NARRATIVITY AND POSTCOLONIAL IDENTITY: ANALYSING FREE INDIRECT DISCOURSE AND CULTURAL CONFLICT IN ICE-CANDY MAN

Abstract

This study addresses the question of narrativity in the process of creation of post-colonial identity in Bapsi Sidhwa's Ice-Candy-Man. It examines the tension between two modes of narration: the raw, spontaneous experience of the child (Characterological voice) and the reflective Adult's point of view (Narratorial voice). Using narratological and postcolonial theories, the study focuses on the technique of Free Indirect Discourse (FID) as a tool to exhibit the narrator's consciousness and character's consciousness. The study uses Leech and Short continuum for exploring the narrative devices, ranging from Free Direct Thought to Narrative Report, historical memory and fragmented realities of Partition. The paper also examines the development of identity in the space between the two voices. The sensory narration is the child's narration of immediate trauma of communal violence while the adult narrator gives the critical distance needed to raise questions about the political rhetoric. The paper postulates that the “dual voice” of Partition fiction fills the gap between the private suffering and public history. The text alternates registers and narratives, keeping the emotional truth of the victim and the social fragmentation. The results show that the technique of Free Indirect Discourse enhances readers' understanding of the internal sense of conflict between individual desire and the collective demand of characters who are at the crossroads of personal identity and social expectations. The study finally concludes that Sidhwa's narrative technique brings the individual world of experience; both internal and external into a wider socio-political history of Partition trauma.