A Post Colonial Study of Bapsi Sidhwa s Ice Candy Man and An American Brat and Rohinton Mistry s A Fine Balance And Family Matters

Abstract

The focus and direction of this humble endeavor has been a Post Colonial study of Bapsi Sidhwa s Ice- Candy- Man and An American Brat and Rohinton Mistry s A Fine Balance and Family Matters. The four selected novels, coming from the aesthetic sensibility of the celebrated Pakistani-American novelist and Indo-Canadian novelist respectively, have been interpreted within the framework of the Post Colonial theory and its ramifications. The interdisciplinary and comparative approach offers a new dimension to the interpretation of the texts. The present study focuses on the issues of history, politics, resistance, subaltern, minorities, feminism, displacement, race, culture, economics, language, nation and narration, Diaspora, concept of otherness, dispossession, etc. newline Post Colonial Criticism surfaced as a distinct approach with the appearance of Orientalism (1978), a landmark study of Edward W. Said. Post Colonial theory makes a study of such troublesome issues as national and ethnic identity, otherness, race and imperialism. It undertakes a detailed analysis of during and after the colonial periods. The term Post Colonial is capable of a variety of imports. Its literal or denotational significance is chronological or temporal. As such, it should encompass and embody how a colony fares or flourishes when the foreign yoke is got rid of or thrown out. In this sense, it should analyze an ex-colony s fortune- good, bad or indifferent. It is a blatant and even glaring reality that most of the liberated ex-colonies are locked in turmoil, and tumults, chaos and commotion. newline Human sub-conscious preserves some traits and traces of the traumatic experiences that even the remote ancestors have suffered and put up with in the distant past. So, it is clear that deep down in the darkest recesses of their psyche, there must be sense of some poor wounded name lodging somewhere in their bosom.