Ice Candyman Presentation

ICE-CANDY MAN
BY BAPSI SIDHWA
Arshi
Shahid
BIOGRAPHY OF THE WRITER
Pakistani Writer
Born in Karachi---later on moved to
Lahore.
Victim of Polio when was of two years of
age & was nine at the time of partition.
B.A from Kinnaird College in 1957
Married at the age of 19, divorced and
again married with three children
Currently she resides in USA.
The Author: Bapsi Sidhwa
She Belongs to the Parsi community.
A polio victim at the age of 2, that is why

she was educated at home till the age of
15 by an Anglo-Indian lady.
Lahore.
The Author: publications

Some of the notable novels of Sidhwa are:
The Crow Eaters(1978)
The Pakistani Bride (1983)
The Ice Candy Man(1988)
An American Brat (1993)on personal and social

plane
Acknowledgements
Numerous awards have been conferred upon her, these
include:
The Patras Bokhari award in 1985
The Sitara-e-Imtiaz in 1991
The German Literaturepreis award for Cracking India
A Bunting Fellowship from Harvard
Her most famous novel Ice Candy Man has been turned
into a film called Earth 1947
THE
TITLE
Original cover
Published
in 1988
3rd novel
of Bapsi
Sidhwa
Named after a
character who is a
Muslim street vendor.
Retained
editions
for only Indian
Title changed in 1991
Publishers feared that an American
audience might mistake the

unfamiliar name for a drug pusher.
So the title was changed by
Sidhwas American publishers
Milkweed Editions,1991
The new title rendered dominant
theme and collective political reality

of the Indian sub-continent.
This is the first novel in which she

describes about the fate of people in
Lahore and entrancing partition of India
through the eyes of a precocious 8 years
handicapped Parsi girl.
CHARACTERS
Major characters:
1.
2.
3.
4.
Lenny, the narrator

Shanta, her Hindu Ayah
Dilnawaz, the Ice Candy Man, A Muslim
Godmother, the grandmother of Lenny
Minor characters:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Imamdin, the cook

Hassan Ali, his cousin brother
Lennys mother
Papoo, the daughter of Mucho, the sweepers
Ranna, the friend of Lenny
Sikh majority
The Sikhs milling in a huge blob in

front wildly wave and clash their
swords, kirpans and hockey- sticks
and punctuate their shrieks with
roars: Pakistan murdabad death to
Pakistan! -- And the Muslims
shouting: " So? We'll play Holi-withtheir-blood - ". (p.134)
The whole world is burning. The air on my face

is so hot. I think my flesh and clothes will catch
fire. I start screaming: hysterically sobbing -how long does Lahore burn? Weeks? Months?
(p139)
The news of bloodshed spreads like wild fire.

The All India Radio also reports about cases
of violence from different parts of India. Soon
the entire Punjab province is seen burning in
the fire of hatred and communal violence.
Human psychology
He shouts, Every one is dead. Butchered.

They are all Muslims. There are no young
women among the dead. Only two gunny
bags full of womens breasts (p159). This
act of violence against Muslim women spurs
him to inflict violence on Hindu and Sikh
women. He exclaims, I want to kill
someone for each of the breasts they cut off
the Muslim women (p166). He satiates his
appetite for revenge by kidnapping Ayah and
forcing her to prostitute her body.
Pastiche
Related to postmodern intertextuality,

pastiche means to combine, or
"paste" together, multiple elements.
In Postmodernist literature, many
postmodern authors combined, or
pasted elements of previous genres
and styles of literature to create a
new narrative voice
Pastiche
The novel starts from "complaint of God" by iqbal.

There are many optehr references.
Flying forward, I fling my self at . (3)
I flirt briefly with hope (9)
His fingers work deftly, pummeling, soothing that are
knowing fingers, very clever, and sometimes (18)
The secret rhythm of creation and mortality The
essence of truth and beauty.
I recall the choking hell of milky vapours and discover
that heavens has a dark fragrance, (19)
Character who turns into sometimes a poet and uses
poetic language.
Historiographic metafiction
This term was created by Linda Hutcheon
to refer to novels that fictionalize actual
historical events and characters.
faction
Postcolonial streaks
Postcolonial streaks
"If any one's to blame, blame the British.
There was no polio in India till they brought it here" (16).

Once aroused, the English are savages. (56)
"no other novel catches as this one does India's centuries-old ways of
living with religious difference before Partition.observer
She as Pakistani belongs to a nation that once had been
Different Narratives
Child's narrative. The
Purpose was to provide a
scope for objectivity, un-biasness and to avoid an air of

propaganda. Bapsi wanted to show the narration free of
ethnic and religious bias. So she adopts a childs truthinfected tongue which also creates space for idyllic romances.
Parsee community ("But we are smallest minority

in India. Only 120,000 in whole world. 200 Parsees
in Lahore" (16).
Women's narrative
significant testament of a gynocentric view of

reality.
feminine psyche and experiences are presented
with a unique freshness.
Sidhwa turns the female protagonists into the
moral center, male characters either remain
passive or indulge in violence.
The female characters in Ice candy Man pulsate
with a will and life of their own.
Feminism
Revenge is taken by violating the rights of women.

(element of Universality)
The Ayah is a flame of sensuousness and female
vitality.
The relationship of Lenny with the cousin upholds the
principle of equality.
Godmother towers as a vibrant figure. She is a
source of strength and comfort for the needy e.g.
after Lennys operation, & her role in saving Ayah
Lennys mother starts the healing process by
shrugging off her passivity.
The fallen women are the victims and Lennys female
relatives are saviors.
We see women as sacrificing their lives for the honor
of their families.
Major & Minor Themes

Major Themes:
Theme of Partition
Theme of dislocation and disintegration
Dilemma of the Parsi community
Theme of Feminismwomen as victims & as
saviors
The eternal conflict of moral good & evil in the
human psyche
Theme of Communal discord
Minor themes:
Manipulation
Intolerance
Impassivity
Chaos and confusion
Theme of Partition
The novel examines the inexorable logic of Partition as an off
shoot of fundamentalism sparked by hardening communal
attitudes. It looks at Partition as a means of spreading
disharmony which resulted in frenzy and chaos.
Sidhwa shows human loss in Partition:
wave upon wave of Muslim refugees flood Lahore and the
Punjab west of Lahore. Within 3 months 7 million Muslims &
5 million Hindus & Sikhs are uprooted in the most terrible
exchange of population known to history. Punjab has been
divided.
Her dreams signify the fragmentation of

India when she says
I recall another childhood nightmare
Children lie in a warehouse
Godmother sits by my bed smiling
indulgently as men in uniforms quietly
slice off a childs arm here, a leg there.
Dislocation:
Dislocation and disruption are very important themes of ICM.
We see people weighing the options of staying or migrating. The
question of migration loomed large in almost everyones head.
We see the people of Pir Pindo negating the idea of going by
saying:
Where can the Muslim villagers go?... How can they

abandon their ancestors graves, every inch of land
they own, their other kin? How will they ever hold up
their heads again? Where will they go? No, he says,
they cannot throw the Mussulmans out .
Feminism
The novel has a feminine perspective. The female protagonists are the
moral centers, while most of the male characters either remain
apathetic or indulge in destructive violence.
Women the world over, through the ages, asked to be
murdered, raped, exploited, enslaved, to get importunately
impregnated, beaten up, bullied and disinherited. It was an
immutable Law of nature. (Page, 226).
Communal Discord
Thenovelaptlytracesthepatternofcommunal discord that occurred
at the time of Partition from somewhat complete harmony to total
frenzy and chaos.
Lennys nightmares, especially at thecrack ofdawn set a gory
andgruesome pattern ofcommunal discord at the time of partition.
Religious intolerance:
one
mans religion is another

manspoison
this is exactly what happens in the text.
As the Partition progresses, we see religious frenzy and hatred.
Even the people who throng the Queens Park sit with people of
their own faith and show intolerance towards other religions.
There is zero tolerance as religion is used as a tool to carve out the
divisions.
community
ICM is seen through the prism of Parsi sensitivity. The beginning
shows the non-committal attitude of the Parsis towards the event of
Partition.
The novel shows the dilemma & choice of the community. Their
leader in Lahore says
whom do we cast our lot with?
It is decided that in keeping with the tradition the parsees of Lahore

would follow who ever so became the ruler of Lahore. Thus the
famous Parsi saying
hunt with the hounds and run with the

hare
Impassivity
Initially we see the impassivity of theParsees, but it was
shrugged off by many of them. This isalso highlighted when
she doesnt feel any pain when she was being dismembered
in herdream.
The impassive and nonchalant attitude of the politicians is
highlighted in the text. The power hungry politicians dont
care for the common man.
its strange the English Sarkar cantseem to be

doing anything I dont think it is because they
cant,Ithink it is because the Sarkar doesnt
wantto.
Disintegration:
In the novel the disintegration of Ayahs circle
symbolizes the disintegration and degeneration of
society and the disintegration of society signifies
the deterioration of the characters/ people
themselves.
Constancy of Desire
Thethemeoflustanddesireispresent through out the novel in
the persona ofDilnawaz or Ice Candy Man.
Neutrality
The author adopts a neutral and objective tone that helps
inhighlighting the theme of neutrality.
conclusion
Sidwa Despite the final message through the
novel is clear and unambiguous. It rejects
the two nation theory and suggests that
religious, social and cultural differences are
artificially created and exploited by
unscrupulous people. She also suggests that
power should be used for the good of the
people and to suppress the evil.
Conclusion
The novel written in the present tense, deals with

these events from a domestic standpoint, creating a
realistic picture with a strong element of
universality.
The harrowing event of the Partition brought

dislocation, disintegration, chaos with itself.
Central to the novel are the themes of migration,

manipulation, feminism, and submitting your soul to
external events.

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ICE-CANDY MAN

BIOGRAPHY OF THE WRITER

The Author: Bapsi Sidhwa

She Belongs to the Parsi community.

A polio victim at the age of 2, that is why

The Author: publications

The Crow Eaters(1978)

The Pakistani Bride (1983)

The Ice Candy Man(1988)

An American Brat (1993)on personal and social

The Patras Bokhari award in 1985

The Sitara-e-Imtiaz in 1991

The German Literaturepreis award for Cracking India

A Bunting Fellowship from Harvard

for only Indian

Title changed in 1991

Publishers feared that an American

audience might mistake the

So the title was changed by

Sidhwas American publishers

The new title rendered dominant

theme and collective political reality

This is the first novel in which she

Lenny, the narrator

Imamdin, the cook

The Sikhs milling in a huge blob in

The whole world is burning. The air on my face

The news of bloodshed spreads like wild fire.

He shouts, Every one is dead. Butchered.

Related to postmodern intertextuality,

The novel starts from "complaint of God" by iqbal.

There was no polio in India till they brought it here" (16).

living with religious difference before Partition.observer

She as Pakistani belongs to a nation that once had been

Child's narrative. The

Purpose was to provide a

scope for objectivity, un-biasness and to avoid an air of

Parsee community ("But we are smallest minority

significant testament of a gynocentric view of

Revenge is taken by violating the rights of women.

Major & Minor Themes

Her dreams signify the fragmentation of

Where can the Muslim villagers go?... How can they

mans religion is another

whom do we cast our lot with?

It is decided that in keeping with the tradition the parsees of Lahore

hunt with the hounds and run with the

its strange the English Sarkar cantseem to be

The novel written in the present tense, deals with

The harrowing event of the Partition brought

Central to the novel are the themes of migration,

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