Memory, Forgetting and Intertextuality in Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children and Two Years Eight Months Twenty Eight Nights

2022-12-02
Arcak, Senar
his study aims to explore the treatment of memory, forgetting and episodic remembering as an imaginary and productive act in Salman Rushdies Midnights Children and Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights in relation to Paul Ricoeurs and Astrid Erlls theories on memory. The thesis will examine, on the one hand, Rushdies treatment of memory in order to critique dogmas about nation, belonging, and identity, and on the other, his use of intertextuality to create an alternative cultural narrative that contradicts the monologic view of reality. Midnights Children celebrates the cultural and historical plurality and ambiguity sustained by memory and suggests that there are no absolute truths or points of reference in the presence of different realities. In Two Years Eight Months and Twenty Eight Nights Rushdies initial attitude displays an inclination in favour of the narratives of science and fiction and their authority in representing the multifarious fabric of reality. However, the novel proceeds by bringing together opposing systems of knowledge through memory - a device which challenges the dominance of one discourse in its claim to truth and proposes that the actualization of cultural, historical, philosophical, and humanitarian progress depends on the contemporaneity of clashing narratives. The thesis argues that both Midnights Children and Two Years, Eight Months, and Twenty Eight Nights rely on and advocate the reconstruction and re-imagining of historically significant past events for an alternative world-making through various acts of memory. It also explores the divergent functions memory assumes in both novels in order to demonstrate their essential creative property. The study aims to contribute to an understanding of Rushdies ouvre within the context of memory studies by analysing these two works which respectively belong to his early career and later work.

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Citation Formats
S. Arcak, “Memory, Forgetting and Intertextuality in Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children and Two Years Eight Months Twenty Eight Nights,” M.S. - Master of Science, Middle East Technical University, 2022.