International Journal of English Literature and Culture
 

International Journal of English Literature and Culture

Vol. 3(3), pp. 68-70,  March, 2015

 ISSN: 2360-7831

DOI: 10.14662/IJELC2015.011

Review Paper

Postcolonial Kitsch and writing History: Critical Inquisitions in Salman Rushdie’s The Moor's Last Sigh and The Ground beneath Her Feet

Sunil Kumar, PhD Scholar

Department of Indian and World Literatures, The English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad–500 007, India

Accepted 3 February 2015

The paper explores postmodern playfulness and blurring of boundaries vis-a-vis postcolonial re-writing history in Salman Rushdie’s The Moor's Last Sigh and The Ground beneath Her Feet. It shows the impossibility of locating the cultural network and social picture of “Mother India” for a stable nation and unified identity in colonial and postcolonial histories. It explores the residual effect of colonial domination and the transnational setting in the wide frame of Western and postcolonial culture, through abundant references to Greek mythology, European philosophy, contemporary texts, and at the same time mixes them with four decades’ history of the growth of rock music and the stars of rock ’n’ roll producing the effect of “kitsch”. The paper also emphasizes the juxtaposition of personal and national narratives in the novels to expose the traumas underlying postcolonial Indian identities, the lasting influence of British culture, and the inaccessibility of a purely "Indian" past. Finally, it focuses on the significance of the postmodern devices like unreliable narrator, metafiction, pastiche, etc. in construction of the national history of India which is repressed in colonial violence.

Key Words: kitsch, writing history, postcolonialism, colonial violence, metafiction

Cite This Article As: Kumar S (2015). Postcolonial Kitsch and writing History: Critical Inquisitions in Salman Rushdie’s The Moor's Last Sigh and The Ground beneath Her Feet. Inter.  J. Eng. Lit. Cult. 3(3): 68-70

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