Sunday, March 1, 2009
Character Post
In the book Midnight's Children the main character is intended to be Saleem Sinai, but so far the author has not told us enough about him to make a full blog post about his character. Therefore I am instead going to write about his grandfather, Aadam Aziz, because Saleem Sinai is writing down his grandfather's story in the first part of the book that I have read and therefore I know more about him than Saleem Sinai. The author starts out by telling us how Aadam is no longer religous because once when he hit his nose on the ground while praying, he caused it to bleed and therefore vows never to bow to another man or god again. I think this refusal to bow to another initially shows us that Aadam is very stubborn, yet he also learns from what happens to him. Later we also learn about one of the adults who guides him and is a friend to him when he was younger, a ferryman named Tai. Tai is influencial on Aadams life and one of the things Tai tells him is that if his nose starts to itch then something bad is happening or is going to happen and Aadam being young, believes him. This I think also tells us that Aadam when he was younger and even as he gets older believes in omens even if he doesn't pray to a god. Later when Aadam becomes a doctor he makes a start by helping a blind landowner's daughter and he ends up falling in love with her (or the various body parts that he sees of her's), but he waits 3 years to tell her and her father. Also when he was first going to help the landowner's daughter he was very nevous and comtemplated fleeing, but he ended up staying. I think the fact that he waited so long and that he stayed also supports my belief that Aadam is very stubborn because he stubbornly stays instead of running and he also very stubbornly hides his feelings for so long. I hope to learn more about Aadam in future chapters and a lot more about Saleem Sinai.
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Everyone jumps to the conclusion that the reason Aadam has a miserable marriage is because he didn't listen to his "nose itching", and therefore, didn't turn around and run. I think this could be described better as instinct (and having nothing to do with his nose), which everyone has. He ignored all the blatant signs of trouble with Neesa, all because he was succumbed by her attractiveness.
ReplyDeleteEveryone also assumes (Taylor), that the relationship between Naseem and Aziz is unhealthy. How do we know that they can't benefit and influence each other. The strong, political, and modern views of Aadam could be awakening and generally an exceptional dose of medicine for Naseem. And her traditional and practical views of life could be beneficial and awakening for Aziz.
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ReplyDeleteWe still have much to learn and read about the characters and the future events of this novel. So you never know. It's too early to judge.
I agree, Rohini. I actually never picked up on what everyone was saying about Naseem and Aziz's unhappy relationship, and I think at this point it's still too early to see exactly how they interact.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if Aziz's stubbornness is going to be a trait that's passed on to Saleem. From the way he narrates the story, it doesn't seem like it, but I think it's a little odd that the only thing he inherits from his grandfather is his nose.
I agree with Taylor, The whole noze itching thing is totally a coincidence, like when he doges the bullet, it is just luck. Also, the proposal was iladvised because he had never really met her or even talked to her, he had only seen vaious seven inch sections of her boy.
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