History is no more confined to a monolithic collection of facts and their hegemonic interpretations but has found a prominent space in narratives. The recent surge in using narrative in contemporary history has given historical fiction a space in historiography. With Hayden White’s definition of history as a “verbal structure in the form of a narrative prose discourse” literature is perceived to be closer to historiography, in the present age (ix). History has regained acceptance and popularity in the guise of fiction, as signified by the rising status of historical fiction in the post colonial literary world. Riot (2001), Shashi Tharoor’s third novel is set in the context of a fictitious riot that has resemblance to the riot that rocked Uttar Pradesh in 1989 as an aftermath of the Babri Masjid- Ram Janmabhoomi controversy. Tharoor unravels the history of communal India from the fictional context of the investigation of the death of a twenty-four year old idealistic American girl, Priscilla Hart, who was slain in India in the riot. From its premises, Tharoor also communicates his ideas “about ownership of history, cultural collision, religious fanaticism and the impossibility of knowing the truth” ( …show more content…
“Tharoor's quest for novelty continues in Riot”, states a review (Ramlal Agarwal WLT, 141). The narrative techniques that Tharoor employs are methods that an author consciously uses to tell his story because an author “cannot choose whether or not to affect his reader’s evaluation by his choice of narration, he can only choose whether to do it well or poorly.” (Booth, 69). Nevertheless in Riot, the author uses his narrative techniques not to solely tell his story but more so to communicate his concerns to his audience. The context chosen may be fictional but the discursive mode of expression involving opposing viewpoints in specific relation to the historical events offers the historical
Wideman, John Edgar. "Our Time". Ways of reading: An Anthology for Writers [ninth edition]. Ed. Bartholomae, David and Anthony Petrosky. N.Y.|Boston: Bedford/St. Martin Press. 2011.655-694. Print.
Boo’s story begins in Annawadi, a trash-strewn slum located by the Mumbai International Airport. This “sumpy plug of slum” had a population of three thousand people living within 335 huts (Boo, 2011, xi). The land owned by the Airport Authority of India and was surrounded by five hotels that Abdul’s younger brother described as “roses” versus their slum, “the shit in between” (Boo, 2011, xi). Abdul is a Muslim teenage who buys garbage of the rich and sells it to recyclers to support his family. Abdul’s family, Muslim, is a religious minority in the slum of Hindus; in fact a major element of tension within the book can be distilled to these Hindu-Muslim tensions. This difference in religion makes Abdul fearful of his neighbors for two reasons: (1) they would attempt to steal the family’s wealth, and (2) if Abdul were caught, he would not be able to support his family. The other major character was Fatima, a woman who burned herself by attempting suicide through self-immolation. She accused Abdul, his father, and sister of beating and threatening her; in India, it is against the law to convince someone else to kill him or herself. With a corruption-ridden legal sys...
When inquiring about the comparisons and contrasts between Melville’s Benito Cereno and Frederick Douglass’s Narrative of the Life of an American Slave, Written by Himself, the following question almost inevitably arises: Can a work of fiction and an autobiography be compared at all? Indeed, the structure of the two stories differs greatly. Whereas Douglass’s Narrative adapts a typical pattern of autobiographies, i.e. a chronological order of birth, childhood memories, events that helped shape the narrator etc., Benito Cereno is based on a peculiar three-layered foundation of a central story recounting the main events, a deposition delineating the events prior to the first part, and an ending.
With that, we are able to examine readings and can ask ourselves if this really could have taken place exactly how it is being portrayed. Although the books seem as if they are written as an autobiography or “diary”, they are actually fictional books and should not be used as stand-alone text in a classroom. Even though these books do bring much knowledge to a classroom and allow students to learn about historical events they otherwise may not have, they only provide one insight to the
The reform of history textbook has always been a growing concern. In her “America Revised: A History of Schoolbooks in the twentieth century,” Frances Fitzgerald reveals that history books are updated but modified substantially to comply with the national interest at the time. Fitzgerald’s argument is slightly biased and some pieces of evidence are not sufficient or might even be far-fetched. However, she successfully conveys her argument through comprehensively contrasting the current history books for children with histories of the fifties using various rhetorical devices and plentiful examples.
However, “Inherit the Wind is not history,” (Lawrence & Lee, 1955, p. 1); therefore, it should be classified as fiction. Historical fiction, perhaps, but fiction all the same. The writers of Inherit the Wind freely admit from the first page of the play that the following story, while it is rooted in the true events of the Scopes Trial, should not be read as an actual occurrence (Lawrence & Lee, 1955). Even though the focus of both are similar, the genres they are classified in are in fact opposites, showing once again the transformations that the authors
In addition to handling a selected crisis or event, every chapter is made around the story and philosophical portrait of a selected individual (whether writer, artist, or "average" person within the street) who was personally involved in that moment of history. By this method, the author offers a way of human significance and unity
Criticism on the Gothic novel has been plentiful, yet such work tends to view the Gothic novel within the constraints of genre rather than investigating its wider influence in the nineteenth century. “Gothic Archives” will track this influence, arguing that the Gothic novel indicates changing attitudes toward reading, and especially toward reading history, in the nineteenth century. Gothic novels such as Melmoth the Wanderer (1820), and the meta-Gothic of The Antiquary (1816) presume that authentic historical experience is difficult, if not impossible, to represent accurately, emphasizing in their plots the misunderstandings that result from attempts to read and write historical experience. It follows that the Gothic novel typically stages scenes of reading that delve into (often fictional) archival sources. Thus Gothic novels always situate authentic historical knowledge within the archive, requiring characters to excavate obscure source material such as letters, books, portraits, wills, and the like in order to discover what the Gothic construes as historical truth. In so doing, the Gothic novel proffers a historically oriented epistemology of reading, founded upon the affective possibilities of history writing, which challenges the considerations of truth and accuracy that inform traditional historiography.
When discussing the controversial authors of Indian literature, one name should come to mind before any other. Salman Rushdie, who is best known for writing the book “Midnights Children.” The first two chapters of “Midnights Children” are known as “The Perforated Sheet”. In “The Perforated Sheet” Rushdie utilizes magic realism as a literary device to link significant events and their effects on the lives of Saleem’s family to a changing India. In fact, it is in the beginning of the story that the reader is first exposed to Rushdie’s use of magic realism when being introduced to Saleem. “On the stroke of midnight/clocks joined palms” and “the instant of India’s arrival at independence. I tumbled forth into the world”(1711). Rushdie’s description of the clocks “joining palms” and explanation of India’s newfound independence is meant to make the reader understand the significance of Saleem’s birth. The supernatural action of the clocks joining palms is meant to instill wonder, while independence accentuates the significance of the beginning of a new era. Rushdie also utilizes magic realism as an unnatural narrative several times within the story to show the cultural significance of events that take place in the story in an abnormal way.
Historical novels written by authors who experience the history are great sources for a more first hand account of history that is often one sided and simply based on facts. Historical fiction can make the history more personal and enjoyable to the reader reading it, but it can also be deceiving if the reader is not already at least vaguely familiar with the history. God’s Bits of Wood and No Longer at Ease express and explain colonization and the way that it affected those who were colonized in a way that textbooks often cannot. When comparing the two novels, differences in the nature of the ruling and similarities in the impact it has on various social classes and generations are evident. Though historical novels are a great source, it must be kept in mind that they are novels and should not be relied on for one hundred percent factual evidence.
Although the story bounces between these two main "insinuations", it is never clear to me what or who the story is about and I found this to be an unfulfilling reading. In retrospect my previous readings of literature have been more of the atypical writing style. One that leaves you comfortable and secure and without guesswork "The Indian Uprising" avoids this style at all cost. The author's intent on writing in the style of a collage, although fascinating, is very confusing. I will be the first to admit I'm not the most avid of readers, but having to read a story two or even three times and still not fully perceiving its meaning made it an even more arduous read.
The story of Midnight’s Children parallels the real history of India from 1910 to the declaration of the emergency in 1976. The reader experiences the story through the eyes of the main character, Saleem Sinai, who was born auspiciously at midnight of India’s Independence. Although Midnight's Children is a story with political overtones, its well-written multi-dimensional characters go on an even more riveting personal journey that sucks the readers into the story without thinking about the political context of the story. Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children is both the history of a sub-continent and the struggle of the Indian people for Independence, as well as a story of a boy's coming to age and a family’s saga.
Presenting an authentic portrait of contemporary India during the Emergency era imposed by Indira Gandhi, India in the novel is bound with its timeless chain of caste exploitation, male chauvinism, linguistic strives and communal disharmony. Further the tyranny of the power - hungry politicians over the poor – hungry citizens is unveiled as Mistry depicts the humiliating condition of people living in Jhopadpattis, deaths on railway tracks, demolition of shacks on the pretext of beautification, deaths in police custody, lathi charges and murders in the pretext of enforcing Family Planning.
Culture and history are the defining aspects of literary history. Each event throughout history has played a major role in the history of literature and writers today. Each writer throughout history has been influenced either through personal experiences, beliefs, and America’s history. Events such as the Civil War brought about several changes that led to the introduction of new literary genres and styles. Many of these writers wanted to break away from tradition whiles others wanted to write about their beliefs such as religion.
The twentieth century constantly grappled with the idea of literary history, and the ambition it entailed, as an attempt to explain the laws governing the evolution of literature, the coherence of literary periodization, the inter-linkages and exchanges between genres with reference to either the movement of history as an ever-present backdrop or in reference to formal aspects of the literary system itself. The last decades of the century threw this ambition into disarray. Positivist literary historiography claimed a certain degree of objectivity, valorized a group of writers and texts, created problematic distinctions such as popular and mass literature and foregrounded the dominance of certain genres in certain periods among other questionable