What are your thoughts on the language used in Midnight's Children?

I think that some of the distinctive language featured in Rushdie's novel can center on how Saleem tells the story.  His method of narration is unique because the language and context told to us is of the time period, yet flows outside of it.  The reader knows that the story is of Partition and Indian Independence.  Yet, Saleem goes through his own past and lineage and the language brought out reflects how the past and the present go together and are almost inseparable.  At the same time, the subjective nature of Saleem's narration involves mistakes and errors in his retelling.  There are many errors in the novel, but I think that this helps to bring the idea that the subjective consciousness is one fraught with mistakes and miscalculations.  However, this is the only method of retelling that is present, forcing one to accept the limitations of consciousness.  While there might be a hope for a transcendental notion of the good that can achieve that ideal of objectivity, Saleem and his language reflect this to not be the case.  The frailty with which the novel ends is one that reminds the reader that consciousness is imperfect and incomplete, but the only element one possesses.

Discuss the language used in Midnight's Children.

You might like to consider the way in which language is used in this brilliant novel to stress the contrast between Saleem and Shiva, his mystical twin. One of the repeated expressions that is echoed throughout the novel in terms of describing these two characters is "nose and knees" and this refrain serves to stress the overwhelming difference between the two characters and their points of strength and weakness. Saleem's strength lies in his nose and the way that it gives him the ability to telepathically communicate with all of the midnight's children, and then, after his operation, how it gives him an incredible sense of smell. Shiva's strength, by contrast, lies in his knees and the great strength and military prowess that it gives him.

In addition, the language that Rushdie uses in this novel stresses other ways in which these two characters are opposite. Shiva is said to be handsome and very strong, whereas Saleem has few redeeming qualities in terms of his physical appearance. The language used, coupled with the refrain of "nose and knees," thus helps consolidate the ways in which these two characters are used as foils for each other, which serves to emphasise and exaggerate their strengths and weaknesses.