Use of Unreliable Narrator in Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children

Abstract

When we go through Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children(1981) it seems simply the story of more than thousands of children born at the time of independence of India (midnight 15 August 1947) from British colony, but when we go deeply, the novel talks about many aspects of Indian society like social, cultural, political etc. It talks about the contemporary Indian society. The novel begins with the first person pronoun 'I' and the narrator of the novel is Saleem Sinai, who is the main protagonist of the novel.The novel is presented through his single perspective which creates many mistakes while narrating the novel.Information given in the novel arenot all true. History has been fictionalised through Saleem's perspective. Throughout his narration, he is making many mistakes relating his family history to the events of Indian history.Many dubious claims and errors are found in his narration.His unreliable narration in the novel makes him unreliable narrator and this paper focuses on the reasons behind using unreliable narrator.