To Study the Traumatic Past and Literary Afterlives in Bapsi Sidhwa’s the Pakistani Bride and Ice-Candy-Man

Abstract

Cultural memory is one of the burgeoning fields of study which emerged in the beginning of the twentieth century with Maurice Halbwachs’ seminal work on memoire collective. It is a useful umbrella term which refers to the complex ways in which individuals and society remember their past by using various means or a variety of media. The chapters of the thesis focus on the similarities between cultural memory studies and postcolonial study which are linked to certain political, social, and religious etc. issues raised in the selected novels which are representatives of different cultures having common aspects of colonialism and post-colonialism. It is believed that this approach will help to find a perspective for the assessment or analysis of the controversial memories of the unique past. All the selected novels are a part of commonwealth literature which represents the countries once ruled or colonized by the British or European colonizers.