gerçeğin bireyin algısına göre değişiklik gösterebileceğini örneklemektedir. Eserde büyülü gerçekçilik öğeleri sayesinde çok seslilik daha geniş bir boyut kazanmıştır. Bu çalışma, büyülü gerçekçilik ve çok seslilik aracılığıyla Geceyarısı Çocukları'nın bir realizm eleştirisi sunduğunu; kimlik, ulus gibi kavramların değişmez olduğu düşüncesini ve resmi tarih anlatılarına güveni zayıattığını öne sürmektedir. Romanda çok kültürlü Hint toplumunun farklı bakış açıları yansıtılarak gerçeklik kavramının değişkenliği gösterilmekte ve baskıcı güçlerin dayattığı gerçekliğe bir alternatif sunulmaktadır.

References

  • Bakhtin, Mikhail M. Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics. Ed. Caryl Emerson. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1984.
  • ---. Speech Genres and Other Late Essays. Eds. Michael Holquist and Caryl Emerson. Austin: Texas UP, 1986.
  • ---. The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays. Ed. Michael Holquist. Austin: Texas UP, 2008.
  • Fenwick, Mac. “Crossing the Figurative Gap: Metaphor and Metonymy in Midnight’s Children.” Journal of Commonwealth Literature 39.3 (2004): 45-68.
  • Fletcher, M. D., ed. “Introduction.” Reading Rushdie: Perspectives on the Fiction of Salman Rushdie. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1994. 1-22.
  • Ghosh, Bishnupriya. “An Invitation to Indian Postmodernity: Rushdie’s English Vernacular as Situated Cultural Hybridity.” Critical Essays on Salman Rushdie. Ed. M. Keith Booker. New York: G.K. Hall &Co., 1999. 129-153.
  • Gorra, Michael. “’The Angrezi in which I am forced to write:’ On the Language of Midnight’s Children.” Critical Essays on Salman Rushdie. Ed. M. Keith Booker. New York: G.K. Hall &Co., 1999. 188-204.
  • Hogan, Patrick Colm. “Midnight’s Children: Kashmir and the Politics of Identity.” Twentieth Century Literature 47 (2001): 510-544.
  • Holquist, Michael. Dialogism: Bakhtin and His World. New York: Routledge, 1990.
  • Kuchta, Todd M. “Allegorising the Emergency: Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children and Benjamin’s Theory of Allegory.” Critical Essays on Salman Rushdie. Ed. M.
  • Keith Booker. New York: G.K. Hall &Co., 1999. 205-224.
  • Leal, Luis. “Magical Realism in Spanish America.” Magical Realism: Theory, History, Community. Eds. Lois Parkinson Zamora and Wendy B. Faris. Durham, N.C.: Duke UP, 1995.
  • Metcalf, Barbara D. A Concise History of Modern India. New York: Cambridge UP, 2006.
  • Reder, Michael, ed. Conversations with Salman Rushdie. Mississipi: Missisipi UP, 2000.
  • ---. “Rewriting History and Identity: The Reinvention of Myth, Epic, and Allegory in Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children.” Critical Essays on Salman Rushdie. Ed. Keith Booker. New York: G. K. Hall & Co, 1999. 225-249.
  • Rege, Josna E. “Victim into Protagonist? Midnight’s Children and the Post-Rushdie National Narratives of the Eighties” Critical Essays on Salman Rushdie. Ed. M. Keith Booker. New York: G.K. Hall &Co., 1999. 250-282.
  • Rogers, Bruce Holland. “What is Magical Realism, Really?” Speculations. Spring (2002). Web. 18 October 2009.
  • Rushdie, Salman. Imaginary Homelands Essays and Criticism 1981-1991. London: Vintage, 2010.
  • ---. Midnight’s Children. New York: Penguin, 1991.
  • Schürer, Norbert. Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children: A Reader’s Guide. London: Contiuum, 2004.
  • Swann, Joseph. “East is East and West is West”? Salman Rushdie’s Midnight's Children as an Indian Novel.” World Literature Written in English 26.2 (1986): 353-362.
  • Wilson, Keith. “Midnight’s Children and the Reader Responsibility.” Reading Rushdie: Perspectives on the Fiction of Salman Rushdie. Ed. M. D. Fletcher. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1994. 55-68.

GIVING VOICE TO MULTIPLE REALITIES: POLYPHONY AND MAGIC REALISM IN MIDNIGHT'S CHILDREN

Year 2017, Volume: 57 Issue: 1, 654 - 673, 01.01.2017

Abstract

Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children 1981 presents the autobiographical account of its unreliable narrator that forms a parallel to the history of India. To give an account of his past, the narrator reimagines historical events with a combination of his memories and recorded facts. This paper will discuss the role of polyphony and magic realism in establishing various realities and in undermining the conceptions of the totalising power founded on monologic view of the world. In the novel, cultural diversity of the Indian subcontinent is threatened by the totalising power of the state. Through the magical elements and the polyphonic narrative, which refects the consciousness of the others, the novel presents subjective versions of reality suggesting that reality is a matter of perception. Thus it takes polyphony one step further by the use of magical elements in giving voice to various possibilities. In this study it is argued that through its polyphonic narrative and magical realist elements, Midnight's Children not only undermines ofcial accounts of history and essentialist conceptions of identity and nation but also provides a critique of realism. By encompassing cultural diversity of the multicultural Indian community, the novel demonstrates the multiplicity of reality and undermines systems of authority replacing the totalising version of reality with a multitude of perspectives.

References

  • Bakhtin, Mikhail M. Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics. Ed. Caryl Emerson. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1984.
  • ---. Speech Genres and Other Late Essays. Eds. Michael Holquist and Caryl Emerson. Austin: Texas UP, 1986.
  • ---. The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays. Ed. Michael Holquist. Austin: Texas UP, 2008.
  • Fenwick, Mac. “Crossing the Figurative Gap: Metaphor and Metonymy in Midnight’s Children.” Journal of Commonwealth Literature 39.3 (2004): 45-68.
  • Fletcher, M. D., ed. “Introduction.” Reading Rushdie: Perspectives on the Fiction of Salman Rushdie. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1994. 1-22.
  • Ghosh, Bishnupriya. “An Invitation to Indian Postmodernity: Rushdie’s English Vernacular as Situated Cultural Hybridity.” Critical Essays on Salman Rushdie. Ed. M. Keith Booker. New York: G.K. Hall &Co., 1999. 129-153.
  • Gorra, Michael. “’The Angrezi in which I am forced to write:’ On the Language of Midnight’s Children.” Critical Essays on Salman Rushdie. Ed. M. Keith Booker. New York: G.K. Hall &Co., 1999. 188-204.
  • Hogan, Patrick Colm. “Midnight’s Children: Kashmir and the Politics of Identity.” Twentieth Century Literature 47 (2001): 510-544.
  • Holquist, Michael. Dialogism: Bakhtin and His World. New York: Routledge, 1990.
  • Kuchta, Todd M. “Allegorising the Emergency: Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children and Benjamin’s Theory of Allegory.” Critical Essays on Salman Rushdie. Ed. M.
  • Keith Booker. New York: G.K. Hall &Co., 1999. 205-224.
  • Leal, Luis. “Magical Realism in Spanish America.” Magical Realism: Theory, History, Community. Eds. Lois Parkinson Zamora and Wendy B. Faris. Durham, N.C.: Duke UP, 1995.
  • Metcalf, Barbara D. A Concise History of Modern India. New York: Cambridge UP, 2006.
  • Reder, Michael, ed. Conversations with Salman Rushdie. Mississipi: Missisipi UP, 2000.
  • ---. “Rewriting History and Identity: The Reinvention of Myth, Epic, and Allegory in Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children.” Critical Essays on Salman Rushdie. Ed. Keith Booker. New York: G. K. Hall & Co, 1999. 225-249.
  • Rege, Josna E. “Victim into Protagonist? Midnight’s Children and the Post-Rushdie National Narratives of the Eighties” Critical Essays on Salman Rushdie. Ed. M. Keith Booker. New York: G.K. Hall &Co., 1999. 250-282.
  • Rogers, Bruce Holland. “What is Magical Realism, Really?” Speculations. Spring (2002). Web. 18 October 2009.
  • Rushdie, Salman. Imaginary Homelands Essays and Criticism 1981-1991. London: Vintage, 2010.
  • ---. Midnight’s Children. New York: Penguin, 1991.
  • Schürer, Norbert. Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children: A Reader’s Guide. London: Contiuum, 2004.
  • Swann, Joseph. “East is East and West is West”? Salman Rushdie’s Midnight's Children as an Indian Novel.” World Literature Written in English 26.2 (1986): 353-362.
  • Wilson, Keith. “Midnight’s Children and the Reader Responsibility.” Reading Rushdie: Perspectives on the Fiction of Salman Rushdie. Ed. M. D. Fletcher. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1994. 55-68.
There are 22 citations in total.

Details

Primary Language English
Journal Section Research Article
Authors

Deniz Kırpıklı

Publication Date January 1, 2017
Published in Issue Year 2017 Volume: 57 Issue: 1

Cite

APA Kırpıklı, D. (2017). GIVING VOICE TO MULTIPLE REALITIES: POLYPHONY AND MAGIC REALISM IN MIDNIGHT’S CHILDREN. Ankara Üniversitesi Dil Ve Tarih-Coğrafya Fakültesi Dergisi, 57(1), 654-673.

Ankara University Journal of the Faculty of Languages and History-Geography

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