Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children (post #4): Literary Criticism by Scholars Ignores the Main Character’s Prominent Psychiatric Symptoms

I have read three analyses of this novel: one in a textbook of literary theory and two in an anthology of literary criticism. One of the three mentions that the protagonist hears voices, but the interpretation appears to be sociological. The other two don’t mention the voices at all.

Thus, if I had not read the novel myself, but had only read these three analyses—which are consistent with what I have seen online—I would not know that the main character, Saleem Sinai, has prominent psychiatric symptoms.

And as I pointed out in a previous post, the character’s parents and girlfriend explicitly call him crazy, and on at least one occasion trick him into being seen by doctors because of it.

Moreover, the novel’s genesis was this:

“I had wanted for some time to write a novel of childhood, arising from my memories of my own childhood in Bombay” (1, p. ix).

His plan became much more ambitious—he also has a lot to say about India, Pakistan, and history—but his wanting to write a novel about his memories of his own childhood was its origin, and is still its core.

Of course, as I concluded in a previous post, the voices were due to multiple personality, not psychosis, which makes multiple personality one of this novel’s themes.

1. Salman Rushdie. “Introduction to the 25th Anniversary Edition,” in Midnight’s Children. New York, Random House, 1981/2006.