Midnight's Children Questions
Bring on the tough stuff - there’s not just one right answer.
- Why do you think Midnight's Children is divided into three sections?
- What will the future of Aadam Sinai's India in the novel look like? Will it be better than Saleem's? Worse? What does it have to do with abracadabra?
- Why is time so disjointed in Midnight's Children?
- Rushdie's style has been called hysterical realism. Why do you think Rushdie uses this style to describe such a tumultuous time in India's history instead of a more straightforward one?
- How would Midnight's Children change if Saleem didn't die? Does he have to die?
- Is Saleem a reliable narrator? Why or why not?
- Saleem's death is pretty peculiar—he cracks into tiny fragments and is crushed. Why fragments? Does this have something to do with the structure of the novel? What about the theme?
- Midnight's Children is a story within a story, and sometimes a story within a story within a story. Is it possible to tell Saleem's tale as just a normal plot? How would that change the novel and its message?
- What do pickles have to do with it?
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