The Treatment of Partition in Ice Candy Man
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- Category: English: Novels
- Date Submitted: 09/21/2011 09:30 PM
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The novel examines the inexorable logic of Partition as an offshoot of fundamentalism sparked by hardening communal attitudes. It looks at Partition as a means of spreading
disharmony which resulted in frenzy and chaos. The novel, written from a domestic standpoint, opens with the child narrator observing the situation of Lahore at the time of
Partition. Ice –Candy- Man is a novel of upheaval which includes a cast of characters from all communities. There are Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Sikhs and Parsis. So a multiple perspective of Partition emerges as viewed by all the affected communities.
Lenny reveals the trauma of Partition through her memories with a sprinkling of humour, parody and allegory, describing how her friends and neighbours become helpless and ineffective while fazed with mob frenzy. The device of the child narrator helps Bapi Sidhwa treat the historical moment as horrifying as partition without morbidly, pedanticism and despair. Sensitively the author shows the human toll of the partition, when a concerned a Lenny asks: “Can one break a country? And what happens if they break it where our house is?” (92).
Partition revisited
Impact of the partition
1. The psychological impact of Partition on Children
The impact of Partition understood and narrated through the feelings of a child, who is a member of the minority community. The sense of lose is aptly portrayed as Lenny and her brother Adi wandering through the garden; “Adi and I wander from group to group peering into faces beneath white skull-caps and above ascetic breads. I feel uneasy. Like Hamida I do not fit. I know we will not find familiar faces here”(237). The uprootedness of partition is revealed as Lenny drifts through the Queen’s Garden searching in vain for familiar faces and acquaintances. Even in the child there is a feeling of insecurity.
When the rumours of communal riot breaks out, Masseur, one of the Muslim admirers of Ayah, promises to marry ayah and protect her...
disharmony which resulted in frenzy and chaos. The novel, written from a domestic standpoint, opens with the child narrator observing the situation of Lahore at the time of
Partition. Ice –Candy- Man is a novel of upheaval which includes a cast of characters from all communities. There are Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Sikhs and Parsis. So a multiple perspective of Partition emerges as viewed by all the affected communities.
Lenny reveals the trauma of Partition through her memories with a sprinkling of humour, parody and allegory, describing how her friends and neighbours become helpless and ineffective while fazed with mob frenzy. The device of the child narrator helps Bapi Sidhwa treat the historical moment as horrifying as partition without morbidly, pedanticism and despair. Sensitively the author shows the human toll of the partition, when a concerned a Lenny asks: “Can one break a country? And what happens if they break it where our house is?” (92).
Partition revisited
Impact of the partition
1. The psychological impact of Partition on Children
The impact of Partition understood and narrated through the feelings of a child, who is a member of the minority community. The sense of lose is aptly portrayed as Lenny and her brother Adi wandering through the garden; “Adi and I wander from group to group peering into faces beneath white skull-caps and above ascetic breads. I feel uneasy. Like Hamida I do not fit. I know we will not find familiar faces here”(237). The uprootedness of partition is revealed as Lenny drifts through the Queen’s Garden searching in vain for familiar faces and acquaintances. Even in the child there is a feeling of insecurity.
When the rumours of communal riot breaks out, Masseur, one of the Muslim admirers of Ayah, promises to marry ayah and protect her...