SGiannangeli - Homework on "Midnight's Children"

What are the features in general terms?

Children born on the 15^th of August 1947 were endowed with special powers.

What examples are given of the extraordinary features?

The extraordinary features consist in special and faculties.

What was special about the twin sister in Baud?

The twin sisters in Baud were able to make every man fall in love with them, but they were not conscious of it. Streams of men, both old and young, asked the twins’ parents the permission to marry the two sisters. Some of the rejected men injured themselves or committed suicide because of the strength and deepness of their feelings towards the two sisters.

When and how does the narrator become aware of his special “true siblings”?

The narrator becomes aware of his special siblings after a bicycle accident.

What kind of narrator tells the story?

The narrator is an omniscient first-person narrator that tells the events adding his own opinion and comments and establishing a contact with the reader through the use of the second-person pronoun “you”.

Which of the following features apply to the narrator? Give examples form the text.

He makes comments and addresses the reader: “There’s a dispassionate word, if you like!”; “If you will permit me…”.

He piles up details and information: “During the first hour of August 15^th, 1947, - between midnight and one a.m. – no less than one thousand and one children were born…”; “A number of these children failed to survive. Malnutrition, disease and the misfortunes of everyday life…”.

He hardly ever goes straight to the point: the narrator uses subordinates phrases, adding his personal comments and lots of parenthetical elements, for example: “It was as though – if you will permit me one moment of fancy in what will otherwise be, I promise, the most sober account I can manage – as though history, arriving at a point of the highest significance and promise, had chosen to sow, in that instant, the seeds of a future…”

What realistic and fantastic elements can you detect in the narration?

The text presents both realistic and fantastic elements. Data, descriptions, geographical and time references make the narration realistic, whereas thoughts on magical numbers and causes of special events give to the text a fantastic/superstitious tone.

Would you describe the text as humorous? Why / Why not?

I would say the text is slightly humorous because of the narrator’s comments on his own writing and narrative technique (for example: “If you will permit me one moment of fancy in what will otherwise be, I promise, the most sober account I can manage”) or his thoughts on superstitious ideas (such as “It is also an unanswerable question; any further examination of it is therefore profitless).