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Definition of Motif
A motif is an element or idea that recurs throughout a work of literature. Motifs, which are often collections of related symbols, help develop the central themes of a book... read full definition
A motif is an element or idea that recurs throughout a work of literature. Motifs, which are often collections of related symbols, help develop the... read full definition
A motif is an element or idea that recurs throughout a work of literature. Motifs, which are often collections of... read full definition
Book 1: The Perforated Sheet
Explanation and Analysis—War and the Body:
Throughout Midnight's Children, Rushdie frequently uses the motif of war and fighting to describe characters' relationships with their own bodies. This category of metaphor is common in the English language: one might say, for instance, that a person "lost" their "battle" with cancer. If that same person successfully recovered from cancer, one might call them a "cancer survivor." When speaking figuratively, people often place the mind—or psyche, consciousness, will, etc.—in an adversarial relationship with the body.
Rushdie utilizes this motif in Book 1, Section 2—Mercurochrome to describe Aadam Aziz's war-like relationship with his future wife's ailments:
Far away the Great War moved from crisis to crisis, while in the cobwebbed house Doctor Aziz was also engaged in a total war against his section patient’s inexhaustible complaints.
Utilized as it is in the above passage, Aadam's battle with his future wife's "inexhaustible" physical complaints parallels the conflicts to come in their relationship. Naseem, in turn, wages war against Aadam's body as a means of punishment in Book 1, Section 3—Hit-the-Spittoon:
The war of starvation which began that day very nearly became a duel to the death. True to her word, Reverend Mother did not hand her husband, at mealtimes, so much as an empty plate.
Aadam and Naseem wage war each other both physically and psychologically. Their conflict, in turn, serves as an allegory the violence around them amid the Partition of India (a violent political conflict that resulted in India being separated into two countries: India and Pakistan). The clash between their values becomes a clash between their bodies, leading up to Naseem refusing to feed her husband.
Through motif, Rushdie emphasizes the connection between bodies and large-scale violence. Often, war, colonialism, and other tragedies are conceptualized abstractly, apart from their association with the physical destruction of human bodies. In using violent terminology to describe bodily relationships, Saleem reminds readers of the very human cost of colonization.
Related Themes:
Book 1: Mercurochrome
Explanation and Analysis—Film Language:
Language and imagery associated with film form a motif in Midnight's Children. The use of such language works as an interesting tool for conjuring vivid sensory imagery, forcing the reader to visualize and even hear the story (like a soundtrack) as one might experience a film.
Multiple examples of this motif occur in Book 1, Section 3—Hit-the-Spittoon. Toward the end of the section, after The Hummingbird is assassinated, Nadir Khan runs through the city to avoid being caught by those very same assassins. Saleem narrates this passage through the city, likening Khan's behavior to that of a character in a "cheap thriller":
As he ran, there was a self-consciousness about him, his body appearing to apologize for behaving as if it were in a cheap thriller, of the sort hawkers sell on railway stations, or give away free with bottles of green medicine that can cure colds, typhoid, impotence, homesickness, and poverty . . .
This passage references the over-the-top, often campy behavior exhibited by actors in low-budget thriller films. The film reference in this section opens the story up to deeper narrative and meta-narrative exploration. Te characters in the novel—including Saleem, the narrator—appear to realize the campiness of this particularly fantastical series of events. Saleem weaves filmic language into the narrative as a kind of scaffolding for these dramatic events, helping the reader to imagine them as larger-than-life films.
This use of language continues later on in the same section:
I don’t know how my grandmother came to adopt the term whatsitsname as her leitmotif, but as the years passed it invaded her sentences more and more often.
Then, the film language picks up again in Book 1, Section 2—Mercurochrome:
It had been inserted into [Aadam’s] hand (we cut to a long-shot—nobody from Bombay should be without a basic film vocabulary) as he entered the hotel foyer.
Both of these passages use filmic language to frame and contextualize the narrative, assisting the reader with visual imagery (cutting to a "long shot") and auditory imagery ("leitmotif"—a recurring motif in a musical piece or film score).
Related Themes:
Book 1: Hit-the-Spittoon
Explanation and Analysis—Film Language:
Language and imagery associated with film form a motif in Midnight's Children. The use of such language works as an interesting tool for conjuring vivid sensory imagery, forcing the reader to visualize and even hear the story (like a soundtrack) as one might experience a film.
Multiple examples of this motif occur in Book 1, Section 3—Hit-the-Spittoon. Toward the end of the section, after The Hummingbird is assassinated, Nadir Khan runs through the city to avoid being caught by those very same assassins. Saleem narrates this passage through the city, likening Khan's behavior to that of a character in a "cheap thriller":
As he ran, there was a self-consciousness about him, his body appearing to apologize for behaving as if it were in a cheap thriller, of the sort hawkers sell on railway stations, or give away free with bottles of green medicine that can cure colds, typhoid, impotence, homesickness, and poverty . . .
This passage references the over-the-top, often campy behavior exhibited by actors in low-budget thriller films. The film reference in this section opens the story up to deeper narrative and meta-narrative exploration. Te characters in the novel—including Saleem, the narrator—appear to realize the campiness of this particularly fantastical series of events. Saleem weaves filmic language into the narrative as a kind of scaffolding for these dramatic events, helping the reader to imagine them as larger-than-life films.
This use of language continues later on in the same section:
I don’t know how my grandmother came to adopt the term whatsitsname as her leitmotif, but as the years passed it invaded her sentences more and more often.
Then, the film language picks up again in Book 1, Section 2—Mercurochrome:
It had been inserted into [Aadam’s] hand (we cut to a long-shot—nobody from Bombay should be without a basic film vocabulary) as he entered the hotel foyer.
Both of these passages use filmic language to frame and contextualize the narrative, assisting the reader with visual imagery (cutting to a "long shot") and auditory imagery ("leitmotif"—a recurring motif in a musical piece or film score).
Related Themes:
Explanation and Analysis—War and the Body:
Throughout Midnight's Children, Rushdie frequently uses the motif of war and fighting to describe characters' relationships with their own bodies. This category of metaphor is common in the English language: one might say, for instance, that a person "lost" their "battle" with cancer. If that same person successfully recovered from cancer, one might call them a "cancer survivor." When speaking figuratively, people often place the mind—or psyche, consciousness, will, etc.—in an adversarial relationship with the body.
Rushdie utilizes this motif in Book 1, Section 2—Mercurochrome to describe Aadam Aziz's war-like relationship with his future wife's ailments:
Far away the Great War moved from crisis to crisis, while in the cobwebbed house Doctor Aziz was also engaged in a total war against his section patient’s inexhaustible complaints.
Utilized as it is in the above passage, Aadam's battle with his future wife's "inexhaustible" physical complaints parallels the conflicts to come in their relationship. Naseem, in turn, wages war against Aadam's body as a means of punishment in Book 1, Section 3—Hit-the-Spittoon:
The war of starvation which began that day very nearly became a duel to the death. True to her word, Reverend Mother did not hand her husband, at mealtimes, so much as an empty plate.
Aadam and Naseem wage war each other both physically and psychologically. Their conflict, in turn, serves as an allegory the violence around them amid the Partition of India (a violent political conflict that resulted in India being separated into two countries: India and Pakistan). The clash between their values becomes a clash between their bodies, leading up to Naseem refusing to feed her husband.
Through motif, Rushdie emphasizes the connection between bodies and large-scale violence. Often, war, colonialism, and other tragedies are conceptualized abstractly, apart from their association with the physical destruction of human bodies. In using violent terminology to describe bodily relationships, Saleem reminds readers of the very human cost of colonization.
Related Themes:
Book 1: A Public Announcement
Explanation and Analysis—Indian Disease:
Saleem uses the motif of infectious diseases to refer to many different ideas, concepts, and movements throughout Midnight's Children. One example of this motif occurs in Book 1, Section 5—A Public Announcement:
But this was Delhi, and Lifafa Das had altered his cry accordingly. ‘See the whole world, come see everything!’ [. . .] (I am suddenly reminded of Nadir Khan’s friend the painter: is this an Indian disease, this urge to encapsulate the whole of reality? Worse: am I infected too?).
In the above passage, Saleem ruminates on Lifafa Das, Nadir Khan's friend, and himself—all in relation to the pursuit of art and truth in storytelling. All three men seek to "encapsulate the whole of reality," which Saleem equates to an "Indian disease"—perhaps because, whether in storytelling or art, the pursuit of absolute truth will always fall short, given the subjective nature of creation and narrative.
Later, in Book 1, Section 3—Hit-the-Spittoon, Saleem again likens an idea to a disease:
It seems that in the late summer of that year my grandfather, Doctor Aadam Aziz, contracted a highly dangerous form of optimism. [. . .] He was by no means alone, because, despite strenuous efforts by the authorities to stamp it out, this virulent disease had been breaking out all over India that year.
This particular comparison is also an oxymoron, because the "idea" in question is optimism, which Saleem describes as "dangerous." It would seem contradictory to describe such a positive emotion so negatively. Rushdie utilizes paradox in combination with motif to characterize optimism as a virulent disease—a disease that is dangerous because it undermines institutions of power. The push toward unity and against the Partition of India (dividing the country into India and Pakistan) directly contradicts the goals of the British Empire.
Related Themes:
Book 1: Tick, Tock
Explanation and Analysis—Umbilical Cord:
Throughout Midnight's Children, various physical objects represent the intangible concept of inheritance. One such recurring motif in the novel is the umbilical cord. Saleem describes the metaphorical passage of memories and heritage through the umbilical cord in Book 1, Section 8—Tick, Tock:
Through my umbilical cord, I’m taking in fare-dodgers and the dangers of purchasing peacock-feather fans; Amina’s assiduity seeps into me, and more ominous things—clattering footsteps, my mother’s need to plead for money until the napkin in my father’s lap began to quiver and make a little tent.
Through the umbilical cord that physically connected him to his mother, Saleem receives a psychological inheritance as well as a physiological one. The cord that once connected him to his parent now connects him, more abstractly, to the important events and emotions of Amina's life.
The motif continues in Book 2, Section 1—The Fisherman's Pointing Finger. In this section, Saleem details the preservation of his umbilical cord in pickling liquid:
This: travelling home with father, mother and baby was a quantity of briny water in which, floating gently, hung an umbilical cord. (But was it mine or the Other’s? That’s something I can’t tell you.)
Preserved as a memento of his birth, this umbilical cord represents Saleem's own consciousness as a storyteller. He, like his umbilical cord, remains frozen in the liquid of the past. The normal biological functions that would cause that umbilical cord to decay over time have been halted for the purposes of remembrance, paralleling Saleem's storytelling as a means of preserving family memory.
Related Themes:
Book 2: The Fisherman’s Pointing Finger
Explanation and Analysis—Umbilical Cord:
Throughout Midnight's Children, various physical objects represent the intangible concept of inheritance. One such recurring motif in the novel is the umbilical cord. Saleem describes the metaphorical passage of memories and heritage through the umbilical cord in Book 1, Section 8—Tick, Tock:
Through my umbilical cord, I’m taking in fare-dodgers and the dangers of purchasing peacock-feather fans; Amina’s assiduity seeps into me, and more ominous things—clattering footsteps, my mother’s need to plead for money until the napkin in my father’s lap began to quiver and make a little tent.
Through the umbilical cord that physically connected him to his mother, Saleem receives a psychological inheritance as well as a physiological one. The cord that once connected him to his parent now connects him, more abstractly, to the important events and emotions of Amina's life.
The motif continues in Book 2, Section 1—The Fisherman's Pointing Finger. In this section, Saleem details the preservation of his umbilical cord in pickling liquid:
This: travelling home with father, mother and baby was a quantity of briny water in which, floating gently, hung an umbilical cord. (But was it mine or the Other’s? That’s something I can’t tell you.)
Preserved as a memento of his birth, this umbilical cord represents Saleem's own consciousness as a storyteller. He, like his umbilical cord, remains frozen in the liquid of the past. The normal biological functions that would cause that umbilical cord to decay over time have been halted for the purposes of remembrance, paralleling Saleem's storytelling as a means of preserving family memory.
Related Themes:
