Salman Rushdie

1. Salman Rushdie “Christopher Columbus & Queen Isabella” & The Midnight’s Children

2. Outline • General Introduction: Rushdie and Rushdie in our class • His definition of migrant identity and the themes of Indian diaspora • Colonialism and Gender/Power Struggle • General Introduction to Midnight’s Children

3. Salman Rushdie: General Introduction: His life • 1947 born in Bombay, son of a Cambridge-educated merchant of Muslim background; • 1961 Studied in England • 1964 moved with his family from Bombay to Pakistan 1989, Feb. "fatwa"

4. Salman Rushdie:General Introduction (2): his work • 1975: Grimus;1987: The Jaguar Smile: A Nicaraguan Journey;1990: Haroun and the Sea of Stories • 1980: Midnight's Children • 1983: Shame • 1989: The Satanic Verses • 1991: Imaginary Homelands • 1994: East, West • 1995: The Moor's Last Sigh • 1999: The Ground Beneath her Feet India trilogy

5. Rushdie’s Position in our Class • “The Empire Writes Back” – in dual language (parody, revision, etc.), from multiple positions. E.g.“Christopher Columbus & Queen Isabella“ • His Migrant Position (the country of origin becomes a baggage, an “imaginary homeland.”) • His description of India’s Independence and Bombay; government corruption & the crowd

6. Salman Rushdie: Major Concerns • From India’s National Identity vs. British colonization • Indian diaspora • migrant identity

7. Rushdie: migrant identity • What is the best thing about migrant peoples and seceded nations? I think it is their hopefulness... And what is the worst thing? It is the emptiness of one's luggage....We have floated upwards from history, from memory, from Time. (70-71) • “It maybe be argued that the past is a country from which we have all migrated, that its loss is part of our common humanity. . . .”

8. Rushdie:Pakistan & migrant writer--for your reference only • Although I have known Pakistan for a long time, I have never lived there for longer than six months at a stretch...I have learned Pakistan by slices...however I choose to write about over-there, I am forced to reflect that in fragments of broken mirrors...I must reconcile myself to the inevitability of the missing bits. ... • Immigrant writer: "the ability to see at once from inside and out is a great thing, a piece of good fortune which the indigenous writer cannot enjoy." (4)

9. Colonialism & Gender/Power Struggle Amerigo Vespucci • The Discovery of America, Jan van der Straet, 1575 --the new world as a woman

10. Colonialism & Gender/Power Struggle • For reference: Michel de Certeau, in The Writing of History, writes: An inaugural scene: after a moment of stupor . . . the conqueror will write the body of the other and trace there his own history. . . . Jan Van der Straet’s staging of the disembarkment surely depicts Vespucci’s surprise as he faces this world, the first to grasp clearly that she is a nuova terra not yet existing on maps—an unknown body destined to bear the name . . . of its inventor. But what is really initiated here is a colonization of the body by the discourse of power. (xxv) (source)

11. Christopher Columbus & Queen Isabella of Spain Consummate Their Relationship • History of Colonialism (1): Columbus -- The Images of Columbus in history: • a visionary genius, a mystic, a national hero, --discovered the New World; opened up the Americas to European settlement. -- accomplished the four voyages, -- brought great material profit to Spain and to other European countries.

12. The Images of Columbus in history (2) • a failed administrator, a naive entrepreneur, • a ruthless and greedy imperialist. --”encountered” but not “discovered” Americas; -- enslaved indigenous people and caused slave trade; -- brought along some diseases to Americas.

13. History of Colonialism : Columbus (3) 3. King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella (p. 110) – she “an absolute monarch,” -- he, “an absolute zero.” Is this description true? Does it matter whether the description of Isabella is true or not?

14. Isabella I, portrait by an unknown artist; in the Real Academia de la Historia, Madrid, Spain. They united the Spanish kingdoms into the nation of Spain and began Spain's entry into the modern period of imperial expansion. a marriage of political opportunism, followed by the couple’s continued separation and conflicts. He, a hero who conquored a lot of lands, and a man with some mistresses. Isabella and Ferdinand Image and info source

15. Reasons for Sponsoring Columbus • “Columbus' appeal to Queen Isabella to finance his planned voyage to the East by sailing west in 1486 was originally turned down.  departure in 1492 • Then she suddenly changed her mind. . . . it was what the keeper of her private purse told her of "History's Greatest Bargain". To finance Columbus' enterprise would cost no more than a week's royal entertainment for a visiting dignitary.”

16. Reasons for Sponsoring Columbus • Conditions: (Mutual profit) -- he conquers some of the islands and mainland for Spain. -- given the title of "Admiral of All the Ocean Seas," and receive one-tenth of the riches that came from any of his discoveries.

17. Christopher Columbus & Queen Isabella of Spain: Structure • I. C & Iseen by the two speakers; • II. A third-person description of the I’s treatment of C. • 1. C as a secret lover and a sex toy; p. 109 • 2. C as a slave (in pigsty and body-washing) • 3. Columbus’ reactions: possibilities 110-111 • III. The two’s description of I; • IV. Departure (p. 114- ) , A Dream and a dream of a dream

18. Christopher Columbus & Queen Isabella of Spain: Structure • Questions: • How are the two presented? • Why does Queen Isabella play with Columbus? What could be the reasons and what are the reasons Columbus thinks of? Why does Columbus want “consumation”? How is the story a satire of colonialism? • Why does Rushdie choose to describe Isabella, but not Ferdinand?

19. Christopher Columbus & Queen Isabella:How is the story a satire of colonialism? • The image of Columbus: • coarse and flattering p. 107; • a drunkard 108-109 • adventure as his meaning of life 112 • Queen Isabella • an absoluate monarch, a tyrant, p. 110-11 • gallops around. P. 111-12; her appetites • Her uncertainties the descriptions of her bodily parts p. 113

20. Christopher Columbus & Queen Isabella: How is the story a satire of colonialism? • The two dreams • C’s dream -- a vision p. 116 not be satisfied by the known • savage dream -- 117 Are these dreams true of not? • the ending • The two speakers and their roles • Their attitudes towards foreigners 108 • Their description of the queen • Their function as messengers at the end

21. Christopher Columbus & Queen Isabella: How is the story a satire of colonialism? • The narrator’s tone: repetition of lines and words; e.g. ‘Consummation,’ Columbus’ hopes (107); money & patronage//love 112; 115; “must must must” 116 • The meaning of consummation: 117 • The motivation for colonialism: escapes meaninglessness, go beyond the boring known world.

22. Midnight’s Children • Plot:Exactly at midnight on Aug. 15, 1947, two boys are born in a Bombay hospital, where they are switched by a nurse. Around that time, a thousand children were born and they are the “midnight children.” Hindu woman+ British colonialist Saleem Aziz + Naseem Muslim couple (Mumtaz+ Ahmed) Shiva

23. Midnight’s Children: Plot (2) • Midnight Children as a national allegory from cultural conflicts and national movements in the colonial period to the “birth” of the nation as well as its 3000 midnight’s children to the gradual fragmentation of Saleem’s body, the children, and the nation

24. Midnight’s Children: narrative methods • (for your reference) • The narrator and narrative methods (p. 3) • Digressive, foreboding and summarizing. • Talking about his own writings. • A mixture of tones: humorous, poetic, crude and with ribald jokes (e.g. snot) • Mixing the personal and the historical/political • Motifs -- e.g. hole in the nose, perforated sheet, p. 13 -

25. Midnight’s Children: Cultural Identity • e.g. grandfather Aziz Indian belief Aziz German knowledge Boatman Tai His mother Ghani’s house His wife

26. Midnight’s Children: Kashmire

27. references • Encyclopedia Britannica: Christopher Columbus • Celebrate! Holidays In The U.S.A.:Columbus Day • Queen Isabella I of Spain: Queen Isabella I of Spain