Revisiting Partition

Abstract

The partition of 1947 was a significant socio-political event of history that tremendously affected individuals’ life. Bapsi Sidhwa is a Parsi writer from Pakistan, who was born in Karachi in 1938. She spent most of her childhood days in Lahore and witnessed the violence of partition as a nine-year child. She portrays the terror of the partition in her novel Ice Candy Man and her first-hand experiences make it more vivid and authentic. The novel also focuses on how partition related violence and traumatic experiences can determine the course of one’s life. The present study intends to show how a horrific political event like the Partition can influence the individuals and how they have to live with the trauma caused by this event through the portrayal of the characters of this novel in the light of trauma theory. Keywords: Partition, Violence, Victimization of Women, Violation of Identity, Trauma.