Deconstructing the Postcolonial Self: Narrative Identity and Hybridity in Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children
Manohara K S
Assistant Professor, Government First Grade College, Harihara. Karnataka, India
Keywords: Postcolonialism, Narrative Identity, Hybridity, Salman Rushdie, Midnight’s Children, Magical Realism, Historiographic Metafiction
Abstract
As we all know, Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children is one of the most important novels that talks deeply about identity in post-independence India. In this paper, I try to show how the novel presents identity not as something fixed or permanent, but as something always changing and shaped by stories. Using ideas from Narrative Identity Theory and Homi K. Bhabha’s concept of hybridity, we can see that the main character, Saleem Sinai, represents both himself and the nation. His life is closely “handcuffed” with India’s own history. Saleem tells his story in a confused and shifting way, often mixing truth and imagination, which shows how his identity is not simple but mixed and hybrid. The magical realism in the novel is not only for beauty or fantasy, but it helps Rushdie to mix memory and history, something he calls “chutnification.” This process shows how people in our country often combine personal experiences with national events to make sense of who they are. Through Saleem and the other children born at midnight, Rushdie shows that the identity of postcolonial people is not something given to them — it is something they build themselves again and again through their stories and memories.
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Published
01-02-2026