Fictions of India: Narrative and PowerFictions of India explores the relation of narrative technique to issues of power in the work of selected writers dealing with India. It examines the imperial context in which the writers operate and suggests how historical and ideological assumptions and anxieties may be read into the texts they produce. The study combines aspects of colonial and post-colonial debate with narrative theories to illuminate the work of these writers operating on either side of an epistemological divide formed by Indian independence in 1947. The book focuses largely on British writers on India with chapters on Kipling, E.M. Forster, John Masters, J.G. Farrell and Paul Scott. A final, comparative chapter traces the issues of narrative and power in the work of two post-independence Indian writers - Khushwant Singh and Rohinton Mistry - and deals with the burden of storytelling in a post-colonial situation still fraught with communal and neo-colonial abuses.This book is an important contribution to our understanding of how narrative fiction can reflect and confirm, but also contest and dismantle discourses of power.Features* Offers new interpretations of well-known texts and writers* Suggests an agenda for studying new and less well-known texts to examine the play of narrative and power more generally* Demonstrates possible relations between narrative technique and those larger narratives which feed into the operation of political power* Challenges exclusivist readings which have often asserted 'the colonial' and 'the post-colonial' to be antithetical and mutually exclusive discursive entities |
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Contents
Gothic and Supernatural Allegories at Work | 21 |
E M Forster and the Dialogic Imagination | 53 |
Writing as Staying | 80 |
Copyright | |
3 other sections not shown
Common terms and phrases
allegory allowed Anglo-Indian appear attempt becomes begins body British chapter characters claim colonial comes complex concern construction conventions course created critics cultural described discourse effect empire English example exist experience fact Farrell fiction figure forced Forster frame given human idea identity ideology imagined imperial independence India individual Junction kind Kipling Kipling's knowledge language liberal literary literature Mark Masters means metafiction narrative narrator nationalist native nature never novel offered Orient Passage perhaps perspective political position possible post-colonial potential present provides question reader reading recognize reflects relation relationship representation represents reveals Rohinton Mistry rule Savage Scott seen sense Siege situation social society space speak speech stand story suggests supernatural symbolic technique things tradition Train voice Western writing
References to this book
Asian Diasporas: Cultures, Identities, Representations Robbie B. H. Goh,Shawn Wong No preview available - 2004 |
Dissenters and Mavericks: Writings About India in English, 1765-2000 Margery Sabin Limited preview - 2002 |
Bibliographic information
| Title | Fictions of India: Narrative and Power |
| Author | Peter Morey |
| Publisher | Edinburgh University Press, 2000 |
| Original from | the University of Michigan |
| Digitized | Mar 4, 2008 |
| ISBN | 0748611819, 9780748611812 |
| Length | 216 pages |
| Subjects | › › Literary Criticism / Asian / Indic Literary Criticism / European / English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh Literary Criticism / General |
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