Harmony, Holocaust, Hope: the Identity Crisis in Indian Postcolonial Partition Fiction

• Main Authors: ChinchuChang, 張金株
• Other Authors: Yuan-guey Chiou
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2014
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/g2u7ja

博士 === 國立成功大學 === 外國語文學系 === 102 === This dissertation explores the identity crisis presented in Indian postcolonial fiction about India’s Partition with Pakistan in 1947. While the discussion principally focuses on Saadat Hasan Manto’s Mottled Dawn: Fifty Sketches and Stories of Partition, Bhisham Sahni’s Tamas, and Chaman Nahal’s Azadi, it is evident that much Indian partition fiction is narratives on/of the identity crisis that led to the most horrific acts of violence and the mass exodus in Indian history. From colonial order to postcolonial disorder, the three literary texts under discussion indicate a process of identity formation, deformation and re-formation when recognition of self identity is incompatible with social acceptance due to intergroup conflicts. In parallel with the theme of social identity loss and change, events in the texts are narrated in three phases: pre-partition coexisting harmony, partition genocidal holocaust, and post-partition reconciled hope. This narrative structure completes a birth-death-rebirth cycle and therefore achieves an effect of catharsis.