This review of Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie focuses upon Sinai's characterization and the literary advantages this character represents for the author in four pages. There are no other sources cited.
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Salman Rushdie is one of Indias most noted writers. Rushdies "Midnights Children" distinguishes itself in that it details one of Indias more interesting times in
history through the life of the fictional character Saleem Sinai. In Sinai Rushdie presents a complex character who is not only capable of great moldability and change but also
of capable of reaching into the minds of others to determine truth. Rushdie doesnt choose this character, he creates him. His intent, undoubtedly, is to benefit from both
the plurality and plasticity of Sinai. Through this one character Rushdie can take the reader from the present into the past and back again. Indeed, through Sinai the
reader can even transverse the limitations of time and peer into the future. No other character would have offered the same literary opportunities as does Sinai.
Rushdies novel begins at one of the most interesting times in Indian history. That time is 1947 at the actual moment where India gained its
independence from Great Britain. Rushdie immediately informs us that in addition to the historical significance of the moment there is also a significance in the fact that precisely at
midnight on August 15, 1947, the actual date of independence, two babies would come into the world. One of these babies was Sinai, a child whose destiny it was
to be raised by wealthy Muslims. The second child, however, would not be so fortunate. In contrast to the lap of luxury into which Sinai so fortuitously
fell, Shiva (the second child) would be destined to life in a Hindu tenement. While Sinai would be hailed by the Indian government itself because of the particulars of