ETHNIC NARRATIVE IN SALMAN RUSDIE'S NOVEL "MIDNIGHT'S CHILDREN"
In modern literary studies much attention is paid to the kinds and means of narration, that is included into the scope of narratology, the basis of which were laid by M. Bakhtin, a Russian scholar and philologist. According to Bakhtin terminology, “polyphonic” narrative accounts for the most prominent tendency in modern literature viewed in postmodernist context, to which intertextuality, black humour, irony, fragmentation, cyclic narration and double coding..Most of the most reputed English literary texts are viewed in postmodern context as well as the works of Salman Rushdie, a British author of the Indian origin. In “Midnight's Children” the attention is focused on the postmodernist narrative techniques and ethnic colouring of the story telling, that is very characteristic of the English post-colonial literature. The article is devoted to the problem of the ethnic characteristics of the postmodern narrative in Salman Rushdie's novel “Midnight's Children”. Ethnic narrative is revealed in the form of fragmentation, intertextual allusions, cycle narrative, the theme of the characters' national identity, and narrative sensuality. It can also be felt in the rhythm of the narrative, description of the characters' appearance, in the India realia as well as on the linguistic level of the novel.Ethnic narration is characterized by the explication of the cultural - historical peculiarities of the nation, region, time of which the story is about, by means of the literary devices peculiar to a certain ethnic tradition. Such techniques are revealed in the works of different authors and need not to be unique for an author's style, but they are unique to a certain type of the ethnic narrative. The image of the Midnight's children, born in the night of independence for India, symbolizes a new generation born together with their new country. That is a unique generation with extraordinary abilities: some of them can read other people's thoughts like Saleem, destroy like Shiva, y and practice sorcery as Parvati does or travel in time. These elements of Magical Realism bring refer to the old traditional India with its magic and sorcery practiced in everyday life and medicine and the new India where magicians live in a ghetto. Different world views represented the main world religions are juxtaposed in the text and brought together purposefully. On the other hand, different world views are represented in the individual lives of the characters of the book and their national identities. So it shows the Hindus' attitude to life, their tolerance, under-standing pacism towards other nations and religions. Religious controversies however lead to the departing of India and separation of Pakistan and later Bangladesh. But at the same time supporters of the common language march for the “common language” as the major factor setting personal identity.One of the key factors of the Hindu national identity is sensuality that is revealed in the novel in the image of Saleem's nose and his extra ordinal smelling abilities. Sensual is the description of Bombey in which many sense words connected with smelling are used. Intertextual and associative allusions, metaphoric compar-isons and symbolism of the proper names contribute to the ethnic narration in the novel.