At the beginning of the chapter entitled “At the Pioneer Café” we are presented with a prophecy or dream of the death of midnight’s children. Okay, in all honesty it took me reading this passage three times to understand this! The chapter starts with, “No colors except green and black” (Rushdie 238). Green typically represents growth, nature, and life. Black represents fear, mystery, death, and evil. I took these colors as representative of the mystery surrounding the midnight’s children, and the evil that lurks around the corners of their lives. On page 229, Saleem recalls, “I’m afraid, in the midst of the age of darkness; so that although we found it easy to be brilliant, we were always confused about being good.”

So, I felt like my interpretation of this passage was accurate. However, as I was reading if a fourth time, I started to wonder if this interpretation was accurate. This passage just has an eerie air to it. The widow’s skin is green, and her hair is parted down the center—part of it is green and part of it is black (Was anyone else reminded of the Wicked Witch of the West?). Her snake-like arm is green; her fingernails are black. For every one thing that is green there is one thing that is black. A balance—which kind of relates back to my original interpretation. I feel like this passage has multiple interpretations. I certainly saw several different interpretations as I was reading this passage, but I kept coming back to my original interpretation. I am interested to see how the rest of the book plays out, and I am curious as to the widow’s role in the plot of the story.