Linguistic Experiments in Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children

Abstract

The popularity of Salman Rushdie's novel 'Midnight’s Children' (1981) rests on two things: the innovative use of English as a language, and the fantastic representation of history. While Rushdie resorts to the use of ‘magic realism’ to oppose the Euro-centrism of master discourses, the innovativeness of Rushdie’s English is prompted by a desire to capture the spirit of Indian culture with all its multiplicity and diversity. As a linguistic experimentalist, Rushdie attempts to destroy ‘the natural rhythms of the English language’ and to dislocate ‘the English and let other things into it’. Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children best illustrates his strategy of ‘Indianising, revitalising and decolonising the English language’. Here in this paper, I shall try to highlight the linguistic innovations of Salman Rushdie in his Midnight’s Children.