A critical Study of Bapsi Sidwa’s Ice-Candy Man in the context of New Historicism

Term Paper

Researcher Supervisor
Muhammad Fariq Muhammad Aamir Chaudry
Minhaj University, Lahore.
Class: - M.Phil-English (Literature)

Semester: 1st

Subject : Criticism

Department of English
Faculty of English Literature
Minhaj University, Lahore.
Abstract
This article intends to articulate the Partition history through the subaltern eyes of a young girl
narrator belonging to the Parsi diaspora in colonial Lahore, Pakistan, in Bapsi Sidhwa's novel, Ice-
Candy-Man.Further, it would throw light on unique cultural, sexual, ideological and class biases
in the interpretation and teaching of canonical texts New historicists acknowledges importance of text
but analyzes text with an eye to history and materialism. New historicists are able to demonstrate
how a text could be dismantled and the hidden hegemonic discourses lying buried within it
exposed. The new historicists acquired this new understanding by directing the methodologies and
procedures of deconstruction, feminism and post-structuralism to literature and literary texts. By
suggesting a holistic approach in the novel towards Partition, which is inclusive of analysis and
integration, at multiple levels, of official history books, excerpts from survivor accounts and
critical evaluation of partition novels like Sidhwa's text, the study approaches the enormity of the
experience of Partition with immediacy and sensitivity. It evinces and discusses how diasporas
create conundrum for the traditional nation-states and for those caught between the battle-lines.
The paper discusses how the text portrays Partition's role in not only destroying the sub-continent's
communal life, but also in the reconstruction of multiple identities. By highlighting the plight of
abducted women, the novel can also be interpreted as a gendered narrative of displacement and
dispossession caused by the dismemberment of the sub-continent. Moving away from familiar
discourses of independence, it is argued that the history of the 1947 Partition is a history of borders
in which the geographical borders drawn to separate and establish the independent nations of India
and Pakistan are at once a concretely historical division and an incomprehensible site of trauma.
The border becomes the site of the simultaneity between empirically known realities that constitute
specific historical contexts and the overwhelming experience of history that exceeds immediate
understanding. From the borders of the 1947 Partition, the subcontinent inherited “a geography
of trauma” – a conceptual schema that is at once a geographical and national reality in which
people live and an ungraspable experience that refuses boundaries.

Keywords: Partition studies,religion,history,culture, gender narratives,Parsi diaspora, subaltern

studies,trauma, border.
 CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background

Analysis of literary genres, in the light of New Historicism, is a common phenomenon in today’s
research of humanities. This literary theory is now an established school of literature whose goal
is to understand intellectual history through literature, and literature through its cultural context,
history of ideas and referes to itself as a form of “Cultural Poetics”.There are some key assumption
continually reappear in New Historicism.The every expressive act is embedded in a network of
material practices and every act of unmasking, critique and opposition uses the tools it condemns
and risks falling prey to the practice it exposes that no discourse, imaginative or archival, gives
access to unchanging truths, nor expresses inalterable human nature.Furthermore, critical method
and a language adequate to describe culture under capitalism participate in the economy they
describe.

In its historicism and in its political interpretations, New Historicism is indebted toMarxism. But
whereas Marxism tends to see literature as part of a 'superstructure' in which the economic 'base'
manifests itself, New Historicist thinkers tend to take a more nuanced view of power, seeing it not
exclusively as class -related but extending throughout society. This view derives primarily
from Michel Foucault and his work in criticle theory.In its tendency to see society as consisting of
texts relating to other texts, with no 'fixed' literary value above and beyond the way specific
cultures read them in specific situations, New Historicism is a form of postmodernism applied to
interpretive history.It shares many of the same theories as with what is often called cultural
materialism, but cultural materialist critics are even more likely to put emphasis on the present
implications of their study and to position themselves in disagreement to current power structures,
working to give power to traditionally disadvantaged groups. Cultural critics also downplay the
distinction between "high" and "low" culture and often focus predominantly on the productions of
"popular culture" .New Historicists analyze text with an eye to history. With this in mind, New
Historicism is not "new". New Historicism also has something in common with the historical
criticism of Hippolyte Taine, who argued that a literary work is less the product of its author's
imaginations than the social circumstances of its creation, the three main aspects of which Taine
called race, milieu, and moment. New Historicism emphasis on ideology the political disposition,
unknown to the author that governs their work.

1.2Paper Statement

Even a cursory scan at “ Bapsi Sidwa’s Ice-Candy Man” convinces the reader to believe that
methods of New historicism acquired the force of a theory challenging older methodologies, creating
intellectual ferment and destabilizing dominant discourses. Caught in his own historicity, a historian
cannot escape the social or ideological constraints of his own formation. And, therefore, he cannot
fully understand the past objectively on its own terms.

1.3 Research Questions

The present study is pursued with the help of the following research questions.

1. Do you agree with the view that Ice-Candy-Man is a story of multi-layered culture and

trauma of partition?

2. Is the text of Ice-Candy-Man an accurate portrayal of the time period in which it is set?

1.4 Methodology

Research is an activity that adds fresh amount of knowledge to the already existing body of

knowledge on a phenomenon. The new historicists acquired this new understanding by directing

the methodologies and procedures of deconstruction, feminism and post-structuralism to literature

and literary texts. The political and cultural slant that this method gave to the interpretation of

literature once again energized and encouraged literary studies to reestablish a link with the

political and social world that gave rise to it. This conceptual framework guides, controls and

mobilizes the study. New historicism has made the relation between text and society its
predominant concern. By exposing the strongly economic, political and social forces propelling a

literary text, New historicism has tried to challenge the deeply entrenched hegemony of American

and British new formalism , new critical thinking and historical positivism. As New Historicism

emerged (via Foucault, Lacan, Greenblatt, etc.) there was an increase in focus a general

diversification of the canon in efforts to acknowledge previous and current minority literature

which had been suppressed by the white western patriarchy

1.5 Delimitation of the Study

The application of New Historicism theory to literature is a wide field. Keeping in mind the

temporal and academic constraints, the present study is limited to the Historicist,feminist,marxist

analysis of Bapsi Sidwa’s Ice-Candy Man.

1.6 Chapterization of the Study

Chapter 1: Introduction (Background, Methodology, Delimitations, Significance and

Rationale)

Chapter 2: Review of Related Literature

Chapter 3: Investigation of Bapsi Sidwa’s Ice-Candy Man as a cultural materialist

Chapter 4: Discussion and Conclusion

1.7 Significance of the Study

The autonomous aesthetic issues of literary studies were now reinterpreted in the light of
Foucauldian discourses, hegemonic institutional practices and individual subjectivities The
application of New Historicist theory to Bapsi Sidwa’s Ice-Candy Man “produced very significant
results. First, New historicists look at history more as "glorious fragments" than "a set of coherent
histories. They believe that people move restlessly and unpredictably to new places and,
finding themselves in new situations, create new literary scholarship, literature or histories.The
study proves that the male in this novel is chauvinistic, patriarchal, colonizer and exploitative to
the female characters around him and linked to his life in one way or the other. One of the founder-
proponent of new historicism, Greenblatt, believes that literary histories need to take account of
"accidental judgements" and other disruptive forces more than organic narrative or cultural
legitimacy that "shape the history of languages.One should never forget that a language slips,
crosses borders and is mostly unpredictable and uncontrollable.

CHAPTER 2

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

2.1 Introduction

In this chapter the review of the related literature is carried out. The new historicists acquired this
new understanding by directing the methodologies and procedures of deconstruction, feminism
and post-structuralism to literature and literary texts. For, New Historicist the text, rather than
being a static artifact of a definable culture, is a participant in a dynamic, changeable culture. Every
time someone reads, it brings a unique set of experiences and points of view that change the
meaning of the text, however slightly.They see history as a series of discourses, embraces feminist,
cultural, and Marxist criticism, assumes works of literature both influence and are influenced by
historical reality. Besides they believes literature both refers and is referred to by things outside
itself,defines discipline of history more broadly than predecessors; it is a social science that needs
to make sociohistorical subjects and methods central to literary studies Moreover it links sociology
and historical criticism. There is never just one cause of an event, history is a series of events tied
into a vast web of economic, social, and political factors and history is connected to power.
Traditional history is, by its nature, a subjective narrative, usually told from the point of view of
the powerful. The losers of history do not have the means to write their stories, nor is there usually
an audience interested in hearing them. Most cultures, once dominated by another, are forced to
forget their past. To maintain its sovereignty, the culture of power simply does not allow the
defeated culture to be remembered.
Through postmodrnist views literatureis characterized by reliance on narrative techniques such as
fragmentation, paradox, and the unreliable narrator; and often is defined as a style or a trend which
emerged in the post–World War II era. Postmodern works are seen as a response against dogmatic
following of Enlightenment thinking and Modernist approaches to literature.This chuckling, tender
story, told through the eyes of blamelessness, is a demonstration of savage misfortune, and a
splendid summoning of the lurking foundations of religious prejudice. Along these lines however
Bapsi has been blamed by some diehard Indian patriots for showing a Pakistani perspective of
history, we should not overlook this is a novel and not a work of social documentation; it limits
itself to one tyke’s point of view through which the contradicting, differing voices she hears are
refracted. Truth be told the perspective Bapsi embraces, is one of the novel’s best ploys. We trust
we are witnessing the occasions of Partition through the eyes of a pure kid, however deliberately
set glimmer forward flag, in an inconspicuous way, that the grown-up Lenny is really remembering
the past keeping in mind the end goal to understand the occasions that perplexed her when she was
too little to fathom; at the same time, she confines While there is little consensus on the precise
characteristics, scope, and importance of postmodern literature, as is often the case with artistic
movements, postmodern literature is commonly defined in relation to a precursor. In particular,
postmodern writers are seen as reacting against the precepts of modernism, and they often operate
as literary "bricoleurs", parodying forms and styles associated with modernist (and other) writers
and artists. Postmodern works also tend to celebrate chance over craft, and further employ
metafiction to undermine the text's authority or authenticity. Another characteristic of postmodern
literature is the questioning of distinctions between high and low culture through the use of
pastiche, the combination of subjects and genres not previously deemed fit for literature.

Ice-Candy-Man narrates a society which has deflated chivalrous attitudes, encourages petty self-
serving tendencies and indifferent tolerance of pogroms so long the self stays alive with a whole
skin; a society which was given what it deserved—a sanguine and blood-curdling mindset, which
made Partition of India a grim reality. The characters and events of the novel suggest that "vanity,
hypocrisy and self-deception . . . somehow constitute a truer reality than altruism, self-sacrifice
and heroism, even when these are known to have existed. This reinterpretation, Andrew Rutherford
argues, of historical and psychological reality by art involves an opposition not only between high
and'lower mimetic modes, but between the low mimetic and the ironic, highlighting what he terms
as "a disbelief in the psychological probability of the ideal.

When Gandhi visit to Lahore it is presented in such light as makes him "an improbable mixture of
a demon and a clown. Sidhwa portrays him as a politician, changing his stances to suit his needs.
During the heated discussions among Ayah's admirers the butcher snortingly terms him as "That
non-violent violence-monger your precious Gandhi. Lenny remembers him as a small, dark and
shrivelled old man very much like their gardener Hari. Sidhwa also criticizes the British designs,
commenting that after obtaining their objective to divide India, they favoured Hindus over
Muslims: "they [the British] favour Nehru over Jinnah, Nehru is Kashmiri, they grant
him Kashmir. Spurning logic, defying rationale, ignoring the consequences of bequeathing a
Muslim state to the Hindus." She further says in derogatory terms that Nehru wears red carnations
in the button holes of his ivory jackets. He bandies words with Lady Mountbatten and is presumed
to be her lover. He is in the prime of his Brahmin manhood. Similarly the Akalis, led by Master
Tara Singh, are termed as "a bloody bunch of murdering fanatics.
 CHAPTER 3

Investigation Of “Ice-Candy-Man” As a New Historicist Reading

3.1 Introduction

New Historicism is a literary theory based on the idea that literature should be studied and
intrepreted within the context of both the history of the author and the history of the critic. Based
on the literary criticism of Stephen Greenblatt and influenced by the philosophy of Michel
Foucault, New Historicism acknowledges not only that a work of literature is influenced by its
author's times and circumstances, but that the critic's response to that work is also influenced by
his environment, beliefs, and prejudices. The New Historicist looks at literature in a wider
historical context, examining both how the writer's times affected the work and how the work
reflects the writer's times, in turn recognizing that current cultural contexts color that critic's
conclusions.The New Historicist also acknowledges that his examination of literature is "tainted"
by his own culture and environment.
Sidhwa also describes how political leaders manipulate the ideals and generate feelings of
suspicion and distrust in the psyche of the common man. Once communal and obscurantist
passions are aroused, the social fabric is torn asunder, leading to wanton and reckless destruction.
Writer has also commented on the historical inevitability of social process, suggesting that people
who do not learn from history are condemned to repeat it. The tragic events combine with the witty
freshness characterizing the narrator's attitude of a distanced watcher. The novel poignantly
describes the mindless Partition violence and focuses on its socio-historical consequences to
women. Moreover, "the craft of describing violent and humorous scenes alternatively and of freely
mixing historical tragedy with witty comedy is not the result of a compromise but it rather displays
a lively authenticity which very few novels can be credited with." Ice-Candy-Man enables the
readers to understand the extent of the trauma of Partition and review it in its historical context,
and thus suggestively delineates the fruit-lessness of violence in individual and collective lives.

Author, Bapsi Sidhwa avoids the pitfall of employing omniscient narration in Ice-Candy-
Man. This work marks a new phase in her writing in the use of narrative voice. She is true to
history, by and large, though there are a few aberrations in providing historical signposts. Ralph
Crane argues that Lenny's unreliable narration proves to be reliable in its own way, since it causes
us to question the British and Indian versions of the truth that have hitherto been accepted. Sidhwa,
in fact, employs two narrative voices for rendering the account of Partition. The first is that of
Lenny, a child and the other is that of authorial omniscient narrative voice. Lenny's rendering is
through her dreams and nightmares. It is more subjective, though not involved or enlightened about
its consequences. Sidhwa's success lies in an excellently maintained restraint and impartial,
disinterested, near factual description. She maintains balance so that the voice remains childlike
but sophisticated enough to involve the adult reader.

Feminism is further wing of New Historicism.Lenny’s conceptions about love is devasteted. She
was shocked to see Ice-Candy-Man pushing his wife Ayah into the business of prostitution. The
site of women being raped during the riots petrifies her. She watches men turning into beasts; they
were declaring superiority over each other by sexually assaulting women. Rape is the greatest
violence because it implies that a woman has no rights on her own body and it can be used by
anyone to meet their end. Such acts of violence are an intimate destruction of the feminine, and
can also be read as an attempt to annihilate male honor. Feminine form was reconceived as canvas
for nationalist messages in 1947 Lahore. The metaphor of female body or mother is often used for
a nation. Thus the dignity, purity and honor of women have always been taken as sign of the dignity
and integrity of a nation. Ranna’s community has a clear plan to safeguard the women from being
used in such a way. Thus the idea of protection shifts from keeping the women alive as long as
possible to allow the women enough time to kill themselves. Such a plan reveals the importance
of women’s purity to male constructions of community. The entire purpose of this encounter is to
safeguard women’s bodies from public shaming. Honor was “located in the body of the woman”.
Once raped, violated, and mutilated, they cannot be incorporated back into the spaces of the home
or the nation. Sidhwa uses the figures of Lenny’s caretakers, to explore the fates of women who
survived these acts of violence. Women, once they fall prey to men’s violence like Lenny’s two
Ayah’s, cannot hope for their restitution to their own families. Through Ayah, Sidhwa
demonstrates the loss of feminine power, and had the story ended at this point, the novel would be
nothing but a traditional Partition novel, with the men as victors and the women as victims. This
novel presents a diachronic world where the life of Lenny and her growth at all levels is in a
parallel time order. In other words, there is the history of Lenny and there exists the chronology of
subcontinental Partition tale. As historical time is linear and colonial which is nothing but a record
of depravity, cultural, economic, political and emotional, each postcolonial novelist creates his
own 'space' of authenticity and belongingness. New 'spaces' are sought to be created for redefining
the native sense of history. Thus in Sidhwa's fiction too, there is this tug between history and the
hapless protagonist in such a history. postmodern literature is part of socio-cultural and historical
development and can be seen as a specific way of a depiction of the postmodern life and culture.
It shows a crisis of identity of human being (ethnic, sexual, social and cultural) and its struggle for
legitimization in a hypocritical society

Ayah in Cracking India truly represents the 'subaltern' since she is denied some cultural space by
Ice-Candy-Man, who in turn, is a victim of imperialism. Her humiliation is a concrete illustration
of the subaltern's lack of access to the Culture imperialism. Ayah mulls perhaps a canal will be
dug to crack India. Though Lenny is baffled by such questions, she simultaneously becomes aware
of religious differences. She worriedly remarks, "It is sudden. One day everybody is themselves—
and the next day they are Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, Christian. People shrink, dwindling into symbols."
In a changed world which responds not to individuals but religious identities,Her perception of
people also changes and she becomes aware of religious symbols acting in, and moulding the
individual lives. Lenny's parents also acquire a strange black box containing, as reader are told
later, a gun. Their neighbours leave for safer places. Hari, the gardener, is circumcised and
converted to Islam for protection, Moti, the sweeper, opts for Christianity, the masseur is killed
grotesquely, the markets burn and living beings are torn asunder..

CHAPTER 4

Dicussion And Conclusion

This novel depicts is one of the most distinguished history of partition, different cultures and the
Parsi society. August 15, 1947 was a significant day for the Muslims, Hindus, the Sikhs and many
other communities in India. It marked the day of British partition of India. Pakistan has been
universally regarded as the most incandescent precious gift Jinnah gave to the Muslims. He alone
was undoubtedly its sole founder.Moreover, Jinnah had never shown any religious inclination. At
first, he aligned himself with the Hindus and worked incessantly for Hindu-Muslim unity that
established him as the best link between two communities and gave him an advantage in pursuing
his brand of politics.

The tender story, through the eyes of naive, is a demonstration of savage misfortune, and a splendid
summoning of the lurking foundations of religious prejudice. Along these lines however Bapsi has
been blamed by some diehard Indian patriots for showing a Pakistani perspective of history.One
should not overlook this is a novel and not a work of social documentation. Truth be told the
perspective. Bapsi embraces, is one of the novel’s best ploys. One must trust and mediate readers
are witnessing the occasions of Partition through the eyes of a pure kid, however deliberately set
glimmer forward flag, in an inconspicuous way, that the grown-up Lenny is really remembering
the past keeping in mind the end goal to understand the occasions that perplexed her when she was
too little to fathom. At the same time, she confines herself to the encounters and tangible view of
the youngster she was. In this manner we are given a two-fold even dialogic point of view of
experience, thoughtfulness and knowledge of the past.

Cracking India or Ice-Candy -Man is a major novel on partition which treats history and culture
of India and Pakistan.It had been a shocking and traumatic experience shared by both the
nations.women’s issue,the implication of colonization and bitterly divided quagmire of partisan
politics that the British left in their wake are reevaluated in tne novel, picked apart by the sharp
questions of a child.

Works Cited
http://www.academia.edu/11934755/Portrayal_of_partition_Ice_candy_man_by_Bapsi_Sidhwa.
http://neoenglishsystem.blogspot.com/2010/08/brutal-realities-of-partition-depicted.html

ibid…

https://www.cliffsnotes.com/cliffsnotes/subjects/literature/what-is-new-historicism

http://neoenglishsystem.blogspot.com/2010/08/do-you-agree-with-view-that-ice-candy.html

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/301797575_New_Historicism_Text_and_Context

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/301797575_New_Historicism_Text_and_Context

https://neoenglish.wordpress.com/2010/08/28/page/10/

New Historicism and Literary Studies by MUKESH Williams