Salman Rushdie is a meta-fiction writer, composing Midnight’s Children in a way that systematically draws attention to the fact that it’s a fictitious concoction questioning the relationship between fiction and reality. In Midnight’s Children, Rushdie uses historical events as reference points in the lives of his characters. Saleem Sinai’s life, and the lives of his familial predecessors, is defined by historical events. Beyond using historical events to denote the lives of his characters, Rushdie uses magical realism as a post-colonial device. He uses pastiche to keep the reader’s interest trained on the stories, referencing The Arabian Nights, among other works. Rushdie employs parody throughout the novel, molding history to his tastes, …show more content…
Rushdie’s fundamental use of magical realism is associated with the telepathic abilities of Saleem and the other “Midnight’s Children.” These abilities enable Saleem and the one thousand and one children to communicate with each other in Saleem’s mind, and for Saleem alone to read the minds of those around him.. This specific number- 1,001- is also key in The Arabian Nights, also known as One Thousand and One Nights. What happens in the text also parallels the magic in Arabian Nights, such as the attempt to electrocute Saleem at the latrine (406), and his journey in the “basket of invisibility” (436). In Midnight's Children, the narrative, albeit somewhat fictive, comprises Indian history. By using magical realism as a post-colonial device, Rushdie is drawing attention to relationship between the clearly magical, such as the children born close or exactly on the time of India’s independence having supernatural powers, and the clear facts, like India’s independence day of August 15th, 1947.
At one point in his narrative, Saleem is musing about the chthonic beings Radha and Krishna, characters from the epic Ramayana, and also the title characters from a classical Arabic story, Layla and Majnun. These are references to indigenous Indian culture. He then goes on to include Romeo and Juliet, Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn (297), all of whom are distinctly Western. This method chronologically entwines characters from Indian cultural history and
Elie Wiesel’s autobiography Night is an account of the brutality of the Holocaust faced by Elie at the age of fourteen to fifteen and the horrors he endures. Night exposes much that is wrong with human nature and reveals little that is right. During the novel, he endures loss of faith as his experience within the Holocaust becomes more difficult. The elements wrong with human nature are represented by the novel, particularly the cruelty and the ignorance. The autobiography, however, only represents little that is right, such as the memory kept in order for the events never to happen again.
The novel “Night”, an autobiography about Elie Wiesel’s experience during the Holocaust, a genocide that killed millions of Jewish people. In the novel “Night”, Elie Wiesel develops the character Elie through the use of explicit details, emotional language, and powerful diction in order to show that Elie and the Jewish people had discarded their faith in god after feeling neglected throughout the novel.
The book is based on actual events and is expressed through a personal point of view. Ishmael wrote a memoir that tells the story of a young boy who is torn from his peaceful life, and then forced into a frightening world of drugs and slavery. In writing about his experiences, he has made the decision to present his experiences in a particular way by missing out details and recounting others. This
Night, written by Elie Wiesel, is a real life story of the hardships faced by a 15 year old Jew during World War 2. Elie Wiesel’s account of the genocide he faced embodies human natures at its weakest. Night illustrates the selfishness and indecencies that human beings are capable of when faced with the prospect of death. The Jews and prisoners were often self-centred, only able to think about themselves, and the Nazis also often degraded the people of the concentration camps.
Night is a novel written from the perspective of a Jewish teenager, about his experiences
Norris also talks about how the beliefs of Islam have blended into the stories. On the other hand if we look at Margaret Parker, she gives us the same story that Norris reports about the slave woman in Spanish about a Christian slave woman, and in Brazilian also. (2) This shows how the stories in different cultures are molded into different styles.
The Arabian Nights also known as 1001 nights is a collection of entertaining and meaningful stories within stories translated by Husian Haddawy. According to Haddawy, “The stories in The Arabian Nights are works that have been collected over centuries from India, Persia, and Arabia”. The stories in the book are not only entertaining but are also meaningful. Even though The Arabian Nights does not relate to the Quran, there are important Muslim values that are emphasized in the stories, and these values can be applied to our everyday life. Some important Muslim values in The Arabian Nights are the value of aiding those in need, the value of telling the truth, and the value of taking responsibility of your actions. The most important out of all these values is the value of aiding those in need.
The first night's story in Arabian Nights is that of the Merchant and the Demon. Told by Shahrazad, the story offers a remarkable parallel to her own situation as she faces immanent death. Thus, the story of the Merchant and the Demon is told as a parable within the frame story, presenting a poignant analogy for Shahrazad's own situation. The Merchant and the Demon is a short tale but one filled with themes such as power, guilt, justice, and moral responsibility. Through the clever analogy with her own situation, Shahrazad also explores the theme of creative problem solving in tricky situations. Moreover, the story illustrates the core differences between pre-Islamic and Islamic values in Arabian society. Because the theme of gender roles and norms are not present within the Merchant and the Demon, the story shows how sexism is simply a form of general political and social oppression.
The book is based on actual events and is expressed through a personal point of view. Ishmael wrote a memoir that tells the story of a young boy who is torn from his peaceful life, and then forced into a frightening world of drugs and slavery. In writing about his experiences, he has made the decision to present his experiences in a particular way by missing out
Joyce’s “Araby” and Bambara’s “Lesson” pose surprising similarities to each other. Despite the narrators’ strikingly clear differences, such as time period, ethnicity, social class, and gender the characters have important similarities. Both narrators are at crucial developmental stages in their lives, are faced with severe adversities, and have a point of clarity that affects their future.
The speaker in James Joyce’s “Araby” has an epiphany that changes his view on the world around him. The short story is about a boy that travels to a bazaar to buy a present for a girl he has a crush on. The journey doesn’t go the way he expected it to go and he has becomes upset and frustrated. The speaker of “Araby” starts out as youth that is ignorant of the world around him and then he has an epiphany that is heightened by irony and presents a universal theme about life.
In the fiction story “Araby” by James Joyce, we learn of a young boy’s journey through his loss of innocence. At the end of the story, we experience the boy realizing he will not be able to completely fulfill his desires, “Gazing up into the darkness I saw myself as a creature driven and derided by vanity; and my eyes burned with anguish and anger.” Joyce’s use of diction, imagery, and details contribute to the grim tone which in turn conveys the theme of loss of innocence to the reader of the story. The diction Joyce uses creates the sullen tone that expresses the boy maturing as something that is sad, as if he is losing his childhood, which he is.
In the novella, Saleh contrasts the two extremes of this difference. The unorthodox, Sufi ways of thinking, which are fully embodied by Haneen, one of Zein’s close friends. The other end of the spectrum, the completely orthodox view, is exemplified in the Imam. The main character, Zein, is a crucial element in the story and his wedding a critical point for bringing these contrasting interpretations of the religion together. The wedding, therefore, symbolizes a point of reconciliation and perhaps a new beginning of a world which is no longer divided but is rather whole.
The story “Araby” as told by James Joyce is about a young boy that is fascinated with the girl across the street. But deeper down the story is about a very lonely boy lusting for her love and affection. Throughout the story, we see how the frustration of first love, isolation and high expectations breaks the main character emotionally and physically. James Joyce uses the first-person viewpoint to tell this story which helps influence the plot, characterization, themes, and understanding of the main character.
“Araby,” is a story of emotional passion carefully articulated by the author, James Joyce, to mark the end of childhood and the start of adolescence. It is told from the perspective of a young boy who is filled with lust for his friend, Mangan’s, sister. He lives in a cheerless town on a street hosting simply complacent families who own brown faced houses that stare vacantly into one another. The boy temporarily detaches himself from this gloomy atmosphere and dwells on the keeper of his affection. Only when he journeys to a festival titled Araby, does he realize that his attempt at winning the heart of Mangan’s sister has been done in an act of vanity. Joyce takes advantage of literary elements such as diction and imagery to convey an at times dreary and foolishly optimistic tone.