Eng2602 Assignment Essay

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ENG2602 – Assignment 1 Student number: 49456067 A) Prose: Fiction Assignment Saleem Sanai opens the novel where he describes the exact date and time of his birth: August 15, 1947, at midnight. This is also the precise moment that India officially gains independence from Britain. Saleem also feels his miraculously timed birth ties him to the fate of the country. In this passage, which is the first of the novel, Rushdie(writer) establishes the novel’s unique narrative voice right from the beginning. Saleem narrates in the first person, often addressing the audience directly and informally. He also writes in a prose style that feels spontaneous and improvised, as if he were writing his thoughts down as fast as he can, without stopping to revise or edit. Midnight’s Children doesn’t represent a cool, composed account of past events, nor does it resemble an objective voice recollecting events from a distant vantage point. Saleem rambles and veers off, rephrases and reworks, much as one does in conversation. This prose style is referred to as stream of consciousness, and it also reflects Saleem’s desperate, urgent need to finish his tale before he dies. In the following part of the passage, “Soothsayers had prophesied me, newspapers celebrated my arrival, politicos ratified my authenticity”, Saleem feels so tied to the date of his birth (the exact date that India became independent from Britain) that in the following 30 years, every time he sees an newspaper article on this topic, or hears politicians debating over it on television or the radio, he actually feels as if they are talking only about him, and nothing about the independence is more important. The words “me” and “my” is used in this part of the passage to indicate that this piece is all about him, or so he thought. The tone of this passage and ultimately this book(novel) is one of Pompous,
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