Depiction of Indian Cultural Values through Magic Realism: A Study of Selected Stories from Ruskin Bond's When Darkness Falls and Other Stories

Abstract

This research analyses how Ruskin Bond's some selected stories from When Darkness Falls and Other Stories use magical realism as a technique to mingle the opposite values like real and fantastic, natural and supernatural, the past and the present and life and death. It attempts to show how Bond presents the Indian culture, tradition, belief system and behavior of people by using the technique called magic realism. Using the non-western setting of India, the writer challenges the westerners who blame non-westerners as traditional and superstitious. Bond valorizes the concept of magic realism, which focuses on multiple truths by questioning single version of reality. The magical elements like ghostly visitation, supernaturalism, haunting, charms and spells, dreams and foretelling come true in the real life experiences of Indian people. Magic realism in Bond's stories is not only monolithic rather it has multiple versions such as postcolonial, postmodern, ontological and has association with children's culture. Presenting the relationship between real people and ghostly appearances, the stories portray the attachment of Indian people with supernaturalism. The stories wave the elements of supernatural and extraordinary happenings about the victimization of the characters with ordeals in life. Magic realism in the stories gives subversive effects of supernaturalism and presents unusual and extraordinary with the context of firm reality.