Transformation of History in the Glass Palace and Burnt Shadows: A Postmodernist Analysis

Abstract

South Asian English fiction, in recent decades, has significantly manifested its deepest concern for history and its relevance in the contemporary global scenario. The last couple of years have noticed the publication of many English novels by Indian and Pakistani authors that in fact belong to the very genre of postmodern historiographic metafiction. In fact, postmodern fiction writers usually deviate from the traditional representation of past events. The current study examines the way history writing is reconfigured in the selected postmodern novel. In these novels, the writers retell the traditional history through innovative narrative techniques and multiplicity of the views that de-centralize the conventional history. The present research attempts to explore Amitav Gosh’s The Glass Palace and Kamila Shamsie’s Burnt Shadows as historiographic metafiction, that is a sub-genre of postmodern fiction. The study focuses on the selected texts to explore how these novels transform the traditional history through the incorporation of magic realism, intertextuality and self-reflexivity. This research is qualitative and descriptive, while the textual analysis has been used as a research method. The theoretical concept of Linda Hutcheon is incorporated in this current study that ends with findings and recommendations for future research.

Exploring Postmodern Elements in Jorge Luis Borges’ Short Story “The Other Death“

“…It shows the entire focus is on the key traits like distortion of reality, elements of fragmentation, unreliability on the part of the narrator, plots of both nonlinear types marked with touches of paranoia, black humor, and questions about the status of the author (Ahmed, Lashari & Golo, 2023). Ashraf (1991) advocates that postmodernism as a movement negates absolute truths and denies fixed definitions. He further accounts that postmodernism has a long history and traces its roots back to the publication of A Study of History (1947) by Arnold Toynbee.…”

Subversion of Conventional Narratives in South Asian English Fiction: A Postmodern Analysis of Language Games and Metanarratives

“…In her Ph. D. dissertation entitled Transformation of Metanarratives in Burnt Shadows, Ashraf (2019) critically explores the evolving narratives of history, identity and memory depicted intensely in Kamila Shamsie's novel. To this end, Ashraf suggests that Shamsie disrupts grand master narratives affecting history by focusing on singular stories and cultural encounters, showing that the personal lives interact with historical processes.…”