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Analysis Of Manto's 'Partition'

1080 Words5 Pages

He explores the controversial themes of love, sex, incest, prostitution, rape, murder, patriarchy, etc. in the specific context of the murky socio-cultural climate of the Partition. In his fiction, Manto reveals the suffering of individuals who bore the brunt of communal violence during Partition. Prominent among Manto’s account of these individuals is his portrayal of the plight of women. In this context, the author does not depict women as symbols and means to avenge national honour. On the contrary, he seeks to show that this aggressive fervour was simply a smokescreen meant to give free rein to the power ascribed to the phallic subject by the dominant ideology. To many, especially in the Partition era Manto appears as an obscene writer, a voyeur who takes delight in objectifying women and was accused of obscenity by the State, This charge haunted Manto all his life. However, Manto in stories like Thanda Gosht and Khol Do shows the plight of women and their sexual violation during a communal frenzy.
He explores the manner in which Partition is inscribed and enacted upon human bodies; this in turn underscores Foucault’s thesis that the entire mechanism of power, becomes successfully operative only after it comes to be written on the bodies of individuals. The woman’s body becomes a space through which male supremacy is established. It becomes a site of conflict, a battleground where the entire mechanism of power is played out. Moreover, Manto places the violence

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