3.3.1 Hermeneutics of Suspicion: The Role of Genealogy in Historical Sense of Midnight’s Children:
The historical sense in the novel invokes the idea of Foucault’s ‘genealogical’ history. Genealogy is the study of ‘family history’ which often possess the desire to historically ‘situate’ one's family in the larger historical picture. In the poststructuralist discourse of Foucault and other postmodern theorists, it has assumed a special significance owing to the fact that it eschews history of its claims of totality and faithful uncovering of the past producing anti-epistemological and anti-teleological critiques of traditional history in the face of its rejection of ‘unbroken continuity’ and ‘metaphysics of origins’ that traditional accounts …show more content…
The emphasis in Genealogy on dispersions, accidents, reversals, errors, and false appraisals points out to the fact that all the claims of representing truth or reality are questionable and our accessibility to the past is no more than textual investigation, or discursively constructed. He further suggests that genealogy is neither epistemological nor teleological- it is neither about the search for origins nor for the ends and the movements of history never follow a linear development. In fact, the argument proposed earlier that the historical sense permeating in Midnight’s Children is genealogical seems well justified if we delve deep into the account Saleem offers to his readers. First, in the traditional sense of genealogy, Saleem is writing his family history, and in the process the history of the nation, with the desire to carve out an important space for himself and his family in the larger historical framework of Indian history. Nothing in his account of family lineage is ahistorical, in fact, the whole course of history is being shaped by him and the lives of his family members. Saleem and his family life are an allegory to the history of the nation-every event that takes place in his family history impacts the course or fate of the nation. Being ‘handcuffed to history’ Rushdie’s narrator becomes centre to all national events, the cause and effect of all historical happenings. Throughout the novel, there are several episodes which reveal Saleem’s obsession to prioritize his family story over history. For instance, three drops of blood fall out of his grandfather, Adam Aziz’s nose on the prayer mat on the day World War I begins. Again, in Jallianwala Bagh massacre, Dyer’s command coincides with “the sneeze hits my grandfather full in the place.
The historical sense in the novel invokes the idea of Foucault’s ‘genealogical’ history. Genealogy is the study of ‘family history’ which often possess the desire to historically ‘situate’ one's family in the larger historical picture. In the poststructuralist discourse of Foucault and other postmodern theorists, it has assumed a special significance owing to the fact that it eschews history of its claims of totality and faithful uncovering of the past producing anti-epistemological and anti-teleological critiques of traditional history in the face of its rejection of ‘unbroken continuity’ and ‘metaphysics of origins’ that traditional accounts …show more content…
The emphasis in Genealogy on dispersions, accidents, reversals, errors, and false appraisals points out to the fact that all the claims of representing truth or reality are questionable and our accessibility to the past is no more than textual investigation, or discursively constructed. He further suggests that genealogy is neither epistemological nor teleological- it is neither about the search for origins nor for the ends and the movements of history never follow a linear development. In fact, the argument proposed earlier that the historical sense permeating in Midnight’s Children is genealogical seems well justified if we delve deep into the account Saleem offers to his readers. First, in the traditional sense of genealogy, Saleem is writing his family history, and in the process the history of the nation, with the desire to carve out an important space for himself and his family in the larger historical framework of Indian history. Nothing in his account of family lineage is ahistorical, in fact, the whole course of history is being shaped by him and the lives of his family members. Saleem and his family life are an allegory to the history of the nation-every event that takes place in his family history impacts the course or fate of the nation. Being ‘handcuffed to history’ Rushdie’s narrator becomes centre to all national events, the cause and effect of all historical happenings. Throughout the novel, there are several episodes which reveal Saleem’s obsession to prioritize his family story over history. For instance, three drops of blood fall out of his grandfather, Adam Aziz’s nose on the prayer mat on the day World War I begins. Again, in Jallianwala Bagh massacre, Dyer’s command coincides with “the sneeze hits my grandfather full in the place.