Monday, April 16, 2012

Daddy Issues

I think it is interesting that once again in Midnight's Children, just like in The Tin Drum, the motif of a mystery father is present. Saleem makes it very difficult to figure out his father's identity. Saleem's alleged mother loves another (Nadir) but has a child with Ahmed. Then her child is switched at birth with that of Wee Willie Winkie, the clown, whose wife had an affair with an Englishman named William Methwold. Soooooo it all boils down to Saleem not actually being related to his "parents" and being the son of Methwold. Yet again another Gunter Grass parallel.

6 comments:

mere said...

Also, I wanted to add that this brings up an interesting question. Why does Saleem bother in telling the history of a family that he doesn't even belong to??

ParkerC said...

I think it's still his family history and he definantly belongs to it. He even says at some point that it doesn't matter who his biological parents are because it's the ones that raised him who matter to him. I would think most adopted kids would think this way as well

Shaina Lu said...

Wow, I didn't even think about that from Tin Drum. That's a really good point.

alyb said...

This twisted family tree really reminds me of 100 years of solitude. It was so hard to keep track of everyone in that novel and they were all related in some way just as in this book.

alyb said...

This twisted family tree really reminds me of 100 years of solitude. It was so hard to keep track of everyone in that novel and they were all related in some way just as in this book.

Mallory said...

The daddy issues and twisting family history makes the story line of Midnight's children even harder to follow. The daddy issue is also yet another way that this story relates to Tin Drum