New Historicist Aspects in Manto’s Stories

Abstract

The topic of this research is ‘New Historicist Aspects in
Manto’s Stories’. New historicism integrates both literary and historical
texts without discrimination and gives equal importance to both texts. New
historicism upholds that the individuals and society or culture are mutually
formative and shape each other. New historicism focuses on power
structures, ways of interpretation and representations, and issues of
identity and how these are fashioned. The present research seeks to
analyze selected new historicist aspects in Saadat Hassan Manto’s stories
from his representative collection: Manto’s World (2000) translated by
Khalid Hassan, delimiting itself to the aspects of representation, identity
and circulation of power. The stories picked to be analyzed are The Price
of Freedom and The Great Divide. Relevant passages of these stories are
analyzed to identify afore mentioned aspects. The study reveals that these
aspects of new historicism are interwoven and reflected in these stories.
The network of powerful creates identities and represent things in a selfserving method. They generate favorable cultural ambiance; in which
these representations and identities become part and parcel of people’s
awareness; which serves to perpetuate their power. Moreover, Manto
through the characters and setting transfers his far-reaching and openminded vision, contrary to the conventional one.