Flashback and Memories in Manto's Stories Essay Example

Flashback and memories are major narrative devices in the short stories of Manto. Flashback has offered some critical background information on certain events concerning Manto's past which would not have been known to the. (Manto). Memories has been critical in Manto's short stories since it depicts the personal traits and attributes of Manto. This essay will demonstrate how flashbacks and memories are useful in Manto's short stories.

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Firstly, Manto was individually and artistically influenced, in a manner that has changed into lasting story prose, by the massive catastrophe of history that was a partition of colonial India into two states in 1947. The partitioning saw Hindu-majority India on one side and Muslim-majority Pakistan on the other side. This decision ignited the biggest two-way migration in history, where millions of Sikhs and Hindus in what was rapidly Pakistan moving into India and millions of Muslims trying to flee to Pakistan (Jalal). This journey from one side to the other was not smooth and was characterized by bloody confrontations between the two groups. Surely, this relocation left lasting memories to generations and this can take centuries to heal. This memories and flashbacks have provided critical information regarding how the State of India was partitioned and a new state of Pakistan was born. The journey of Muslims and Sikhs crossing to their respective religious divide will forever last in the minds of Indians and Pakistanis.

This even produced the lasting politics of mistrust between the two super powers of the Asian subcontinent, which between them contributes to a quarter of the population in the world today. Manto's writing then in light of what he had understood, witnessed or heard and what he did with this material creatively, within the room of his own independence as the author of fiction makes him a peculiar and exciting writer to date.

Secondly, Manto's revolutionary and bold writing worked a kind of declaration of independence from the major story doctrines and beliefs of his times, which was that that fiction needed to be socially applicable in its content, that traces the individualism within the larger territory of the public sphere, and that it address shyly and obliquely or at the best symbolically with the subject of physical functions. In his lifetime, Manto was frequently transformed by his critics' majority of them writers, with obscenity and was even sued for what appeared as disgraceful debauchery depicted in his work.

Nevertheless, what his critics understood as a firm emphasis on the vulgar, Manto simply understood to be a firm emphasis on the body as a site for violence and pleasure, deceit and trust, a house for desires of mind and spirit and its own yearnings. (Manto). His memories help us understood the world he was living in and the bad and the ugly face which he experienced at that time. The world of prostitutes, urchins, pimps, corrupts and squanderers that he wrote about in the narrative after narrative was a universe that indeed existed in reality as much as the center of Bombay as the world of polite society.

Thirdly, Manto stands clear for the specific progressive course of civilization and then just as informatively, for a disastrous denunciation of that very ideal. Despite the fact that partition found Manto living in his beloved city of Bombay where he had earned a living and established a name as a reputable screenwriter in films and journal's editor, he felt insecure in the putrefying time after partitioning and decided to move with his family to the new state of Pakistan (Gale). In Pakistan he struggled to earn a living, we were sued and charged for obscenity, he resulted in drinking hence becoming a wreck and ultimately passed way soon after. All these events clearly demonstrate how flashback and memories help the reader in understanding the critical background and life of Manto.

What makes Manto so readable and so emblematic of the defectiveness of his time, is this partitioning that he experienced a few years after the real historical happenings by the similar name. Manto discovers that the confidence and censoriousness of a new nation-state was thin gruel in comparison to the art's invitation to qualm, freedom, sensual pleasure, linguistic and dissent. He learns, that is, what understood, and submits to it.

Conclusion

Flashbacks and memories have played a key role as narrative devices in revealing to the reader some critical background information regarding Manto. The partitioning of India into the two states and how these events left an everlasting mark in the minds of Pakistanis and Indians who had to relocate to the new state that suited their religious affiliation. Manto was indeed one of the most affected by this kind of events. Readers of Manto's stories who know the present Bombay as Mumbai might find the spirit of the city somewhat penurious in comparison to the midcentury Bombay that Manto defines. Nevertheless, that world would live forever in the stories of Manto.

Works Cited

Gale, Cengage Learning. A Study Guide for Sadat Hasan Manto's "Dog of Tithwal". Boston: Farmington Hills: Gale, Cengage Learning, 2016.

Jalal, Ayesha. The Pity of Partition Manto's Life, Times, and Work across the India-Pakistan Divide. London: Princeton Princeton University Press, 2013.

Manto, Saadat Hasan and Khalid Hasan. Manto's world : a representative collection of Saadat Hasan Manto's fiction and non-fiction. California: Lahore : Sang-e-Meel Publications,, 2000. 2.

Manto, Saadat Hasan, Matt Reeck and Aftab Ahmad. Bombay stories. New York : Vintage Books, 2014.