Questioning the Limits of Humanity in Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie and Animal’s People by Indra Sinha

Abstract

Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie and Animal’s People by Indra Sinha are novels pertaining to the body of postmodern Indian literature written in English, that which uses various investigative means and literary techniques to create paths for intercultural understanding and, even more broadly, that of the understanding of the world itself. Due to the complexities involved, scientific debates on these two novels generally explore topics which can be articulated by the use of instruments drawn from the framework of the postcolonial theory. In this article, it is sustained that politics does indeed play an important role in both of these novels, specifically because it opens up transformative pathways for both protagonists, causing dissolution of their human dimension followed by Saleem’s and Animal’s literary evolution into heterogeneous subjects. These two characters, each for their own reasons—be it political ideals or the impact of technology—stumble on the human and cultural levels of their existence, and acquire transhuman, animalistic characteristics. This provides grounds for them to be viewed in the theoretical context of posthumanism.