Stylisation in rethinking history through chronotope and polyphony in selected postmodern Indian thriller novels in english
Fiction writers have always been fascinated with history, especially historical fiction writers or writers who are inspired by history. It is, however, quite rare to have a novel that merges imagination and history to make it seem real. The selected novels are able to do just that. They have merg...
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| Format: | Thesis |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
2021
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/99637/1/SANTINI%20AP%20PATHINATHAN%20-IR.pdf |
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| Summary: | Fiction writers have always been fascinated with history, especially historical
fiction writers or writers who are inspired by history. It is, however, quite rare to
have a novel that merges imagination and history to make it seem real. The
selected novels are able to do just that. They have merged ancient history and
imagination to re-present history. This research studies Ashwin Sanghi’s novels
Chanakya’s Chant (2010) and The Krishna Key (2012) and Christopher Doyle’s
The Mahabharata Secret (2013) and The Mahabharata Quest: The Alexander
Secret (2014). These novels have been chosen because there is a surge in the
thriller genre known as Bharathi Fantasy in India today. However, there has been
a lack of research on the thriller genre, especially in terms of writing style, and
as such, the current study hopes to explore the area of stylisation in rethinking
history through thrillers that concurrently portray the glorious past and the current
situation in the country in the form of novels. This study aims to explore the
portrayal of chronotopes in the selected novels and investigate the multiple
voices within the novels to show how history is rethought using the concepts of
the chronotope and polyphony to develop the plots. This has ultimately led the
researcher to finally show how the writers use Bakhtin’s five features of
stylisation to stimulate the rethinking of history. This study employs Bakhtin’s
chronotope and polyphony concepts to analyse plot development and to
investigate the stylisation in the authors’ writing to show how history is rethought.
The findings show that the chronotope of crisis/threshold is the most prevalent
in moving the plots in these thriller novels besides the chronotope of castle,
which emphasises historical elements. Next, this study also shows that each
character moves the plot from his or her perspective. Besides that, polyphony
can also be used to show how history is rethought because throughout the novels, the findings show history being discussed by different characters and
also by the authors themselves. Though the authors’ voices maybe indirect, their
intentions seem very clear through their writing styles, which conform to all five
features of Bakhtin’s stylisation. Through the five features of stylisation, we can
read the writers’ voices as they narrate events. Besides that, the second feature
shows the voices of the characters. The third feature involves the various forms
of semi-literary (written) everyday narration that is used in the selected novels,
and the fourth feature relates to the extra-artistic authorial speech which the
selected novels include as philosophical records, archaeologic records and so
on. And finally, the fifth feature shows the characters’ thoughts. All these features
bring the characters to life and make the plots vivid, thus stimulating the reader
to rethink history. |
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