Condemned by a perforated sheet: Midnight's Children Sinai, by Rani of Cooch Naheen for her dowry) as a sort of personal talisman. The spittoon, responsible for his momentary memory loss (after it hit him in the head during an air raid), remains a symbol of his former life, a symbol he cherishes even though he is unable to remember what it means. The spittoon represents the entire past of his life, his family, his country. Despite his attachment to the physical and symbolic spittoon, Saleem seems more haunted by the perforated sheet. The symbolic opposite of the silver spittoon, the perforated sheet represents fragmentation – the fragmentation of Saleem (both his body and his life), his family, his country, and even his narrative. “Midnight’s Children” begins with a chapter entitled “The Perforated Sheet”. .” This chapter lays the foundations for the metaphor of the perforated sheet which returns several times in the rest of the text. The sheet is “a large white sheet with a roughly circular hole about seven inches in diameter cut out in the center” (Rushdie 4). The hole in the sheet metal is not there by chance. The design is designed by Ghani, a wealthy landowner, and is created to preserve the modesty of his daughter, Naseem, when she is examined by a doctor. To be treated, Naseem presents the incriminated body part to the doctor through the hole in the sheet and this is how Aadam Aziz (Naseem's doctor and Saleem's grandfather) comes to see Naseem in fragments: his ankle, his toe, his calf, various other appendages, finally. even one of her breasts and her buttocks, and finally her face. Saleem sums it up: "In short: my grandfather had fallen in love... in the middle of a paper... like Aziz and he loves each fragment as he sees it, or he could be more like Amina, who must force himself to love each piece. But “condemned by a perforated sheet metal to a life of fragments” (Rushdie 141), Saleem is confronted with yet another fragmentation. In writing this article, I continued the perforated paper pattern in his life by selecting only pieces from “Midnight's Children” to show others. .'” Contemporary Literature 37.1 (1996): 94-118. JSTOR. Internet. November 29, 2011. Mukherjee, A. “Cracked Skin, Inner Ear Radio, and a Telepathic Nose: Senses as Media in Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children.” » Paragraph 29.3 (2006): 55-76. EBSCO. Internet. November 29, 2011. Rushdie, Salman. “Midnight’s Children.” New York, NY, USA: Penguin, 1991. Print.

Essay / Condemned by a perforated sheet: Midnight's Children Sinai, by Rani of Cooch Naheen for her dowry) as a sort of personal talisman. The spittoon, responsible for his momentary memory loss (after it hit him in the head during an air raid), remains a symbol of his former life, a symbol he cherishes even though he is unable to remember what it means. The spittoon represents the entire past of his life, his family, his country. Despite his attachment to the physical and symbolic spittoon, Saleem seems more haunted by the perforated sheet. The symbolic opposite of the silver spittoon, the perforated sheet represents fragmentation – the fragmentation of Saleem (both his body and his life), his family, his country, and even his narrative. “Midnight’s Children” begins with a chapter entitled “The Perforated Sheet”. .” This chapter lays the foundations for the metaphor of the perforated sheet which returns several times in the rest of the text. The sheet is “a large white sheet with a roughly circular hole about seven inches in diameter cut out in the center” (Rushdie 4). The hole in the sheet metal is not there by chance. The design is designed by Ghani, a wealthy landowner, and is created to preserve the modesty of his daughter, Naseem, when she is examined by a doctor. To be treated, Naseem presents the incriminated body part to the doctor through the hole in the sheet and this is how Aadam Aziz (Naseem's doctor and Saleem's grandfather) comes to see Naseem in fragments: his ankle, his toe, his calf, various other appendages, finally. even one of her breasts and her buttocks, and finally her face. Saleem sums it up: "In short: my grandfather had fallen in love... in the middle of a paper... like Aziz and he loves each fragment as he sees it, or he could be more like Amina, who must force himself to love each piece. But “condemned by a perforated sheet metal to a life of fragments” (Rushdie 141), Saleem is confronted with yet another fragmentation. In writing this article, I continued the perforated paper pattern in his life by selecting only pieces from “Midnight's Children” to show others. .'” Contemporary Literature 37.1 (1996): 94-118. JSTOR. Internet. November 29, 2011. Mukherjee, A. “Cracked Skin, Inner Ear Radio, and a Telepathic Nose: Senses as Media in Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children.” » Paragraph 29.3 (2006): 55-76. EBSCO. Internet. November 29, 2011. Rushdie, Salman. “Midnight’s Children.” New York, NY, USA: Penguin, 1991. Print.

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