Irony in Partition Violence: Critical Evaluation of Manto's Short Stories

Abstract

Main purpose of this study of ironic mode of storytelling in Manto's partition stories is to analyze the political use of irony while dealing with the issues of partition violence which were kept in silence considering them as the evil things and black marks of the history, and to subvert the limited notion of partition violence which took partition as an appropriate action of independence and the solution for the existing violence there. Crossing the boundaries of selective representation of partition violence, the writer in the selected stories has made the actual depiction of partition violence exposing the pain, suffering, trauma and torture of the victims by going back to the specific levels of the events. In this course, irony in some stories highlights the irrationality, inhumanity and narrow vision of the so-called rational leaders. In some other stories he catches the indifference and the hypocritical attitude of the governments and the volunteers during refugee rehabilitation. And in other stories he has shown the vulnerable condition of common people in front of those gangs of rioters. In this way, Manto has used irony as his weapon to subvert the existing notion about partition violence of India.