Political Novel Analysis

Historical fiction, viewed in this light, has greater capacity to expose truth of its time which could not be learnt otherwise. History-fiction overlaps have, thus, undergone a considerable transform and can, if not replaced, definitely addition to each other. With changed viewpoint and success and popularity of the historical fiction, a great number of writers may use history by incorporating social, cultural, political actions, of their interest into the fictional frame of history. The changed historical picture also played a major role. The world witnessed quick changes in the declining decades of the 19th century and at the turning of the subsequent century. The great revolution of France, which is described as the meanest, cruelest and

Therefore it will be interesting to know about political novel which is the sub genre of historical novel. The history of literature, right from the traditional epics to the modern novel, shows that all literary creations are inherently ideological and in that sense social and political. None can reject the affiliations of Ramayana, Mahabharata, Illiad, Odessy and Paradise Lost with the politics of their times. The gradual dislocation of religion as the organizing principle of life and society by politics, especially in the west, made the writers admit politics as one of the constituents of their imaginative reflection. Yet the shape and nature of the political novel in the west has not fully crystallized. Even opinions on the issue and extent of assimilation and attachment of art and artists to politics and political ideologies remained divided. R.B. Heilman is of

It is only after the nationalistic stirrings gained momentum in India that the novel changed its track and attention from romances, history, sociology and culture to politics enlightening a new kind and pattern of awareness and relationship of the individual with the exact of the environment. It is not the fact that all the novels and novelists turned political but the impact of the political disorder was so great that even a novelist of such powerful sociological concern as R.K. Narayan and one of deep metaphysical concern like Raja Rao could not but help writing at least one political novel each. The progress of the Indian novel in English reveals the way the national fight for independence in its various aspects and stages impinged upon the thoughts of the writers to produce a new form called the political novel. The definition of the political novel begins a variety of interpretations. While the Oxford English Dictionary describes, the political novel as no more than a fictitious political narrative, and a novel about fantasy politicians. Morris Edmund Speare explains it in more in detail as follows: What is a political Novel?