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Curs de literatura engleza anul III sem II

Lector univ. dr. Aloisia Sorop

Postcolonial literature

The field of Postcolonial Studies has been gaining prominence since the 1970s. Some would date its rise in
the Western academy from the publication of Edward Said's influential critique of Western constructions of
the Orient in his 1978 book Orientalism. The growing currency within the academy of the term
"postcolonial" (sometimes hyphenated) was consolidated by the appearance in 1989 of The Empire Writes
Back: Theory and Practice in Post-Colonial Literatures by Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths, and Helen Tiffin.
Since then, the use of cognate terms "Commonwealth" and "Third World" that were used to describe the
literature of Europe's former colonies has become rarer. Although there is considerable debate over the
precise parameters of the field and the definition of the term "postcolonial," in a very general sense, it is the
study of the interactions between European nations and the societies they colonized in the modern period.
The European empire is said to have held sway over more than 85% of the rest of the globe by the time of
the First World War, having consolidated its control over several centuries. The sheer extent and duration of
the European empire and its disintegration after the Second World War have led to widespread interest in
postcolonial literature and criticism in our own times
The list of former colonies of European powers is a long one. They are divided into settler (eg. Australia,
Canada) and non-settler countries (India, Jamaica, Nigeria, Senegal, Sri Lanka). Countries such as South
Africa were partially settled by colonial populations complicate even this simple division between settler
and non-settler. The widely divergent experiences of these countries suggest that "postcolonial" is a very
loose term. In strictly definitional terms, for instance, the United States might also be described as a
postcolonial country, but it is not perceived as such because of its position of power in world politics in the
present, its displacement of native American populations, and its annexation of other parts of the world in
what may be seen as a form of colonization. For that matter, other settler countries such as Canada and
Australia are sometimes omitted from the category "postcolonial" because of their relatively shorter
struggle for independence, their loyalist tendencies toward the mother country which colonized them, and
the absence of problems of racism or of the imposition of a foreign language. It could, however, be argued
that the relationship between these countries to the mother country is often one of margin to center, making
their experience relevant to a better understanding of colonialism.
The debate surrounding the status of settler countries as postcolonial suggests that issues in
Postcolonial Studies often transcend the boundaries of strict definition. In a literal sense, "postcolonial" is
that which has been preceded by colonization. The second college edition of The American Heritage
Dictionary defines it as "of, relating to, or being the time following the establishment of independence in a
colony." In practice, however, the term is used much more loosely. While the denotative definition suggests
otherwise, it is not only the period after the departure of the imperial powers that concerns those in the
field, but that before independence as well.
The formation of the colony through various mechanisms of control and the various stages in the
development of anti-colonial nationalism interest many scholars in the field. By extension, sometimes
temporal considerations give way to spatial ones (i.e. in an interest in the postcolony as a geographical
space with a history prior or even external to the experience of colonization rather than in the postcolonial

as a particular period) in that the cultural productions and social formations of the colony long before
colonization are used to better understand the experience of colonization. Moreover, the "postcolonial"
sometimes includes countries that have yet to achieve independence, or people in First World countries who
are minorities, or even independent colonies that now contend with "neocolonial" forms of subjugation
through expanding capitalism and globalization. In all of these senses, the "postcolonial," rather than
indicating only a specific and materially historical event, seems to describe the second half of the twentiethcentury in general as a period in the aftermath of the heyday of colonialism. Even more generically, the
"postcolonial" is used to signify a position against imperialism and Eurocentrism. Western ways of
knowledge production and dissemination in the past and present then become objects of study for those
seeking alternative means of expression. As the foregoing discussion suggests, the term thus yokes a
diverse range of experiences, cultures, and problems; the resultant confusion is perhaps predictable.
The expansiveness of the "postcolonial" has given rise to lively debates. The overhasty celebration of
independence masks the march of neocolonialism in the guise of modernization and development in an age
of increasing globalization and transnationalism; meanwhile, there are colonized countries that are still
under foreign control. The emphasis on colonizer/colonized relations, moreover, obscures the operation of
internal oppression within the colonies. Still others berate the tendency in the Western academy to be more
receptive to postcolonial literature and theory that is compatible with postmodern formulations of hybridity,
syncretization, and pastiche while ignoring the critical realism of writers more interested in the specifics of
social and racial oppression. The lionization of diasporic writers like Salman Rushdie for instance, might be
seen as a privileging of the transnational, migrant sensibility at the expense of more local struggles in the
postcolony. Further, the rise of Postcolonial Studies at a time of growing transnational movements of
capital, labor, and culture is viewed by some with suspicion in that it is thought to deflect attention away
from the material realities of exploitation both in the First and the Third World
The following questions suggest some of the major issues in the field:
How did the experience of colonization affect those who were colonized while also influencing the
colonizers? How were colonial powers able to gain control over so large a portion of the non-Western
world? What traces have been left by colonial education, science and technology in postcolonial societies?
How do these traces affect decisions about development and modernization in postcolonies? What were the
forms of resistance against colonial control? How did colonial education and language influence the culture
and identity of the colonized? How did Western science, technology, and medicine change existing
knowledge systems? What are the emergent forms of postcolonial identity after the departure of the
colonizers? To what extent has decolonization (a reconstruction free from colonial influence) been
possible? Are Western formulations of postcolonialism overemphasizing hybridity at the expense of
material realities? Should decolonization proceed through an aggressive return to the pre-colonial past?
How do gender, race, and class function in colonial and postcolonial discourse? Are new forms of
imperialism replacing colonization and how?
Along with these questions, there are some more that are particularly pertinent to postcolonial literature:
Should the writer use a colonial language reach a wider audience or return to a native language more
relevant to groups in the postcolony? Which writers should be included in the postcolonial canon? How can
texts in translation from non-colonial languages enrich our understanding of postcolonial issues? Has the
preponderance of the postcolonial novel led to a neglect of other genres.
www.leafcycles.com/Documents/PostColonialTheory.pdf

Joseph Conrad Heart of Darkness

Heart of Darkness centers around Marlow, an introspective sailor, and his journey up the Congo River to
meet Kurtz, reputed to be an idealistic man of great abilities. Marlow takes a job as a riverboat captain with
the Company, a Belgian concern organized to trade in the Congo. As he travels to Africa and then up the
Congo, Marlow encounters widespread inefficiency and brutality in the Companys stations. The native
inhabitants of the region have been forced into the Companys service, and they suffer terribly from
overwork and ill treatment at the hands of the Companys agents. The cruelty and squalor of imperial
enterprise contrasts sharply with the impassive and majestic jungle that surrounds the white mans
settlements, making them appear to be tiny islands amidst a vast darkness.
Marlow arrives at the Central Station, run by the general manager, an unwholesome, conspiratorial
character. He finds that his steamship has been sunk and spends several months waiting for parts to repair
it. His interest in Kurtz grows during this period. The manager and his favorite, the brickmaker, seem to
fear Kurtz as a threat to their position. Kurtz is rumored to be ill, making the delays in repairing the ship all
the more costly. Marlow eventually gets the parts he needs to repair his ship, and he and the manager set
out with a few agents (whom Marlow calls pilgrims because of their strange habit of carrying long, wooden
staves wherever they go) and a crew of cannibals on a long, difficult voyage up the river. The dense jungle
and the oppressive silence make everyone aboard a little jumpy, and the occasional glimpse of a native
village or the sound of drums work the pilgrims into a frenzy.
Marlow and his crew come across a hut with stacked firewood, together with a note saying that the wood is
for them but that they should approach cautiously. Shortly after the steamer has taken on the firewood, it is
surrounded by a dense fog. When the fog clears, the ship is attacked by an unseen band of natives, who fire
arrows from the safety of the forest. The African helmsman is killed before Marlow frightens the natives
away with the ships steam whistle. Not long after, Marlow and his companions arrive at Kurtzs Inner
Station, expecting to find him dead, but a half-crazed Russian trader, who meets them as they come ashore,
assures them that everything is fine and informs them that he is the one who left the wood. The Russian
claims that Kurtz has enlarged his mind and cannot be subjected to the same moral judgments as normal
people. Apparently, Kurtz has established himself as a god with the natives and has gone on brutal raids in
the surrounding territory in search of ivory. The collection of severed heads adorning the fence posts
around the station attests to his methods. The pilgrims bring Kurtz out of the station-house on a stretcher,
and a large group of native warriors pours out of the forest and surrounds them. Kurtz speaks to them, and
the natives disappear into the woods.
The manager brings Kurtz, who is quite ill, aboard the steamer. A beautiful native woman, apparently
Kurtzs mistress, appears on the shore and stares out at the ship. The Russian implies that she is somehow
involved with Kurtz and has caused trouble before through her influence over him. The Russian reveals to
Marlow, after swearing him to secrecy, that Kurtz had ordered the attack on the steamer to make them
believe he was dead in order that they might turn back and leave him to his plans. The Russian then leaves
by canoe, fearing the displeasure of the manager. Kurtz disappears in the night, and Marlow goes out in
search of him, finding him crawling on all fours toward the native camp. Marlow stops him and convinces
him to return to the ship. They set off down the river the next morning, but Kurtzs health is failing fast.
Marlow listens to Kurtz talk while he pilots the ship, and Kurtz entrusts Marlow with a packet of personal
documents, including an eloquent pamphlet on civilizing the savages which ends with a scrawled message
that says, Exterminate all the brutes! The steamer breaks down, and they have to stop for repairs. Kurtz
dies, uttering his last wordsThe horror! The horror!in the presence of the confused Marlow. Marlow
falls ill soon after and barely survives. Eventually he returns to Europe and goes to see Kurtzs Intended
(his fiance). She is still in mourning, even though it has been over a year since Kurtzs death, and she
praises him as a paragon of virtue and achievement. She asks what his last words were, but Marlow cannot
bring himself to shatter her illusions with the truth. Instead, he tells her that Kurtzs last word was her
name.

Major Characters
Although Marlow appears in several of Conrads other works, it is important not to view him as merely a
surrogate for the author. Marlow is a complicated man who anticipates the figures of high modernism while
also reflecting his Victorian predecessors. Marlow is in many ways a traditional hero: tough, honest, an
independent thinker, a capable man. Yet he is also broken or damaged, like T. S. Eliots J. Alfred
Prufrock or William Faulkners Quentin Compson. The world has defeated him in some fundamental way,
and he is weary, skeptical, and cynical. Marlow also mediates between the figure of the intellectual and that
of the working tough. While he is clearly intelligent, eloquent, and a natural philosopher, he is not
saddled with the angst of centuries worth of Western thought. At the same time, while he is highly skilled
at what he doeshe repairs and then ably pilots his own shiphe is no mere manual laborer. Work, for
him, is a distraction, a concrete alternative to the posturing and excuse-making of those around him.
Marlow can also be read as an intermediary between the two extremes of Kurtz and the Company. He is
moderate enough to allow the reader to identify with him, yet open-minded enough to identify at least
partially with either extreme. Thus, he acts as a guide for the reader. Marlows intermediary position can be
seen in his eventual illness and recovery. Unlike those who truly confront or at least acknowledge Africa
and the darkness within themselves, Marlow does not die, but unlike the Company men, who focus only on
money and advancement, Marlow suffers horribly. He is thus contaminated by his experiences and
memories, and, like Coleridges Ancient Mariner, destined, as purgation or penance, to repeat his story to
all who will listen.
Kurtz, like Marlow, can be situated within a larger tradition. Kurtz resembles the archetypal evil genius:
the highly gifted but ultimately degenerate individual whose fall is the stuff of legend. Kurtz is related to
figures like Faustus, Satan in Miltons Paradise Lost, Moby-Dicks Ahab, and Wuthering Heightss
Heathcliff. Like these characters, he is significant both for his style and eloquence and for his grandiose,
almost megalomaniacal scheming. In a world of mundanely malicious men and flabby devils, attracting
enough attention to be worthy of damnation is indeed something. Kurtz can be criticized in the same terms
that Heart of Darkness is sometimes criticized: style entirely overrules substance, providing a justification
for amorality and evil.
In fact, it can be argued that style does not just override substance but actually masks the fact that Kurtz is
utterly lacking in substance. Marlow refers to Kurtz as hollow more than once. This could be taken
negatively, to mean that Kurtz is not worthy of contemplation. However, it also points to Kurtzs ability to
function as a choice of nightmares for Marlow: in his essential emptiness, he becomes a cipher, a site
upon which other things can be projected. This emptiness should not be read as benign, however, just as
Kurtzs eloquence should not be allowed to overshadow the malice of his actions. Instead, Kurtz provides
Marlow with a set of paradoxes that Marlow can use to evaluate himself and the Companys men.
Indeed, Kurtz is not so much a fully realized individual as a series of images constructed by others for their
own use. As Marlows visits with Kurtzs cousin, the Belgian journalist, and Kurtzs fiance demonstrate,
there seems to be no true Kurtz. To his cousin, he was a great musician; to the journalist, a brilliant
politician and leader of men; to his fiance, a great humanitarian and genius. All of these contrast with
Marlows version of the man, and he is left doubting the validity of his memories. Yet Kurtz, through his
charisma and larger-than-life plans, remains with Marlow and with the reader.
Major themes
The Hypocrisy of Imperialism
Heart of Darkness explores the issues surrounding imperialism in complicated ways. As Marlow travels
from the Outer Station to the Central Station and finally up the river to the Inner Station, he encounters
scenes of torture, cruelty, and near-slavery. At the very least, the incidental scenery of the book offers a
harsh picture of colonial enterprise. The impetus behind Marlows adventures, too, has to do with the
hypocrisy inherent in the rhetoric used to justify imperialism. The men who work for the Company describe
what they do as trade, and their treatment of native Africans is part of a benevolent project of
civilization. Kurtz, on the other hand, is open about the fact that he does not trade but rather takes ivory

by force, and he describes his own treatment of the natives with the words suppression and
extermination: he does not hide the fact that he rules through violence and intimidation. His perverse
honesty leads to his downfall, as his success threatens to expose the evil practices behind European activity
in Africa.
However, for Marlow as much as for Kurtz or for the Company, Africans in this book are mostly objects:
Marlow refers to his helmsman as a piece of machinery, and Kurtzs African mistress is at best a piece of
statuary. It can be argued that Heart of Darkness participates in an oppression of nonwhites that is much
more sinister and much harder to remedy than the open abuses of Kurtz or the Companys men. Africans
become for Marlow a mere backdrop, a human screen against which he can play out his philosophical and
existential struggles. Their existence and their exoticism enable his self-contemplation. This kind of
dehumanization is harder to identify than colonial violence or open racism. While Heart of Darkness offers
a powerful condemnation of the hypocritical operations of imperialism, it also presents a set of issues
surrounding race that is ultimately more troubling.
Madness Caused by Imperialism
Madness is closely linked to imperialism in this book. Africa is responsible for mental disintegration as
well as for physical illness. Madness has two primary functions. First, it serves as an ironic device to
engage the readers sympathies. Kurtz, Marlow is told from the beginning, is mad. However, as Marlow,
and the reader, begin to form a more complete picture of Kurtz, it becomes apparent that his madness is
only relative, that in the context of the Company insanity is difficult to define. Thus, both Marlow and the
reader begin to sympathize with Kurtz and view the Company with suspicion. Madness also functions to
establish the necessity of social fictions. Although social mores and explanatory justifications are shown
throughout Heart of Darkness to be utterly false and even leading to evil, they are nevertheless necessary
for both group harmony and individual security. Madness, in Heart of Darkness, is the result of being
removed from ones social context and allowed to be the sole arbiter of ones own actions. Madness is thus
linked not only to absolute power and a kind of moral genius but to mans fundamental fallibility: Kurtz has
no authority to whom he answers but himself, and this is more than any one man can bear.
The Absurdity of Evil
This novella is, above all, an exploration of hypocrisy, ambiguity, and moral confusion. It explodes the idea
of the proverbial choice between the lesser of two evils. As the idealistic Marlow is forced to align himself
with either the hypocritical and malicious colonial bureaucracy or the openly malevolent, rule-defying
Kurtz, it becomes increasingly clear that to try to judge either alternative is an act of folly: how can moral
standards or social values be relevant in judging evil? Is there such thing as insanity in a world that has
already gone insane? The number of ridiculous situations Marlow witnesses act as reflections of the larger
issue: at one station, for instance, he sees a man trying to carry water in a bucket with a large hole in it. At
the Outer Station, he watches native laborers blast away at a hillside with no particular goal in mind. The
absurd involves both insignificant silliness and life-or-death issues, often simultaneously. That the serious
and the mundane are treated similarly suggests a profound moral confusion and a tremendous hypocrisy: it
is terrifying that Kurtzs homicidal megalomania and a leaky bucket provoke essentially the same reaction
from Marlow.
Major Issues
Observation and Eavesdropping
Marlow gains a great deal of information by watching the world around him and by overhearing others
conversations, as when he listens from the deck of the wrecked steamer to the manager of the Central
Station and his uncle discussing Kurtz and the Russian trader. This phenomenon speaks to the impossibility
of direct communication between individuals: information must come as the result of chance observation
and astute interpretation. Words themselves fail to capture meaning adequately, and thus they must be taken
in the context of their utterance. Another good example of this is Marlows conversation with the
brickmaker, during which Marlow is able to figure out a good deal more than simply what the man has to
say.
Interiors and Exteriors

Comparisons between interiors and exteriors pervade Heart of Darkness. As the narrator states at the
beginning of the text, Marlow is more interested in surfaces, in the surrounding aura of a thing rather than
in any hidden nugget of meaning deep within the thing itself. This inverts the usual hierarchy of meaning:
normally one seeks the deep message or hidden truth. The priority placed on observation demonstrates that
penetrating to the interior of an idea or a person is impossible in this world. Thus, Marlow is confronted
with a series of exteriors and surfacesthe rivers banks, the forest walls around the station, Kurtzs broad
foreheadthat he must interpret. These exteriors are all the material he is given, and they provide him with
perhaps a more profound source of knowledge than any falsely constructed interior kernel.
Darkness
Darkness is important enough conceptually to be part of the books title. However, it is difficult to discern
exactly what it might mean, given that absolutely everything in the book is cloaked in darkness. Africa,
England, and Brussels are all described as gloomy and somehow dark, even if the sun is shining brightly.
Darkness thus seems to operate metaphorically and existentially rather than specifically. Darkness is the
inability to see: this may sound simple, but as a description of the human condition it has profound
implications. Failing to see another human being means failing to understand that individual and failing to
establish any sort of sympathetic communion with him or her.
Major Symbols
Fog
Fog is a sort of corollary to darkness. Fog not only obscures but distorts: it gives one just enough
information to begin making decisions but no way to judge the accuracy of that information, which often
ends up being wrong. Marlows steamer is caught in the fog, meaning that he has no idea where hes going
and no idea whether peril or open water lies ahead.
The Whited Sepulchre
The whited sepulchre is probably Brussels, where the Companys headquarters are located. A sepulchre
implies death and confinement, and indeed Europe is the origin of the colonial enterprises that bring death
to white men and to their colonial subjects; it is also governed by a set of reified social principles that both
enable cruelty, dehumanization, and evil and prohibit change. The phrase whited sepulchre comes from
the biblical Book of Matthew. In the passage, Matthew describes whited sepulchres as something
beautiful on the outside but containing horrors within (the bodies of the dead); thus, the image is
appropriate for Brussels, given the hypocritical Belgian rhetoric about imperialisms civilizing mission.
(Belgian colonies, particularly the Congo, were notorious for the violence perpetuated against the natives.)
Women
Both Kurtzs Intended and his African mistress function as blank slates upon which the values and the
wealth of their respective societies can be displayed. Marlow frequently claims that women are the keepers
of naive illusions; although this sounds condemnatory, such a role is in fact crucial, as these naive illusions
are at the root of the social fictions that justify economic enterprise and colonial expansion. In return, the
women are the beneficiaries of much of the resulting wealth, and they become objects upon which men can
display their own success and status.
The River
The Congo River is the key to Africa for Europeans. It allows them access to the center of the continent
without having to physically cross it; in other words, it allows the white man to remain always separate or
outside. Africa is thus reduced to a series of two-dimensional scenes that flash by Marlows steamer as he
travels upriver. The river also seems to want to expel Europeans from Africa altogether: its current makes
travel upriver slow and difficult, but the flow of water makes travel downriver, back toward civilization,
rapid and seemingly inevitable. Marlows struggles with the river as he travels upstream toward Kurtz
reflect his struggles to understand the situation in which he has found himself. The ease with which he
journeys back downstream, on the other hand, mirrors his acquiescence to Kurtz and his choice of
nightmares.

www.sparknotes.com
Questions:
1.Which characters voice concers about colonisation and imperialism?
2.Which symbols refer overtly to colonization?

E.M.Forster A Passage to India

Two Englishwomen, the young Miss Adela Quested and the elderly Mrs. Moore, travel to India. Adela
expects to become engaged to Mrs. Moores son, Ronny, a British magistrate in the Indian city of
Chandrapore. Adela and Mrs. Moore each hope to see the real India during their visit, rather than cultural
institutions imported by the British.
At the same time, Aziz, a young Muslim doctor in India, is increasingly frustrated by the poor treatment he
receives at the hands of the English. Aziz is especially annoyed with Major Callendar, the civil surgeon,
who has a tendency to summon Aziz for frivolous reasons in the middle of dinner. Aziz and two of his
educated friends, Hamihdullah and Mahmoud Ali, hold a lively conversation about whether or not an
Indian can be friends with an Englishman in India. That night, Mrs. Moore and Aziz happen to run into
each other while exploring a local mosque, and the two become friendly. Aziz is moved and surprised that
an English person would treat him like a friend.
Mr.Turton, the collector who governs Chandrapore, hosts a party so that Adela and Mrs. Moore may have
the opportunity to meet some of the more prominent and wealthy Indians in the city. At the event, which
proves to be rather awkward, Adela meets Cyril Fielding, the principal of the government college in
Chandrapore. Fielding, impressed with Adelas open friendliness to the Indians, invites her and Mrs. Moore
to tea with him and the Hindu professor Godbole. At Adelas request, Fielding invites Aziz to tea as well.
At the tea, Aziz and Fielding immediately become friendly, and the afternoon is overwhelmingly pleasant
until Ronny Heaslop arrives and rudely interrupts the party. Later that evening, Adela tells Ronny that she
has decided not to marry him. But that night, the two are in a car accident together, and the excitement of
the event causes Adela to change her mind about the marriage.
Not long afterward, Aziz organizes an expedition to the nearby Marabar Caves for those who attended
Fieldings tea. Fielding and Professor Godbole miss the train to Marabar, so Aziz continues on alone with
the two ladies, Adela and Mrs. Moore. Inside one of the caves, Mrs. Moore is unnerved by the enclosed
space, which is crowded with Azizs retinue, and by the uncanny echo that seems to translate every sound
she makes into the noise boum.
Aziz, Adela, and a guide go on to the higher caves while Mrs. Moore waits below. Adela, suddenly
realizing that she does not love Ronny, asks Aziz whether he has more than one wifea question he
considers offensive. Aziz storms off into a cave, and when he returns, Adela is gone. Aziz scolds the guide
for losing Adela, and the guide runs away. Aziz finds Adelas broken field-glasses and heads down the hill.
Back at the picnic site, Aziz finds Fielding waiting for him. Aziz is unconcerned to learn that Adela has
hastily taken a car back to Chandrapore, as he is overjoyed to see Fielding. Back in Chandrapore, however,
Aziz is unexpectedly arrested. He is charged with attempting to rape Adela Quested while she was in the
caves, a charge based on a claim Adela has made.

Fielding, believing Aziz to be innocent, angers all of British India by joining the Indians in Azizs defense.
In the weeks before the trial, the racial tensions between the Indians and the English flare up considerably.
Mrs. Moore is distracted and miserable because of her memory of the echo in the cave and because of her
impatience with the upcoming trial. Adela is emotional and ill; she too seems to suffer from an echo in her
mind. Ronny is fed up with Mrs. Moores lack of support for Adela, and it is agreed that Mrs. Moore will
return to England earlier than planned. Mrs. Moore dies on the voyage back to England, but not before she
realizes that there is no real Indiabut rather a complex multitude of different Indias.
At Azizs trial, Adela, under oath, is questioned about what happened in the caves. Shockingly, she declares
that she has made a mistake: Aziz is not the person or thing that attacked her in the cave. Aziz is set free,
and Fielding escorts Adela to the Government College, where she spends the next several weeks. Fielding
begins to respect Adela, recognizing her bravery in standing against her peers to pronounce Aziz innocent.
Ronny breaks off his engagement to Adela, and she returns to England.
Aziz, however, is angry that Fielding would befriend Adela after she nearly ruined Azizs life, and the
friendship between the two men suffers as a consequence. Then Fielding sails for a visit to England. Aziz
declares that he is done with the English and that he intends to move to a place where he will not have to
encounter them.
Two years later, Aziz has become the chief doctor to the Rajah of Mau, a Hindu region several hundred
miles from Chandrapore. He has heard that Fielding married Adela shortly after returning to England. Aziz
now virulently hates all English people. One day, walking through an old temple with his three children, he
encounters Fielding and his brother-in-law. Aziz is surprised to learn that the brother-in-laws name is
Ralph Moore; it turns out that Fielding married not Adela Quested, but Stella Moore, Mrs. Moores
daughter from her second marriage.
Aziz befriends Ralph. After he accidentally runs his rowboat into Fieldings, Aziz renews his friendship
with Fielding as well. The two men go for a final ride together before Fielding leaves, during which Aziz
tells Fielding that once the English are out of India, the two will be able to be friends. Fielding asks why
they cannot be friends now, when they both want to be, but the sky and the earth seem to say No, not yet. .
. . No, not there.
Major characters
Dr.Aziz seems to be a mess of extremes and contradictions, an embodiment of Forsters notion of the
muddle of India. Aziz is impetuous and flighty, changing opinions and preoccupations quickly and
without warning, from one moment to the next. His moods swing back and forth between extremes, from
childlike elation one minute to utter despair the next. Aziz even seems capable of shifting careers and
talents, serving as both physician and poet during the course of A Passage to India. Azizs somewhat
youthful qualities, as evidenced by a sense of humor that leans toward practical joking, are offset by his
attitude of irony toward his English superiors.
Forster, though not blatantly stereotyping, encourages us to see many of Azizs characteristics as
characteristics of Indians in general. Aziz, like many of his friends, dislikes blunt honesty and directness,
preferring to communicate through confidences, feelings underlying words, and indirect speech. Aziz has a
sense that much of morality is really social code. He therefore feels no moral compunction about visiting
prostitutes or reading Fieldings private mailboth because his intentions are good and because he knows
he will not be caught. Instead of living by merely social codes, Aziz guides his action through a code that is
nearly religious, such as we see in his extreme hospitality. Moreover, Aziz, like many of the other Indians,
struggles with the problem of the English in India. On the one hand, he appreciates some of the
modernizing influences that the West has brought to India; on the other, he feels that the presence of the
English degrades and oppresses his people.
Despite his contradictions, Aziz is a genuinely affectionate character, and his affection is often based on
intuited connections, as with Mrs. Moore and Fielding. Though Forster holds up Azizs capacity for

imaginative sympathy as a good trait, we see that this imaginativeness can also betray Aziz. The deep
offense Aziz feels toward Fielding in the aftermath of his trial stems from fiction and misinterpreted
intuition. Aziz does not stop to evaluate facts, but rather follows his heart to the exclusion of all other
methodsan approach that is sometimes wrong.
Many critics have contended that Forster portrays Aziz and many of the other Indian characters
unflatteringly. Indeed, though the author is certainly sympathetic to the Indians, he does sometimes present
them as incompetent, subservient, or childish. These somewhat valid critiques call into question the realism
of Forsters novel, but they do not, on the whole, corrupt his exploration of the possibility of friendly
relations between Indians and Englishmenarguably the central concern of the novel.
Of all the characters in the novel, Cyril Fielding is clearly the most associated with Forster himself. Among
the Englishmen in Chandrapore, Fielding is far and away most the successful at developing and sustaining
relationships with native Indians. Though he is an educator, he is less comfortable in teacher-student
interaction than he is in one-on-one conversation with another individual. This latter style serves as
Forsters model of liberal humanismForster and Fielding treat the world as a group of individuals who
can connect through mutual respect, courtesy, and intelligence.
Fielding, in these viewpoints, presents the main threat to the mentality of the English in India. He educates
Indians as individuals, engendering a movement of free thought that has the potential to destabilize English
colonial power. Furthermore, Fielding has little patience for the racial categorization that is so central to the
English grip on India. He honors his friendship with Aziz over any alliance with members of his own race
a reshuffling of allegiances that threatens the solidarity of the English. Finally, Fielding travels light, as
he puts it: he does not believe in marriage, but favors friendship instead. As such, Fielding implicitly
questions the domestic conventions upon which the Englishmens sense of Englishness is founded.
Fielding refuses to sentimentalize domestic England or to venerate the role of the wife or mothera far cry
from the other Englishmen, who put Adela on a pedestal after the incident at the caves.
Fieldings character changes in the aftermath of Azizs trial. He becomes jaded about the Indians as well as
the English. His English sensibilities, such as his need for proportion and reason, become more prominent
and begin to grate against Azizs Indian sensibilities. By the end of A Passage to India, Forster seems to
identify with Fielding less. Whereas Aziz remains a likable, if flawed, character until the end of the novel,
Fielding becomes less likable in his increasing identification and sameness with the English.
Adela Quested arrives in India with Mrs. Moore, and, fittingly, her character develops in parallel to Mrs.
Moores. Adela, like the elder Englishwoman, is an individualist and an educated free thinker. These
tendencies lead her, just as they lead Mrs. Moore, to question the standard behaviors of the English toward
the Indians. Adelas tendency to question standard practices with frankness makes her resistant to being
labeledand therefore resistant to marrying Ronny and being labeled a typical colonial English wife. Both
Mrs. Moore and Adela hope to see the real India rather than an arranged tourist version. However,
whereas Mrs. Moores desire is bolstered by a genuine interest in and affection for Indians, Adela appears
to want to see the real India simply on intellectual grounds. She puts her mind to the task, but not her
heartand therefore never connects with Indians.
Adelas experience at the Marabar Caves causes her to undergo a crisis of rationalism against spiritualism.
While Adelas character changes greatly in the several days after her alleged assault, her testimony at the
trial represents a return of the old Adela, with the sole difference that she is plagued by doubt in a way she
was not originally. Adela begins to sense that her assault, and the echo that haunts her afterward, are
representative of something outside the scope of her normal rational comprehension. She is pained by her
inability to articulate her experience. She finds she has no purpose innor love forIndia, and suddenly
fears that she is unable to love anyone. Adela is filled with the realization of the damage she has done to
Aziz and others, yet she feels paralyzed, unable to remedy the wrongs she has done. Nonetheless, Adela
selflessly endures her difficult fate after the triala course of action that wins her a friend in Fielding, who
sees her as a brave woman rather than a traitor to her race.

As a character, Mrs. Moore serves a double function in A Passage to India, operating on two different
planes. She is initially a literal character, but as the novel progresses she becomes more a symbolic
presence. On the literal level, Mrs. Moore is a good-hearted, religious, elderly woman with mystical
leanings. The initial days of her visit to India are successful, as she connects with India and Indians on an
intuitive level. Whereas Adela is overly cerebral, Mrs. Moore relies successfully on her heart to make
connections during her visit. Furthermore, on the literal level, Mrs. Moores character has human
limitations: her experience at Marabar renders her apathetic and even somewhat mean, to the degree that
she simply leaves India without bothering to testify to Azizs innocence or to oversee Ronny and Adelas
wedding.
After her departure, however, Mrs. Moore exists largely on a symbolic level. Though she herself has human
flaws, she comes to symbolize an ideally spiritual and race-blind openness that Forster sees as a solution to
the problems in India. Mrs. Moores name becomes closely associated with Hinduism, especially the Hindu
tenet of the oneness and unity of all living things. This symbolic side to Mrs. Moore might even make her
the heroine of the novel, the only English person able to closely connect with the Hindu vision of unity.
Nonetheless, Mrs. Moores literal actionsher sudden abandonment of Indiamake her less than heroic.
Ronny Heaslops character does not change much over the course of the novel; instead, Forsters emphasis
is on the change that happened before the novel begins, when Ronny first arrived in India. Both Mrs.
Moore and Adela note the difference between the Ronny they knew in England and the Ronny of British
India. Forster uses Ronnys character and the changes he has undergone as a sort of case study, an
exploration of the restrictions that the English colonials herd mentality imposes on individual personalities.
All of Ronnys previously individual tastes are effectively dumbed down to meet group standards. He
devalues his intelligence and learning from England in favor of the wisdom gained by years of
experience in India. The open-minded attitude with which he has been brought up has been replaced by a
suspicion of Indians. In short, Ronnys tastes, opinions, and even his manner of speaking are no longer his
own, but those of older, ostensibly wiser British Indian officials. This kind of group thinking is what
ultimately causes Ronny to clash with both Adela and his mother, Mrs. Moore.
Nonetheless, Ronny is not the worst of the English in India, and Forster is somewhat sympathetic in his
portrayal of him. Ronnys ambition to rise in the ranks of British India has not completely destroyed his
natural goodness, but merely perverted it. Ronny cares about his job and the Indians with whom he works,
if only to the extent that they, in turn, reflect upon him. Forster presents Ronnys failing as the fault of the
colonial system, not his own.

Major Themes
The Difficulty of English-Indian Friendship
A Passage to India begins and ends by posing the question of whether it is possible for an Englishman and
an Indian to ever be friends, at least within the context of British colonialism. Forster uses this question as a
framework to explore the general issue of Britains political control of India on a more personal level,
through the friendship between Aziz and Fielding. At the beginning of the novel, Aziz is scornful of the
English, wishing only to consider them comically or ignore them completely. Yet the intuitive connection
Aziz feels with Mrs. Moore in the mosque opens him to the possibility of friendship with Fielding. Through
the first half of the novel, Fielding and Aziz represent a positive model of liberal humanism: Forster
suggests that British rule in India could be successful and respectful if only English and Indians treated
each other as Fielding and Aziz treat each otheras worthy individuals who connect through frankness,
intelligence, and good will.
Yet in the aftermath of the novels climaxAdelas accusation that Aziz attempted to assault her and her
subsequent disavowal of this accusation at the trialAziz and Fieldings friendship falls apart. The strains
on their relationship are external in nature, as Aziz and Fielding both suffer from the tendencies of their

cultures. Aziz tends to let his imagination run away with him and to let suspicion harden into a grudge.
Fielding suffers from an English literalism and rationalism that blind him to Azizs true feelings and make
Fielding too stilted to reach out to Aziz through conversations or letters. Furthermore, their respective
Indian and English communities pull them apart through their mutual stereotyping. As we see at the end of
the novel, even the landscape of India seems to oppress their friendship. Forsters final vision of the
possibility of English-Indian friendship is a pessimistic one, yet it is qualified by the possibility of
friendship on English soil, or after the liberation of India. As the landscape itself seems to imply at the end
of the novel, such a friendship may be possible eventually, but not yet.
The Unity of All Living Things
Though the main characters of A Passage to India are generally Christian or Muslim, Hinduism also plays a
large thematic role in the novel. The aspect of Hinduism with which Forster is particularly concerned is the
religions ideal of all living things, from the lowliest to the highest, united in love as one. This vision of the
universe appears to offer redemption to India through mysticism, as individual differences disappear into a
peaceful collectivity that does not recognize hierarchies. Individual blame and intrigue is forgone in favor
of attention to higher, spiritual matters. Professor Godbole, the most visible Hindu in the novel, is Forsters
mouthpiece for this idea of the unity of all living things. Godbole alone remains aloof from the drama of
the plot, refraining from taking sides by recognizing that all are implicated in the evil of Marabar. Mrs.
Moore, also, shows openness to this aspect of Hinduism. Though she is a Christian, her experience of India
has made her dissatisfied with what she perceives as the smallness of Christianity. Mrs. Moore appears to
feel a great sense of connection with all living creatures, as evidenced by her respect for the wasp in her
bedroom.
Yet, through Mrs. Moore, Forster also shows that the vision of the oneness of all living things can be
terrifying. As we see in Mrs. Moores experience with the echo that negates everything into boum in
Marabar, such oneness provides unity but also makes all elements of the universe one and the samea
realization that, it is implied, ultimately kills Mrs. Moore. Godbole is not troubled by the idea that negation
is an inevitable result when all things come together as one. Mrs. Moore, however, loses interest in the
world of relationships after envisioning this lack of distinctions as a horror. Moreover, though Forster
generally endorses the Hindu idea of the oneness of all living things, he also suggests that there may be
inherent problems with it. Even Godbole, for example, seems to recognize that somethingif only a stone
must be left out of the vision of oneness if the vision is to cohere. This problem of exclusion is, in a
sense, merely another manifestation of the individual difference and hierarchy that Hinduism promises to
overcome.
The Muddle of India
Forster takes great care to strike a distinction between the ideas of muddle and mystery in A Passage to
India. Muddle has connotations of dangerous and disorienting disorder, whereas mystery suggests a
mystical, orderly plan by a spiritual force that is greater than man. Fielding, who acts as Forsters primary
mouthpiece in the novel, admits that India is a muddle, while figures such as Mrs. Moore and Godbole
view India as a mystery. The muddle that is India in the novel appears to work from the ground up: the very
landscape and architecture of the countryside is formless, and the natural life of plants and animals defies
identification. This muddled quality to the environment is mirrored in the makeup of Indias native
population, which is mixed into a muddle of different religious, ethnic, linguistic, and regional groups.
The muddle of India disorients Adela the most; indeed, the events at the Marabar Caves that trouble her so
much can be seen as a manifestation of this muddle. By the end of the novel, we are still not sure what
actually has happened in the caves. Forster suggests that Adelas feelings about Ronny become externalized
and muddled in the caves, and that she suddenly experiences these feelings as something outside of her.
The muddle of India also affects Aziz and Fieldings friendship, as their good intentions are derailed by the
chaos of cross-cultural signals.
Though Forster is sympathetic to India and Indians in the novel, his overwhelming depiction of India as a
muddle matches the manner in which many Western writers of his day treated the East in their works. As
the noted critic Edward Said has pointed out, these authors orientalizing of the East made Western logic

and capability appear self-evident, and, by extension, portrayed the Wests domination of the East as
reasonable or even necessary.
The Negligence of British Colonial Government
Though A Passage to India is in many ways a highly symbolic, or even mystical, text, it also aims to be a
realistic documentation of the attitudes of British colonial officials in India. Forster spends large sections of
the novel characterizing different typical attitudes the English hold toward the Indians whom they control.
Forsters satire is most harsh toward Englishwomen, whom the author depicts as overwhelmingly racist,
self-righteous, and viciously condescending to the native population. Some of the Englishmen in the novel
are as nasty as the women, but Forster more often identifies Englishmen as men who, though
condescending and unable to relate to Indians on an individual level, are largely well-meaning and invested
in their jobs. For all Forsters criticism of the British manner of governing India, however, he does not
appear to question the right of the British Empire to rule India. He suggests that the British would be well
served by becoming kinder and more sympathetic to the Indians with whom they live, but he does not
suggest that the British should abandon India outright. Even this lesser critique is never overtly stated in the
novel, but implied through biting satire.
Major issues.
The Echo
The echo begins at the Marabar Caves: first Mrs. Moore and then Adela hear the echo and are haunted by it
in the weeks to come. The echos sound is bouma sound it returns regardless of what noise or utterance
is originally made. This negation of difference embodies the frightening flip side of the seemingly positive
Hindu vision of the oneness and unity of all living things. If all people and things become the same thing,
then no distinction can be made between good and evil. No value system can exist. The echo plagues Mrs.
Moore until her death, causing her to abandon her beliefs and cease to care about human relationships.
Adela, however, ultimately escapes the echo by using its message of impersonality to help her realize
Azizs innocence.
Eastern and Western Architecture
Forster spends time detailing both Eastern and Western architecture in A Passage to India. Three
architectural structuresthough one is naturally occurringprovide the outline for the books three
sections, Mosque, Caves, and Temple. Forster presents the aesthetics of Eastern and Western
structures as indicative of the differences of the respective cultures as a whole. In India, architecture is
confused and formless: interiors blend into exterior gardens, earth and buildings compete with each other,
and structures appear unfinished or drab. As such, Indian architecture mirrors the muddle of India itself and
what Forster sees as the Indians characteristic inattention to form and logic. Occasionally, however, Forster
takes a positive view of Indian architecture. The mosque in Part I and temple in Part III represent the
promise of Indian openness, mysticism, and friendship. Western architecture, meanwhile, is described
during Fieldings stop in Venice on his way to England. Venices structures, which Fielding sees as
representative of Western architecture in general, honor form and proportion and complement the earth on
which they are built. Fielding reads in this architecture the self-evident correctness of Western reasonan
order that, he laments, his Indian friends would not recognize or appreciate.
Godboles Song
At the end of Fieldings tea party, Godbole sings for the English visitors a Hindu song, in which a milkmaid
pleads for God to come to her or to her people. The songs refrain of Come! come recurs throughout A
Passage to India, mirroring the appeal for the entire country of salvation from something greater than itself.
After the song, Godbole admits that God never comes to the milkmaid. The song greatly disheartens Mrs.
Moore, setting the stage for her later spiritual apathy, her simultaneous awareness of a spiritual presence
and lack of confidence in spiritualism as a redeeming force. Godbole seemingly intends his song as a
message or lesson that recognition of the potential existence of a God figure can bring the world together
and erode differencesafter all, Godbole himself sings the part of a young milkmaid. Forster uses the
refrain of Godboles song, Come! come, to suggest that Indias redemption is yet to come.

Major Symbols.
The Marabar Caves
The Marabar Caves represent all that is alien about nature. The caves are older than anything else on the
earth and embody nothingness and emptinessa literal void in the earth. They defy both English and
Indians to act as guides to them, and their strange beauty and menace unsettles visitors. The caves alien
quality also has the power to make visitors such as Mrs. Moore and Adela confront parts of themselves or
the universe that they have not previously recognized. The all-reducing echo of the caves causes Mrs.
Moore to see the darker side of her spiritualitya waning commitment to the world of relationships and a
growing ambivalence about God. Adela confronts the shame and embarrassment of her realization that she
and Ronny are not actually attracted to each other, and that she might be attracted to no one. In this sense,
the caves both destroy meaning, in reducing all utterances to the same sound, and expose or narrate the
unspeakable, the aspects of the universe that the caves visitors have not yet considered.
The Green Bird
Just after Adela and Ronny agree for the first time, in Chapter VII, to break off their engagement, they
notice a green bird sitting in the tree above them. Neither of them can positively identify the bird. For
Adela, the bird symbolizes the unidentifiable quality of all of India: just when she thinks she can
understand any aspect of India, that aspect changes or disappears. In this sense, the green bird symbolizes
the muddle of India. In another capacity, the bird points to a different tension between the English and
Indians. The English are obsessed with knowledge, literalness, and naming, and they use these tools as a
means of gaining and maintaining power. The Indians, in contrast, are more attentive to nuance, undertone,
and the emotions behind words. While the English insist on labeling things, the Indians recognize that
labels can blind one to important details and differences. The unidentifiable green bird suggests the
incompatibility of the English obsession with classification and order with the shifting quality of India itself
the land is, in fact, a hundred Indias that defy labeling and understanding.
The Wasp
The wasp appears several times in A Passage to India, usually in conjunction with the Hindu vision of the
oneness of all living things. The wasp is usually depicted as the lowest creature the Hindus incorporate into
their vision of universal unity. Mrs. Moore is closely associated with the wasp, as she finds one in her room
and is gently appreciative of it. Her peaceful regard for the wasp signifies her own openness to the Hindu
idea of collectivity, and to the mysticism and indefinable quality of India in general. However, as the wasp
is the lowest creature that the Hindus visualize, it also represents the limits of the Hindu vision. The vision
is not a panacea, but merely a possibility for unity and understanding in India.
www.sparknotes.com
Questions:
1.How is the relationship between the British and Indians depicted in the novel?
2.Which major symbols speak about how The British considered India?
3.How is Forsters perspective of colonization rendered in the novel?

Salman Rushdie Midnights Children

The novel opens with the narrator Saleem Sinai's description of his birth at midnight on August 15th, 1947,
which coincided with the precise moment of India's independence. In Kashmir in 1915, Saleem's
grandfather, Aadam Aziz decides he does not wholly believe, nor wholly disbelieve, in the existence of
God. Doctor Aziz learns that Ghani the landowners daughter Naseem has grown ill. Naseem stands behind
a sheet during his examination of her, and a single hole cut in the sheet allows Aadam to examine the area
of concern. Naseem experiences many ailments over the years, but because she never develops pains in her
head, Aadam does not lay eyes upon her face until the day on which World War I ends, at which point he
falls even further in love with her. Naseem and Aadam get married, and Naseem, also known as Reverend
Mother bears five children with Aadam: Alia, Mumtaz, Hanif, Mustapha and Emerald.
A significant pro-Indian Muslim political figure, Mian Addullah, dies at the hands of assassins during a
visit to the university campus with his personal secretary Nadir Khan. Nadir, however, escapes, and Doctor
Aziz hides him in his cellar, despite Naseem's resistance, which manifests itself in her oath of silence.
Mumtaz attends to Nadir Khan's needs during his stay in the cellar and falls in love with him. Mumtaz and
Nadir Khan marry, and two years later, Aadam discovers that Mumtaz has remained a virgin. Naseem
finally breaks her vow of silence to speak against the marriage. Meanwhile, the youngest daughter,
Emerald, breaks her promise of secrecy by notifying her lover Major Zulfikar of Nadir's presence. Nadir
escapes from the cellar, leaving a note divorcing himself from Mumtaz, who remarries to Ahmed Sinai and
who changes her name to Amina Sinai. Amina becomes pregnant and the Times of India announces that it
will award a prize to any mother who gives birth to a child at the precise instance of India's independence.
Mary Pereira, a midwife, becomes distressed over rumors of Joseph DCosta, her lovers relationship with
her sister. At midnight on August 15th, 1947, both Amina Sinai and Vanita give birth to sons; Vanita dies
during childbirth. Wishing to please her lover, Mary switches the two babies, condemning the son of
wealthy parents to a life of poverty and guaranteeing Vanita's son a life of comfort. In his infancy, Saleem
grows at an incredible pace. Ahmed receives a formal letter notifying him of the freezing of all his assets.
Amina begins to gamble at the racetracks, despite her belief in the sinful nature of the activity. One night a
commotion in the nearby watchtower stirs the members of the Sinai household, and when the police arrive
they discover that Joseph D'Costa has planted several explosives in the watchtower. Meanwhile Saleem's
mother gives birth to Saleem's baby sister The Brass Monkey.
The Brass Monkey develops into a mischievous young child, but high expectations remain for Saleem's
young life. Saleem begins to hide in his mother's washing- chest when the outside world overwhelms him;
on one such day, Saleem hears his mother answer the telephone and repeatedly call out Nadir's name while
masturbating. A pajama cord becomes lodged up in Saleem's nose and he soon discovers his ability to listen
to others' thoughts. When he announces this new skill to his family, they react with anger and scorn and
Saleem apologizes.
Saleem forms the M.C.C., the Midnight Children's Conference. Saleem secretly accompanies his mother on
one of her supposedly urgent shopping trips, and, hiding in the back of her car, witnesses his mother's
rendezvous with Nadir Khan. When Saleem arrives at the hospital after he loses half his middle finger in a
slammed door, the doctor announces that he shares neither Ahmed's nor Amina's blood type. Amina
terminates her affair with Nadir after an acquaintance's jealous husband kills his wife and her lover in a fit
of rage.
In 1958, Mary Pereira, consumed by guilt, finally divulges the secret of the switched births eleven years
previous. After the Sinais' marriage deteriorates even further, Amina leaves Ahmed, with the Brass Monkey
and Saleem, to move to Pakistan, where Saleem finds he has lost his ability to read others' thoughts. The
Brass Monkey soon discovers her tremendous singing talent and becomes known by the name of "Jamila
Singer."

Amina, Jamila, and Saleem return to Bombay after Ahmed has heart troubles, and Amina and her husband
fall deeply in love. Ahmed and Amina trick Saleem into an operation in which doctors clear out his nasal
passages; upon awakening, Saleem can no longer read others' thoughts. Amina soon convinces her husband
to emigrate to Pakistan. Saleem realizes his somewhat incestuous love for his sister, but his confession of
this love renders Jamila horrified and ashamed. Amina becomes pregnant once again, but when the IndoPakistani war of 1965 erupts, a bomb kills Amina, her unborn child, Ahmed and her sister Alia.
Saleem joins the Pakistani army, where he cannot seem to retrieve any of his memories nor feel any
emotions. Saleem and three other soldiers enter the jungle of The Sundarbans. A poisonous snake bites
Saleem, causing him to miraculously recover from his memory loss. However, his first name, mysteriously,
still eludes him. When Saleem encounters Parvati-the-witch, her exclamations at last result in Saleem's
recollection of his name. Through her magic Parvati enables Saleem to travel back to India by hiding in a
basket.
Frustrated by her unrequited affection for Saleem, Parvati-the-witch summons Shiva, who impregnates her.
Parvati has become pregnant in order to convince a supposedly impotent Saleem to marry her. After their
marriage, Parvati gives birth to Aadam Sinai on June 25th, 1975, on the stroke of midnight. The baby is
perfectly formed but has a set of colossal ears; he also does not speak a single word during his entire
infancy.
On New Year's Day, 1977, a nurse administers anaesthetic to Saleem and the doctors perform a vasectomy
on him; finally his self-professed infertility has in fact come true. They also systemically perform
operations on all of the living midnight's children in order to render it impossible for them to give birth.
Saleem encounters increasingly forceful reminders of his mortality, and senses imminent death. Aadam
Sinai, who has not spoken a word in the more than three years since his birth, says, "Abracadabra." On his
thirty-first birthday, Saleem expects to marryPadma soon, but also becomes overwhelmed with the
multiplicity of his various lives and with the specter of death lurking in his psyche.

The major characters


The novel's protagonist, Salem Sinai is born on August 15th, 1947 at the stroke of midnight, the precise
moment of India's independence from British rule. From the moment his mother announces his conception,
his life becomes very public, and Saleem reiterates throughout the novel that "to understand me, you'll have
to swallow a world." This idea underscores the link Rushdie establishes in this novel between the personal
and the public. Saleem equates his life path with that of India's path as a new nation, and draws upon many
metaphors to illustrate this connection.
Saleem searches to understand his own fragmented identity. Because Saleem is the child of multiple
nations, religions, languages, and political parties, he has a conflicted and often contradictory sense of self.
Saleem's grandfather also experienced a similar sensation. In Saleem's description of his grandfather
immediately before his death, Rushdie densely packs several of the main themes of the novel. He writes,
"What leaked into me from Aadam Aziz: a certain vulnerability to women, but also its cause, the hole at the
center of himself caused by his (which is also my) failure to believe or disbelieve in God. And something
else as well - something which, at the age of eleven, I saw before anyone also noticed. My grandfather had
begun to crack." Saleem acknowledges his inheritance of some of his grandfather's personality traits and
tendencies, despite the fact that he has no biological relation to him. Second, he addresses both of the men's
uncertainty regarding their faith. Third, the theme of fragmentation manifests itself in this description of the
"cracks" in his body. These cracks represent the failure of an effort to formulate identity or meaning.
Shiva, named after the Hindu deity, acts as Saleem's lifelong rival. The two midnight children were born at
precisely the same moment, and Mary Pereira switched them at birth, condemning Shiva to a life of poverty
and promoting Saleem from a life of poverty to one of wealth and comfort. Throughout the novel, Saleem
remains aware that Shiva may try to claim his birthright by acting with some aggression toward him.

Saleem and Shiva's intense rivalry alludes to that between the Hindu deities Brahma and Shiva. According
to Hindu legend, Brahma created the world when Shiva, who had been assigned the task, went into a
thousand-year abstinence. Angered by Brahma's preemptive creation, Shiva returns to destroy the world
with fire. Appeased, he castrates himself and plants his "linga" there. This myth plays a central role in
Midnight's Children because it suggests an aesthetic competition between Saleem and Shiva, as well as
imagining the competition between Shiva and Saleem to be one between "the two valid forms of creation."
Brahma dreams the world, while Shiva allows it to exist by declining to use his immeasurable power
toward its destruction. The Shiva of Midnight's Children shares the deity's characteristics, and becomes
famous for his fighting abilities while enlisted in the Indian army.
Salman Rushdie has invented Padma's character for several reasons. Perhaps even more importantly than
her integral part in Saleem's life, especially later in the novel, Padma, in accordance with the tradition of
storytelling, represents the listener. The narrator Saleem repeatedly speaks directly to Padma, and even
includes her critiques on, and reactions to, the narration. Rushdie often inserts parentheses to indicate these
interactions with Padma.
Rushdie's inclusion of these interactions with Padma lends her the role of a sort of co-producer of the
narration. While Saleem adopts an impassive or indifferent tone toward events that are extraordinary,
Padma responds emotionally to these events. In addition, Padma assists Saleem, who is susceptible to
following his wandering thoughts in any number of directions, in remaining committed to a vaguely
coherent storyline. Her role in the novel also addresses the difficulties and joys of the creative process, in a
novel in which the recording of history and lives takes on such importance.
The transformation of The Brass Monkey into Jamila Singer touches upon many of the novel's themes.
First, the white silk chadar Jamila wears to maintain her modesty onstage, with a hole cut out for her
mouth, bears a striking resemblance to the "perforated sheet" through which Naseem Ghani allows Doctor
Aadam Aziz to examine her. In addition, a young man named Mutasim becomes obsessed with the notion
of seeing her face, much as Aadam had grown so eager to see Naseem's visage. These connections create a
cyclical quality that addresses the continuation of family tradition and history.
Second, Saleem expresses his concern that Jamila has become subject to "the exaggerations and
simplifications of self which are the unavoidable side-effects of stardom, so that the blind and blinding
devoutness and the right-or-wrong nationalism which had already begun to emerge in her now began to
dominate her personality, to the exclusion of almost everything else." The Brass Monkey had had such a
forceful personality that Saleem becomes shocked to witness her new look, attitude, and profession. He
argues that due to her position as one year younger than he, she has become subject to an entirely different
set of standards and influences. Rushdie employs Jamila's character in order to address the Muslim ideals
of purity and submissiveness toward which Jamila strives. He also uses Jamila to make the statement that
one must always question societal norms and political assumptions in order to contribute to the world.
Major Themes
The Relationship between Personal Life and History
Midnight's Children explores the ways in which history is given meaning through the telling of individual
experience. For protagonist Saleem Sinai, born at the instance of India's independence from Britain, his life
becomes inextricably linked with the political, national, and religious events of his time. Not only does
Saleem experience many of the crucial historical events, but he also claims some degree of involvement in
them. Saleem expresses his observation that his private life has been remarkably public, from the very
moment of his conception. In a broader sense, Rushdie is relating Saleem's generation of "Midnight's
Children" to the generation of Indians with whom he was born and raised.
The Fragmentation of Identity
The reader of Midnight's Children must piece together Saleem Sinai's narrative to extract meaning from it.
As the narrative involves sudden shifts back and forth in time, as well as many instances of illusion, the
reader must solve the puzzle of Saleem Sinai's life. Similarly, the characters in the novel, in the process of

their search for self-definition, must attempt to solve the puzzle of their own identities. For example,
Aadam Aziz gains a familiarity with Naseem Ghani, who will one day become his wife, through a white
perforated sheet. Aadam may move the hole in the sheet to examine any given area. In this way Aadam
piece together a puzzle of Naseem's appearance.
he role of fragmentation in the formation of identity also applies to nations, particularly to India. The
fragmentation of the large British colonial territory into Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh, whose cultural,
religious, political, and linguistic traditions differ, presented a tremendously complex and intimidating task.
Therefore, India's early days as an independent nation were fraught with division and strife. Rushdie draws
a comparison between India's struggles with its neighboring peoples and Saleem's struggles with various
family members and with the other members of the Midnight Children's Club. Rushdie also demonstrates
Saleem's fragmentation through his actual physical mutilations, both on the school playground and under
the doctor's knife.
Rushdie also uses metaphorical allusions to fragmentation or disintegration that indicate the loss of a sense
of identity. For example, Rushdie describes both Aadam Aziz and Saleem Sinai as possessing a void or a
hole in their centers as a result of their uncertainty of God's existence. In their respective last days, Rushdie
describes the "cracking" and eventual disintegration of their exteriors.
The Search for Parental Figures
Over the course of his life Saleem identifies many people as his parents. His biological parents Wee Willie
and Vanita, are in some ways the least important of all his "parents." Many different individuals
metaphorically father Saleem; the novel even suggests that time or history fathers Saleem. Each time
Saleem finds a new father, he experiences a rebirth of sorts. This multiple metaphorical parentage also
relates to the feelings of homelessness and exile as well to the fragmentation of identity and memory that
plague Saleem throughout the novel. After its liberation from English rule, India has arrived at a type of
double parentage; that is, both native and colonial traditions have shaped the nation.
Major issues
Shifts in Time
The constant shift back and forth in time during Saleem's narration becomes a dominant element in the
telling of Saleem's life story. The narrator frequently refers to events or feelings that take place much later
in his life. As a result of these shifts in time, Rushdie refers to almost every life event far before its
occurrence and full description in the novel. This method not only speaks to the tricks time plays, and to the
unreliability of measures of time and the telling of history, but also to the theme of fragmentation. Much as
Saleem must piece together the numerous elements and phases of his life and his heritage, the narrator calls
upon the reader to solve the puzzle of Saleem's narration, which does not follow chronological or linear
logic, but rather rides the wave of his emotions.
Sensory Experience
Salman Rushdie's writing emphasizes sensory experience as a means of expressing or receiving emotion.
Smells, tastes, sights, sounds, and feelings abound in Rusdie's descriptions of life experiences. Rushie also
establishes an intimate connection between sensory experience and memory.
Changes in Narrative Style
One of these trends involves the style of narration. The first-person narrative style not only conveys to the
reader the innermost thoughts and emotions of Saleem Sinai, but also at times speaks directly to the reader.
The style also hints at the influence of stream-of-consciousness writing on Rushdie. Although he employs
more punctuation than other stream-of-consciousness writers, his writing reflects the rephrasing and
reworking of a writer's or a narrator's mind. He also addresses the reader in the informal second person, and
in so doing engages the reader in his life story much as a storyteller engages his listeners. The narrative
style largely resembles more of an oral than a written experience.
The Unreliability of Historical and Biographical Accounts

Salman Rushdie does not always accurately recount the events in recent Indian history during the course of
Midnight's Children. At times he makes mistakes on details or dates, but he makes them intentionally, in
order to comment on the unreliability of historical and biographical accounts. For example, Saleem informs
the reader that an old lover of his shot him through the heart; however, in the very next chapter he
confesses to having fabricated the circumstances of his death.
Major Symbols
The Silver Spittoon
The symbolic role of the spittoon allows the narrative to circle back on itself without losing its forward
momentum. As the silver spittoon continues to appear in different contexts, Rushdie builds meaning into
the image and provides the reader with a familiar angle of insight into the meaning of his tale. A
particularly extraordinary silver spittoon inlaid with lapis lazuli appears at the beginning of the story and
follows the course of the narrative almost until the end, where it is eventually buried under the rubble of
civic reconstruction by a bulldozer. The silver spittoon becomes a link to reality for Saleem.
Colors
In a novel rich with symbolism, Rushdie makes frequent use of colors to highlight national or religious
affiliations. Throughout the book, Rushdie refers to the colors of the Indian flag, saffron, white, and green.
At times Rushdie also places saffron and green in opposition to one another; saffron, prominently placed on
India's national flag, has significance in Hinduism as symbolic of courage and determination. Pakistan's
flag, on the other hand, features green and white; the green sections, larger in area, represent Pakistan's
Muslim majority. The color blue also plays a central symbolic role in the novel. Rushdie connects the color
blue to Kashmir and to idealism. The priest in this novel attempts to convince Mary Pereira that Jesus
Christ was blue, much as the Hindu deity Krishna was blue. Here blue also represents possible saviorhood,
although in this novel saviorhood is only potential, never realized.
Pickles
Rushdie has cleverly designed the chapters of Midnight's Children. He refers to each of the thirty chapters
as a jar of pickles. The process of "chutnification" refers to the process of "pickling," or writing about,
historical and life events.
www.sparknotes.com
Questions:
1.

How is Indias independence rendered in the novel?

2.

Which characters voice their views on Indias situation?

3.

Comment on the symbols that refer to issues of colonization in the novel.

Toni Morrison Beloved

Beloved begins in 1873 in Cincinnati, Ohio, where Sethe, a former slave, has been living with her eighteenyear-old daughter Denver. Sethes mother-in-law, Baby Suggs, lived with them until her death eight years
earlier. Just before Baby Suggss death, Sethes two sons, Howard and Buglar, ran away. Sethe believes
they fled because of the malevolent presence of an abusive ghost that has haunted their house at 124
Bluestone Road for years. Denver, however, likes the ghost, which everyone believes to be the spirit of her
dead sister.
On the day the novel begins, Paul D, whom Sethe has not seen since they worked together on Mr. Garners
Sweet Home plantation in Kentucky approximately twenty years earlier, stops by Sethes house. His
presence resurrects memories that have lain buried in Sethes mind for almost two decades. From this point
on, the story will unfold on two temporal planes. The present in Cincinnati constitutes one plane, while a
series of events that took place around twenty years earlier, mostly in Kentucky, constitutes the other. This
latter plane is accessed and described through the fragmented flashbacks of the major characters.
Accordingly, we frequently read these flashbacks several times, sometimes from varying perspectives, with
each successive narration of an event adding a little more information to the previous ones.
From these fragmented memories, the following story begins to emerge: Sethe, the protagonist, was born in
the South to an African mother she never knew. When she is thirteen, she is sold to the Garners, who own
Sweet Home and practice a comparatively benevolent kind of slavery. There, the other slaves, who are all
men, lust after her but never touch her. Their names are Sixo, Paul D, Paul A, Paul F, and Halle. Sethe
chooses to marry Halle, apparently in part because he has proven generous enough to buy his mothers
freedom by hiring himself out on the weekends. Together, Sethe and Halle have two sons, Howard and
Buglar, as well as a baby daughter whose name we never learn. When she leaves Sweet Home, Sethe is also
pregnant with a fourth child. After the eventual death of the proprietor, Mr. Garner, the widowed Mrs.
Garner asks her sadistic, vehemently racist brother-in-law to help her run the farm. He is known to the
slaves as schoolteacher, and his oppressive presence makes life on the plantation even more unbearable
than it had been before. The slaves decide to run.
Schoolteacher and his nephews anticipate the slaves escape, however, and capture Paul D and Sixo.
Schoolteacher kills Sixo and brings Paul D back to Sweet Home, where Paul D sees Sethe for what he
believes will be the last time. She is still intent on running, having already sent her children ahead to her
mother-in-law Baby Suggss house in Cincinnati. Invigorated by the recent capture, schoolteachers
nephews seize Sethe in the barn and violate her, stealing the milk her body is storing for her infant
daughter. Unbeknownst to Sethe, Halle is watching the event from a loft above her, where he lies frozen
with horror. Afterward, Halle goes mad: Paul D sees him sitting by a churn with butter slathered all over his
face. Paul D, meanwhile, is forced to suffer the indignity of wearing an iron bit in his mouth.
When schoolteacher finds out that Sethe has reported his and his nephews misdeeds to Mrs. Garner, he has
her whipped severely, despite the fact that she is pregnant. Swollen and scarred, Sethe nevertheless runs
away, but along the way she collapses from exhaustion in a forest. A white girl, Amy denver, finds her and
nurses her back to health. When Amy later helps Sethe deliver her baby in a boat, Sethe names this second
daughter Denver after the girl who helped her. Sethe receives further help from Stamp Paid, who rows her
across the Ohio River to Baby Suggss house. Baby Suggs cleans Sethe up before allowing her to see her
three older children.
Sethe spends twenty-eight wonderful days in Cincinnati, where Baby Suggs serves as an unofficial
preacher to the black community. On the last day, however, schoolteacher comes for Sethe to take her and
her children back to Sweet Home. Rather than surrender her children to a life of dehumanizing slavery, she
flees with them to the woodshed and tries to kill them. Only the third child, her older daughter, dies, her
throat having been cut with a handsaw by Sethe. Sethe later arranges for the babys headstone to be carved
with the word Beloved. The sheriff takes Sethe and Denver to jail, but a group of white abolitionists, led
by the Bodwins, fights for her release. Sethe returns to the house at 124, where Baby Suggs has sunk into a
deep depression. The community shuns the house, and the family continues to live in isolation.

Meanwhile, Paul D has endured torturous experiences in a chain gang in Georgia, where he was sent after
trying to kill Brandywine, a slave owner to whom he was sold by schoolteacher. His traumatic experiences
have caused him to lock away his memories, emotions, and ability to love in the tin tobacco box of his
heart. One day, a fortuitous rainstorm allows Paul D and the other chain gang members to escape. He
travels northward by following the blossoming spring flowers. Years later, he ends up on Sethes porch in
Cincinnati.
Paul Ds arrival at 124 commences the series of events taking place in the present time frame. Prior to
moving in, Paul D chases the houses resident ghost away, which makes the already lonely Denver resent
him from the start. Sethe and Paul D look forward to a promising future together, until one day, on their
way home from a carnival, they encounter a strange young woman sleeping near the steps of 124. Most of
the characters believe that the womanwho calls herself Belovedis the embodied spirit of Sethes dead
daughter, and the novel provides a wealth of evidence supporting this interpretation. Denver develops an
obsessive attachment to Beloved, and Beloveds attachment to Sethe is equally if not more intense. Paul D
and Beloved hate each other, and Beloved controls Paul D by moving him around the house like a rag doll
and by seducing him against his will.
When Paul D learns the story of Sethes rough choiceher infanticidehe leaves 124 and begins
sleeping in the basement of the local church. In his absence, Sethe and Beloveds relationship becomes
more intense and exclusive. Beloved grows increasingly abusive, manipulative, and parasitic, and Sethe is
obsessed with satisfying Beloveds demands and making her understand why she murdered her. Worried by
the way her mother is wasting away, Denver leaves the premises of 124 for the first time in twelve years in
order to seek help from Lady Jones, her former teacher. The community provides the family with food and
eventually organizes under the leadership of Ella, a woman who had worked on the Underground Railroad
and helped with Sethes escape, in order to exorcise Beloved from 124. When they arrive at Sethes house,
they see Sethe on the porch with Beloved, who stands smiling at them, naked and pregnant. Mr. Bodwin,
who has come to 124 to take Denver to her new job, arrives at the house. Mistaking him for schoolteacher,
Sethe runs at Mr. Bodwin with an ice pick. She is restrained, but in the confusion Beloved disappears,
never to return.
Afterward, Paul D comes back to Sethe, who has retreated to Baby Suggss bed to die. Mourning Beloved,
Sethe laments, She was my best thing. But Paul D replies, You your best thing, Sethe. The novel then
ends with a warning that [t]his is not a story to pass on. The town, and even the residents of 124, have
forgotten Beloved [l]ike an unpleasant dream during a troubling sleep.
Major characters

Sethe, the protagonist of the novel, is a proud and noble woman. She insists on sewing a proper wedding
dress for the first night she spends with Halle, and she finds schoolteachers lesson on her animal
characteristics more debilitating than his nephews sexual and physical abuse. Although the communitys
shunning of Sethe and baby Suggs for thinking too highly of themselves is unfair, the fact that Sethe prefers
to steal food from the restaurant where she works rather than wait on line with the rest of the black
community shows that she does consider herself different from the rest of the blacks in her neighborhood.
Yet, Sethe is not too proud to accept support from others in every instance. Despite her independence (and
her distrust of men), she welcomes Paul D. and the companionship he offers.
Sethes most striking characteristic, however, is her devotion to her children. Unwilling to relinquish her
children to the physical, emotional, and spiritual trauma she has endured as a slave, she tries to murder
them in an act that is, in her mind, one of motherly love and protection. Her memories of this cruel act and
of the brutality she herself suffered as a slave infuse her everyday life and lead her to contend that past
trauma can never really be eradicatedit continues, somehow, to exist in the present. She thus spends her
life attempting to avoid encounters with her past. Perhaps Sethes fear of the past is what leads her to ignore
the overwhelming evidence that Beloved is the reincarnation of her murdered daughter. Indeed, even after

she acknowledges Beloveds identity, Sethe shows herself to be still enslaved by the past, because she
quickly succumbs to Beloveds demands and allows herself to be consumed by Beloved. Only when Sethe
learns to confront the past head-on, to assert herself in its presence, can she extricate herself from its
oppressive power and begin to live freely, peacefully, and responsibly in the present.
Sethes daughter Denver is the most dynamic character in the novel. She is shy, intelligent, introspective,
sensitive, and inclined to spend hours alone in her emerald closet, a sylvan space formed by boxwood
bushes. Her mother considers Denver a charmed child who has miraculously survived, and throughout
the book Denver is in close contact with the supernatural.
Despite Denvers abilities to cope, she has been stunted emotionally by years of relative isolation. Though
eighteen years old, she acts much younger, maintaining an intense fear of the world outside 124 and a
perilously fragile sense of self. Indeed, her self-conception remains so tentative that she feels slighted by
the idea of a world that does not include hereven the world of slavery at Sweet Home. Denver defines
her identity in relation to Sethe. She also defines herself in relation to her sisterfirst in the form of the
baby ghost, then in the form of Beloved. When she feels that she is being excluded from her familys
attentionsfor example, when her mother devotes her energies to Paul DDenver feels threatened and
angry. Correspondingly, she treats Paul D coldly much of the time.
In the face of Beloveds escalating malevolence and her mothers submissiveness, Denver is forced to step
outside the world of 124. Filled with a sense of duty, purpose, and courage, she enlists the help of the
community and cares for her increasingly self-involved mother and sister. She enters a series of lessons
with Miss Bodwin and considers attending Oberlin College someday. Her last conversation with Paul D
underscores her newfound maturity: she presents herself with more civility and sincerity than in the past
and asserts that she now has her own opinions.
Beloveds elusive, complex identity is central to our understanding of the novel. She may, as Sethe
originally believes, be an ordinary woman who was locked up by a white man and never let out of doors.
Her limited linguistic ability, neediness, baby-soft skin, and emotional instability could all be explained by
a lifetime spent in captivity. But these traits could also support the theory that is held by most of the
characters in the novel, as well as most readers: Beloved is the embodied spirit of Sethes dead daughter.
Beloved is the age the baby would have been had it lived, and she bears the name printed on the babys
tombstone. She first appears to Sethe soaking wet, as though newly born, and Sethe has the sensation of her
water breaking when she sees her. Additionally, Beloved knows about a pair of earrings Sethe possessed
long ago, she hums a song Sethe made up for her children, she has a long scar under her chin where her
death-wound would have been dealt, and her breath smells like milk.
A third interpretation views Beloved as a representation of Sethes dead mother. In Chapter 22, Beloved
recounts memories that correspond to those that Sethes mother might have had of her passage to America
from Africa. Beloved has a strange manner of speaking and seems to wear a perpetual smiletraits we are
told were shared by Sethes mother. By Chapter 26, Beloved and Sethe have switched places, with Beloved
acting as the mother and Sethe as the child. Their role reversal may simply mark more explicitly what has
been Beloveds role all along. On a more general level, Beloved may also stand for all of the slaves who
made the passage across the Atlantic. She may give voice to and embody the collective unconscious of all
those oppressed by slaverys history and legacy.
Beloved is presented as an allegorical figure. Whether she is Sethes daughter, Sethes mother, or a
representative of all of slaverys victims, Beloved represents the past returned to haunt the present. The
characters confrontations with Beloved and, consequently, their pasts, are complex. The interaction
between Beloved and Sethe is given particular attention in the book. Once Sethe reciprocates Beloveds
violent passion for her, the two become locked in a destructive, exclusive, parasitic relationship. When she
is with Beloved, Sethe is paralyzed in the past. She devotes all her attention to making Beloved understand
why she reacted to schoolteachers arrival the way she did. Paradoxically, Beloveds presence is enabling at
the same time that it is destructive. Beloved allows and inspires Sethe to tell the stories she never tells
stories about her own feelings of abandonment by her mother, about the harshest indignities she suffered at

Sweet Home, and about her motivations for murdering her daughter. By engaging with her past, Sethe
begins to learn about herself and the extent of her ability to live in the present.
Beloved also inspires the growth of other characters in the novel. Though Paul Ds hatred for Beloved
never ceases, their strange, dreamlike sexual encounters open the lid of his tobacco tin heart, allowing
him to remember, feel, and love again. Denver benefits the most from Beloveds presence, though
indirectly. At first she feels an intense dependence on Beloved, convinced that in Beloveds absence she has
no self of her own. Later, however, Beloveds increasingly malevolent, temperamental, self-centered
actions alert Denver to the dangers of the past Beloved represents. Ultimately, Beloveds tyranny over
Sethe forces Denver to leave 124 and seek help in the community. Denvers exile from 124 marks the
beginning of her social integration and of her search for independence and self-possession.
Although Beloved vanishes at the end of the book, she is never really goneher dress and her story,
forgotten by the town but preserved by the novel, remain. Beloved represents a destructive and painful past,
but she also signals the possibility of a brighter future. She gives the people of 124, and eventually the
entire community, a chance to engage with the memories they have suppressed. Through confrontation, the
community can reclaim and learn from its forgotten and ignored memories
Major Themes
Identity destructed by slavery
Beloved explores the physical, emotional, and spiritual devastation wrought by slavery, a devastation that
continues to haunt those characters who are former slaves even in freedom. The most dangerous of
slaverys effects is its negative impact on the former slaves senses of self, and the novel contains multiple
examples of self-alienation. Paul D, for instance, is so alienated from himself that at one point he cannot
tell whether the screaming he hears is his own or someone elses. Slaves were told they were subhuman and
were traded as commodities whose worth could be expressed in dollars. Consequently, Paul D is very
insecure about whether or not he could possibly be a real man, and he frequently wonders about his value
as a person.
Sethe, also, was treated as a subhuman. She once walked in on schoolteacher giving his pupils a lesson on
her animal characteristics. She, too, seems to be alienated from herself and filled with self-loathing. Thus,
she sees the best part of herself as her children. Yet her children also have volatile, unstable identities.
Denver conflates her identity with Beloveds, and Beloved feels herself actually beginning to physically
disintegrate. Slavery has also limited Baby Suggss self-conception by shattering her family and denying
her the opportunity to be a true wife, sister, daughter, or loving mother.
As a result of their inability to believe in their own existences, both Baby Suggs and Paul D become
depressed and tired. Baby Suggss fatigue is spiritual, while Paul Ds is emotional. While a slave, Paul D
developed self-defeating coping strategies to protect him from the emotional pain he was forced to endure.
Any feelings he had were locked away in the rusted tobacco tin of his heart, and he concluded that one
should love nothing too intensely. Other slavesJackson Till, Aunt Phyllis, and Hallewent insane and
thus suffered a complete loss of self. Sethe fears that she, too, will end her days in madness. Indeed, she
does prove to be mad when she kills her own daughter. Yet Sethes act of infanticide illuminates the
perverse forces of the institution of slavery: under slavery, a mother best expresses her love for her children
by murdering them and thus protecting them from the more gradual destruction wrought by slavery.
Stamp Paid muses that slaverys negative consequences are not limited to the slaves: he notes that slavery
causes whites to become changed and altered . . . made . . . bloody, silly, worse than they ever wanted to
be. The insidious effects of the institution affect not only the identities of its black victims but those of the
whites who perpetrate it and the collective identity of Americans. Where slavery exists, everyone suffers a
loss of humanity and compassion. For this reason, Morrison suggests that our nations identity, like the
novels characters, must be healed. Americas future depends on its understanding of the past: just as Sethe

must come to terms with her past before she can secure a future with Denver and Paul D, before we can
address slaverys legacy in the contemporary problems of racial discrimination and discord, we must
confront the dark and hidden corners of our history. Crucially, in Beloved, we learn about the history and
legacy of slavery not from schoolteachers or even from the Bodwins point of view but rather from
Sethes, Paul Ds, Stamp Paids, and Baby Suggss. Morrison writes history with the voices of a people
historically denied the power of language, and Beloved recuperates a history that had been losteither due
to willed forgetfulness (as in Sethes repression of her memories) or to forced silence (as in the case of Paul
Ds iron bit).
The Importance of Community Solidarity
Beloved demonstrates the extent to which individuals need the support of their communities in order to
survive. Sethe first begins to develop her sense of self during her twenty-eight days of freedom, when she
becomes a part of the Cincinnati community. Similarly, Denver discovers herself and grows up when she
leaves 124 and becomes a part of society. Paul D and his fellow prison inmates in Georgia prove able to
escape only by working together. They are literally chained to one another, and Paul D recalls that if one
lost, all lost. Lastly, it is the community that saves Sethe from mistakenly killing Mr. Bodwin and casting
the shadow of another sin across her and her familys life.
Cincinnatis black community plays a pivotal role in the events of 124. The communitys failure to alert
Sethe to schoolteachers approach implicates it in the death of Sethes daughter. Baby Suggs feels the slight
as a grave betrayal from which she never fully recovers. At the end of the novel, the black community
makes up for its past misbehavior by gathering at 124 to collectively exorcise Beloved. By driving Beloved
away, the community secures Sethes, and its own, release from the past.
The Powers and Limits of language
When Sixo turns schoolteachers reasoning around to justify having broken the rules, schoolteacher whips
him to demonstrate that definitions belong to the definers, not to the defined. The slaves eventually come
to realize the illegitimacy of many of the white definitions. Mr. Garner, for example, claims to have
allowed his slaves to live as real men, but Paul D questions just how manly they actually are. So, too,
does Paul D finally come to realize with bitter irony the fallacy of the name Sweet Home. Although Sixo
eventually reacts to the hypocrisy of the rhetoric of slavery by abandoning English altogether, other
characters use English to redefine the world on their own terms. Baby Suggs and Stamp Paid, for example,
rename themselves. Beloved may be read as Morrisons effort to transform those who have always been the
defined into the definers.
While slaves, the characters manipulate language and transcend its standard limits. Their command of
language allows them to adjust its meanings and to make themselves indecipherable to the white slave
owners who watch them. For example, Paul D and the Georgia prison inmates sing together about their
dreams and memories by garbling . . . [and] tricking the words.
The title of the novel alludes to what is ultimately the product of a linguistic misunderstanding. At her
daughters funeral, Sethe interpreted the ministers address to the Dearly Beloved as referring to the dead
rather than the living. All literature is indebted to this slippery, shifting quality of language: the power of
metaphor, simile, metonymy, irony, and wordplay all result from the ability of words to attach and detach
themselves from various possible meanings.
Main issues.
The Supernatural
Morrison enhances the world of Beloved by investing it with a supernatural dimension. While it is possible
to interpret the books paranormal phenomena within a realist framework, many events in the novelmost
notably, the presence of a ghostpush the limits of ordinary understanding. Moreover, the characters in
Beloved do not hesitate to believe in the supernatural status of these events. For them, poltergeists,
premonitions, and hallucinations are ways of understanding the significance of the world around them.
Such occurrences stand in marked contrast to schoolteachers perverse hyper-scientific and empirical
studies.

Allusions to Christianity
Beloveds epigraph, taken from Romans 9:25, bespeaks the presence that Christian ideas will have in the
novel. The four horsemen who come for Sethe reference the description of the Apocalypse found in the
Book of Revelations. Beloved is reborn into Sethes world drenched in a sort of baptismal water. As an
infant, Denver drinks her sisters blood along with her mothers breast milk, which can be interpreted as an
act of Communion that links Denver and Beloved and that highlights the sacrificial aspect of the babys
death. Sethes act so horrifies schoolteacher that he leaves without taking her other children, allowing them
to live in freedom. The babys sacrificial death, like that of Christ, brings salvation. The books larger
discussions of sin, sacrifice, redemption, forgiveness, love, and resurrection similarly resound with biblical
references.

Major Symbols
.
The Color Red
Colors from the red part of the spectrum (including orange and pink) recur throughout Beloved, although
the meaning of these red objects varies. Amy Denvers red velvet, for example, is an image of hope and a
brighter future, while Paul Ds red heart represents feeling and emotion. Overall, red seems to connote
vitality and the visceral nature of human existence. Yet, in Beloved, vitality often goes hand in hand with
mortality, and red images simultaneously refer to life and death, to presence and absence. For example, the
red roses that line the road to the carnival serve to herald the carnivals arrival in town and announce the
beginning of Sethe, Denver, and Paul Ds new life together; yet they also stink of death. The red rooster
signifies manhood to Paul D, but it is a manhood that Paul D himself has been denied. The story of Amys
search for carmine velvet seems especially poignant because we sense the futility of her dream. Sethes
memory is awash with the red of her daughters blood and the pink mineral of her gravestone, both of
which have been bought at a dear price.
Trees
In the world of Beloved, trees serve primarily as sources of healing, comfort, and life. Denvers emerald
closet of boxwood bushes functions as a place of solitude and repose for her. The beautiful trees of Sweet
Home mask the true horror of the plantation in Sethes memory. Paul D finds his freedom by following
flowering trees to the North, and Sethe finds hers by escaping through a forest. By imagining the scars on
Sethes back as a chokecherry tree, Amy Denver sublimates a site of trauma and brutality into one of
beauty and growth. But as the sites of lynchings and of Sixos death by burning, however, trees reveal a
connection with a darker side of humanity as well.
The tin tobacco box
Paul D describes his heart as a tin tobacco box. After his traumatizing experiences at Sweet Home and,
especially, at the prison camp in Alfred, Georgia, he locks away his feelings and memories in this box,
which has, by the time Paul D arrives at 124, rusted over completely. By alienating himself from his
emotions, Paul D hopes to preserve himself from further psychological damage. In order to secure this
protection, however, Paul D sacrifices much of his humanity by foregoing feeling and gives up much of his
selfhood by repressing his memories. Although Paul D is convinced that nothing can pry the lid of his box
open, his strange, dreamlike sexual encounter with Belovedperhaps a symbol of an encounter with his
pastcauses the box to burst and his heart once again to glow red.
www.sparknotes.com

Questions:
1.

How is slavery depicted in the novel/

2.

What are the implications of slavery on human identity?

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